Quote:
Originally Posted by Malsua
It is important to understand that the rating on the SPD is important and that a blended approach to surge protection is useful.
First off, having something is very important, specially here in the Lightning capital of the world. Congratulations, you're there.
Second, having point of use surge protection is also useful even with a whole house SPD, hence surge strips for computers and other sensitive devices.
Finally The quality of the surge is important. The amount of joules it can handle and how fast it handles them do matter.
The meter based SPD tend to be fairly permissive, where as a high quality stage 2 in the panel might stop it.
I would research the devices you've got installed and see if they are good quality or "builder grade"(i.e. cheapo).
For the record, I own two homes here in TV, one has the Eaton CHSPT2ULTRA, on SECO, the other has the Duke provided meter based surge.
6 weeks or so ago, the home with the meter based SPD had a surge. It blew out 3 light kits in 3 brand new ceiling fans, the newish(3 YO) Hunter irrigation controller, my router and my cable modem. It also killed two power line ethernet devices(sends network over your electrical outlets) and one surveillance camera.
Both the router and cable modem were plugged into a UPS. Yeah, you know, that thing that's supposed to be the final protection? It didn't stop any of it. All in, it cost me around 2k to fix everything.
I guess my point is, you can't have enough.
There was a realtor in my 2nd home at the time(we're selling that one), she said the lights got brighter and then went out. It seems like a slow burn didn't trigger any of the protection.  |
All good info, I feel your pain. These are SURGE suppressors, not LIGHTENING STRIKE suppressors. I am not aware of any Stage 1 or 2 suppressor that will be effective against a lightening strike. I don’t think a Stage 1 & Stage 2 & point of use Stage 3 all combined will stop a lightening strike.
The whole point of my post, there is no need to double up on SURGE suppression devices. The NEW CONSTRUCTION here in TV apparently comes with a Stage 2 device, installed in the outside house meter box. My background is heave in high energy electrical systems, and the certified electrician that came to my new house did not recommend having the Seco ring installed with the stock surge protection already installed, by code, in the meter box. If anyone want to install a ring, by all means go for it.
Surge protection is designed to protect what naturally can come across the power grid. Lightening is not in that description.