Whole House Surge Protection
If there’s one thing Houston homeowners understand, it’s power surges. None of us are immune to having experienced power spikes that damaged an appliance in our homes. The fact is that every home has them. Knowing it can happen in an instant helps to see that there are likely benefits from whole house surge protection. Let’s see why protecting your home’s electronics and appliances is a good idea.
Power Surges Are Inevitable
Here in Texas, thunderstorms and lightning are a way of life. In fact, in 2019, there were almost 77,000 homeowner’s insurance claims for lighting in the U.S.
Lightning can strike a tree outside your home or just about anywhere and travel through the electrical service lines of your home. Bolts of lightning can go through your telephone lines, television, refrigerators, electronic devices, and central air conditioning and shorten their lifespan.
But storms aren’t always to blame for power surges. It can come from the electrical power grid or even from within your own home. You’ve probably noticed this yourself when you turn on a hairdryer.
The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) says that up to 80% of power surges within the home are caused by appliances being turned on or off.
When surges happen, there’s a brief and sudden demand for more power. What’s worse, these surges can occur ten or so times a day.
Over time, these small repetitive power surges damage your valuable electronics and appliances, whether it’s your tablets and computers or your refrigerator or central air conditioning unit. Eventually, what starts as smaller damage can result in permanent damage, causing your appliances and electronics to break altogether or run less than optimally.
While powerful surges that occur with lightning can do more sudden damage, smaller power surges eventually break down the internal circuits of a device. Even though you may not notice until it’s too late and a device fails, the fact remains that your home’s devices are slowly being damaged without surge protection.
Whole House Surge Protection is The Best Line of Defense
Many Houston homeowners have falsely lured themselves into thinking that a power strip will protect their devices. While power strips sometimes look like a surge protector, they aren’t. All a power strip does is give you extra power outlets so that you plug in more devices. So really, in essence, when a power surge occurs, it’s damaging more of your devices at once.
Nearly all of us have experienced two or three electronics or appliances breaking within a short timeframe. Many would believe it’s coincidental or just bad luck. But, the truth is that a lack of surge protection has been slowly damaging those devices. So, it would seem it’s no coincidence at all. Each device was slowly getting damage from each surge that occurred.
Thankfully, with whole house surge protection, there are ways to minimize the effects of power surges on your home’s electrical system.
How Does Surge Protection Work?
It’ll probably sound like a whole lot of gibberish. An electrician connects a surge protection device to your home’s electric service box or another more convenient place. Today’s surge protection devices use metal oxide varistors (MOVs) to reroute harmful electrical currents to the ground.
While some point-of-use surge strips also use MOVs, they can be more easily destroyed after large power surges. That’s why whole house surge protectors are crucial to avoiding large power surges, like direct lightning strikes.
Once in place, a surge protector will detect any excess voltage and divert it to the ground before it reaches your electronics and devices.
The Takeaway
Most modern homes today have whole house surge protection as a necessary safety feature. It’s cost-effective and typically costs less than the price to pay for one damaged appliance.
Considering that homeowners today use more electrical equipment than ever before, it makes sense to have whole house surge protection because it pays for itself. It offers complete protection for your home’s electric system.
The licensed and experienced electricians at Illuminations Lighting Design would love to assist you in keeping your home safe from electrical spikes and malfunctions. Contact our electrical experts to inquire about a whole house surge protection system for your Houston home. We also travel to other areas in the vicinity of Harris County.
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