Surge protector on Electric Meter
 

A while back there were discussions about the surge protector you can buy or rent from your electric utility company that get's installed on your electric meter. It's marketed as a "meter-based surge arrester is designed to prevent unnecessary financial loss, as it protects large appliances (motors and compressors) by reducing surges at the meter BEFORE they enter the home." as per one utilities web site. But when you read the warranty it specifically states it doesn't cover any devices that have an electronic chip which is pretty much everything these days. When you look at the device's internal components, it's designed to block very large surges coming from your power line feed to your home, although it appears to be necessary protection since you never know when you may get hit with a large power surge from the power utility.

The following poll is focused on the effectiveness of Type-1 meter surge arrester and Type-2 whole house surge protector installed at the circuit breaker panel.

The poll assumes everyone has some sort of Type-3 "Point-of-Use" surge protectors such as a power strips, surge cubes, UPS, or any other exotic Type-3 protector at their TVs and computers and other sensitive electronic equipment.

The poll also is not about the number of Villagers who don't have any surge protection or don't believe in surge protection since that's another topic of discussion.

The focus of this post is not to discuss the merits of having or not having surge protection here in the Villages but to get some information on actual experiences Villagers have had with surge protection over the past couple of years living here in the Villages with power surges.

So all that said, for those living in the Villages, did you have damage from a power surge with the following?

1) Only had the electric meter surge arrester device and still had damage from any power surge.
2) Only had a whole house surge protector installed at the circuit breaker panel such as the Eaton Ultra or the PSP Vortex and still had damage from any power surge.
3) Had both the electric meter surge arrester AND the whole house surge protector installed at the circuit breaker panel and still had damage from any power surge.
4) Had both the electric meter surge arrester AND the whole house surge protector installed at the circuit breaker panel and Did Not have any damage from any power surge.
5) Had the electric meter surge arrester and Did Not have any damage from any power surge.
6) Had the whole house surge protector installed at the circuit breaker panel and Did Not have any damage from any power surge.

#4.

Your poll should include those who have no whole house surge protection, which I think is more than half of the houses. At least it is in my neighborhood.

Also, your assumption that everyone has point-of-use surge protection may not be correct, because a lot of people assume that all power strips are surge protectors, which is not correct.

I would also add that, just because an electronic device stops working doesn't mean that it was caused by a power surge. Very often, there is no way to determine if the damage was caused by a power surge.

You missed my case, utility supplied meter protection, and several end use (protected multiuse extension cords), and 2 UPS with built in protection (for the very expensive equipment).
2 close in lightning strikes, NO damage inside the house, some damage to outside cables.

Hasn't surge protection, lightning protection and HVAC systems been beat to absolute death?

Not really -- you'd be amazed at how many people keep asking about lightning rods, etc ... at presentations throughout the villages.

Not interested in those who have no whole house surge protection. The focus is on if you have any surge protection in addition to the "point of use" protectors such as power strips, etc, what was your experience.

Correction: You are #5. I added a case that I missed, sorry. I stated the focus is on the Type-1 and Type-2 meter and circuit breaker panel surge protectors to see what their effectiveness is based on user experience. I stated the poll assumes everyone has Point-of-Use surge protection such as power strips and in your case UPS protectors. These are all Type-3 protection.

I'll update the post to make it clearer.

Actually, he and I are NOT #1 as currently written. Note that VT stated he did NOT have any damage while #1 asks about homes that HAVE had damage.

Correct. I'll add another case. Thanks for that catch.

This is what most don't realize. There are an incredible number of people here in the Villages that still are not aware of lighting and surge protection. The Villages Lightning Study group has given over 200 presentations since it started many years ago and this year we keep getting requests for presentations eventhough we have done a lot this year already.

But his thread is focused on the effectiveness of Type-1 and Type-2 surge protection. There has been a lot of discusion on if you really need both. Where I used to live in NY there was no Type-1 meter surge protector available so we all just had the Eaton Ultra and that protected our homes but we were not in a lightning prone area like we are here in Central Florida. Without more data, it's not possible to say you only need one or the other or both. All I know is now when I give my presentation I ask the audience who has the Type-1 meter surge arrester only and has had damage and I always get people raising their hands. Not so much if they had the Type-2 protector as well. I always say to get both to get the best protection since the more layers of protection the better.

