Surge protection is important to preserving the integrity of your electronics. It prevents damage to expensive electronic devices from sudden electrical surges, which can happen anytime.
Surge protection is a relatively inexpensive and simple solution to protect your electronics from the occasional power spike. Having a good surge protector can limit downtime, keep your equipment from melting or corroding, and extend the life of your expensive electronics. Some even have a USB port for charging phones and other mobile devices. If you have more than one outlet, you can connect multiple wall plugs to your surge protector.
Surge protection is an essential part of a coordinated approach to electrical safety in your facility. While lightning is not the most common cause of electrical surges, it’s important to have protection in place for it. When lightning strikes, the resulting surges can be dangerous, especially for machines. The power spikes can also lead to fires.
Although most people believe that lightning is the primary cause of electrical surges, in reality, the main culprits are devices that require a lot of power. Lightning can ride on an ungrounded cable line, or it can travel through a building’s wires to the breaker box. A lightning surge can deliver up to 90 joules of energy.
As a result, a whole house surge protector can take on a distant thunderstorm surge. However, you don’t want to rely on this method of protection for your home electronics. Electrical surges can occur at any time, and your device may not even have been damaged by the surge. For example, a light bulb could be burned by a power surge, but you wouldn’t know it until you changed the bulb.
Other factors that affect surge protection are utility deregulation and switching. With the Smart Grid, more and more people will have the option of switching their home electric providers. These changes are expected to make surge suppression less of a necessity, but you still need to be aware of the possible dangers of your electrical system. So, always go with the best quality surge protector.
