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?

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