We are simply trying to educate for those that are concerned with their lightning risk. We have no revenue stream.

Amazon has lots to sell -- even surge protectors of all sorts -- but I like supporting local businesses first.

Not sure if repetition is lack of memory posting same previous posts.

Or repetition because someone thinks posters have memory loss.

I keep hope something New will be posted about a newer product, but nada.


The poll doesn’t have a box for me to check 7 houses (2004-Now) only seco, In 21 years.

NO Loss of any inside appliances, TV, wifi. Yes 3 power surge…(according to neighbors) .No damage.

Pretty good record for 7 houses in 7 very different areas of TV in 21 years.

Kind of makes you wonder why spend the money.

I was thinking about getting some of these for my appliances? Anybody know it they are any good?

Amazon.com

When it comes to lightning protection, there isn't anything new except for CMCE devices which there are no studies except for lab results, that they actually work in all storms for residential installations. You can google the topic for all the information on that technology and it's very high cost. There is one installation that we know of here in Osceola Hills.

Surge protection on the other hand has some new developments because most homes have a lot more sensitive electronic devices than ever before. We spoke about the Eaton Ultra which is a surge protector with MOV technology used by many all over the country for many years but the PSP Vortex series-R uses a hybrid system consisting of temperature protected MOVs with a gas discharge tube for greater capacity and longevity. Several Villager's including myself have the PSP Vortex Series-R installed so it will be interesting to see over time, how these two surge protector technologies actually work and if one technology is better than the other or are they equivalent in a multi-layered surge protection system.

But again the focus of this thread as stated in the first post is to see what experience Villagers have had with Type-1 meter and Type-2 whole house surge protectors in an effort to see how effective either or both were in actual real life events since the question comes up a lot about do we need both here in lightnig prone central Florida.

Yes, I know someone who has these and they work well because as you are aware, when we have a severe storm, although we don't loose power, we do sometimes get those quick losses of power for a second which are not good for refrigerators for example. These devices will not only provide point-of-use type-3 surge protection but also turn off the power for a minute or two on an over or undervoltage event giving very good protection. In fact, my new Carrier Variable Speed Inverter HVAC system has an commercial version of this protective device installed to protect my system.

Except for those who wonder why lightning caused so much damage to their home - not to mention all the flames coming out of their attic.

We came back from a vacation and our frig would not cool below 54 degrees.

No idea if it was damaged by electrical storm but did lead us to purchase a surge protector installed in our electrical panel.

With six lightning threads last month, who do you think will be reached with yet another started today? Either:
- Users have seen the threads and are well aware of the scary pictures
- Users are skipping the lightning threads and will skip this one too
- The questions at the talks are coming from the numerous Villagers who do not read these forums.
Who do you expect to reach with this and the likely six more threads in Sept?

One scary picture from 14 months ago and 11 house fires started by lightning in the last 12 months. That make roughly 84,900 homes NOT burned by lightning… when will you start posting pictures of each of those?

Only a small fraction of TV folks follow TOTV discussions -- which is why the Villages Lightning Study Group has soooo many requests for presentations. They sometimes give 2 talks on the same day. They are looking for volunteers to help. Would that be you?

If only a small fraction of The Villages follow TOTV discussions why continue carpet bombing the forums with the same information?

Apparently only a few are reading the first post because this thread is not another lightning and surge protection awareness thread, it’s a thread about finding Villager’s experiences good or bad with the type-1 meter and type-2 whole house circuit breaker panel protectors. It’s interesting that some are endlessly criticizing this discovery. If you had enough reading about lightning and surge protection, no one is compelling you to read this or any other thread on the subject. From some of the posts there are people reading TOTV that are interested in this subject matter.

Because the more often you reply here -- the more likely others will see the higher view rates -- and be more likely to read this. Thank you for your cooperation. Do you have any lightning pictures you'd like to contribute?

