A power surge can cost you thousands at the drop of a dime, and can even be dangerous by causing electrical fires. This makes them not only a headache but also a hazard. Ensuring that your home and family are protected from electrical surges can ensure safety for your expensive electronic possessions and your family’s lives. These surges can stem from both inside and outside the home and can be triggered by anything from weather to high electricity demand devices. That’s why it’s essential to understand the different types of surges so you can install the necessary protection to prevent them from affecting your home.
The Different Type of Power Surges
Whenever a surplus of electricity is in the homes wiring a power surge occurs, and it can be as minuscule as a light bulb momentarily getting brighter to your brand new flat-screen TV blowing out. Most of these surges happen inside the home, and some of the biggest creators of this are electric heaters and window air conditioners. Your appliances and devices are actually damaged a little every time an internal surge occurs, which can shorten the lifespan of these electronics.
External power surges start outside your home either from a weather phenomenon like lightening or even from electrical grid distribution activity like power line damage. These surges can be extremely damaging to your home’s wiring as well as everything plugged into it at the time, including your air conditioning unit. The best way to ensure this expensive equipment doesn’t become fried is to be proactive in putting protections in place to prevent a power surge from occurring.
How You Can Protect Your Home From Power Surges
By having protections in place, you can help prevent costly repairs to electronics and have peace of mind that your home is safe for any electrical situation. There are many different types of precautions you can put into place to achieve this protection, but some of the most efficient would be outlet protection, whole-home surge protection and routine inspections of your home’s wiring to ensure everything is up to date and code. Having all of these protections would be advised as they defend against different levels of power surges.
Outlet protectors can protect individual electronic devices that are plugged directly into them, but only to a certain extent, as they would not protect from something severe like a direct lighting strike on your home. These protectors resemble power strips and units with at least 600 joules can give you better protection. Outlet protection can help prevent small internal power surges.
Whole-home surge protection is usually installed by an electrician, and it helps keep a hand on the flow of the electrical current running through your home. This level of surge protection would not only cover electronics and appliances but high voltage electronic devices as well, like your A/C unit. Whole-home surge protection helps prevent external power spikes affecting your home.
At Colvin Electric, we can help with not only inspecting your electrical systems but also the installation of whole home surge protection. Our high-quality protection is designed to redirect harmful power surges to the ground in less than a nanosecond. Contact us today for all your electrical needs and ensure your home and everything inside is protected to the greatest extent possible.