I purchased these Amazon.com for my refrigerator, garage door openers, and Irrigation timer. Most of the rest of my electronics are in high joule rated power strips. I looked for something to protect our Dryer electronics but everything I read said the Eaton Ultra was adequate.

Hasn't surge protection, and lightning protection been built into the newer "smart meters" ?
If not, why not!

Lightning protection is installed on a roof, not within the electric wiring.

Cost, complexity, customer concerns, and claims are reasons for building surge suppression into meters.

Cost: Everything is getting more expensive, including meters. The better the protection, the higher the cost. The electric company wants to be able to change your meter with the least amount of cost. An integrated surge protection system would make changing meters very expensive.

Complexity: The better the suppression the more complex the unit needs to be. "Dumb" electric meters were not very complex, smart meters are more complex, and adding good protection into the meter would make it even more complex. The more complex it is the more likely it is to have a failure which would require it to be replaced. The electric companies don't want to do something that would result in replacing more meters.

Customer concerns: Every time the electric company changes the meter there are customers who say the new meter is charging them more money. The more the meter does, the more doubt the customers have with it. Adding more electronics to the meter would give customers even more to worry about which would result in more calls, more complaints, and more work.

Claims: Nothing is perfect and even with surge suppression there is a chance that a device gets fried. The customer is going to go back to the protection provider to make a claim for the device that failed. The electric company does not want to be in the business of paying out claims.

I agree. It's kind of ironic that we need to pay extra to the power company for a surge protector to protect us from surges coming from that company right?

This is why I'm trying to get some data, which is the focus of this thread wether we really need the Type-1 meter surge protector or is the Eaton Ultra or PSP Vortex enough. As I mentioned, the Type-1 meter surge protector is not available everywhere so the Type-2 like the Eaton Ultra is all that protects the home in these cases.

I rent mine (the red lit unit behind the meter) from SECO (left part of photo), who installed it -- and the right side of photo shows the surge protector I paid an electrician to install which connects to the fuse box in the garage. Those who don't know about these, and why they are used, should attend a "Lightning" presentation by the Villages Lightning Study Group. Remember - Florida is the lightning capital of the US.

I didn't see that mentioned. Where are the Type-1 protectors not available?

Didn't we see in one of the other threads that the Type-1 devices are now required by Florida code? (I'll try to find it but there are a lot of duplicate threads to go through)

I was referring to theType-1 Meter mounted surge protectors such as the ones offered by Seco and Duke. Availability depends on your electric provider. In N.Y. ConEdison didn't offer this type of device. Two years ago the VLSG visited one of the companies that manufacturers these devices and they confirmed they are not available everywhere.

The code basically says "The 2020 National Electrical Code Requires All new and renovated homes are to be protected by Listed and Approved Type 1 or Type 2 Surge Protective Devices."

So, in order to comply, in the new Villages builds Dabney and south, they are installing a main disconnect panel on the outside wall of the home next to the meter. In there are circuit breaker slots where you will find this Eaton circuit breaker surge protector or equivalent. Amazon.com

The purpose is to provide minimal Type-1 protection for wired safety devices installed in the home to meet the new code. Each state implemented this requirement at different times. Although these surge protectors are better than nothing, if it were my home I would still install an Eaton Ultra or PSP Vortex Series-R for the extra capacity. Given all this and given the Type-1 meter mounted surge protector may not be effecitve in blocking and or managing surges in equipment with an electronic chip, do we really need it or will an Eaton Ultra or PSP Vortex Series-R be enough protection? This is what this thread is focusing on and why we need Villagers to answer the poll and if they can give us some detail on what happened.

BTW, the main difference between Type-1 and Type-2 is Type-1 is connected directly to the main power input, no circuit breaker and Type-2 is connected via a circuit breaker. The Eaton Ultra can only be installed as Type-2 and the PSP Vortex can be installed as Type-1 or Type-2.

New SECO Option
 

SECO started offering 40 AMP Generlink transfer switches about a month ago; which also doubles as surge protection. $1200 install including a generator cable. Its a good option if you already have a generator capable of running your entire house.

Any other Villagers with these surge protectors have any more to contribute or can answer the poll?