Is Whole Home Surge Protection Something You Should Have For Your New Orleans Home?
Everyday, all across the country, there are countless homeowners who lose their expensive electronic devices and appliances to power surges. From TVs, to video game systems, computers, phones, and a whole host of other electrical devices, nothing is safe. When a power surge hits your home, there is a very good chance that you are going to see more than just a flickering of lights, especially if your home isn't adequately protected against them. Power surges wind up costing homeowners thousands and thousands of dollars in electrical repairs and replacement costs each and every year, and with so much on the line, many homeowners find themselves asking whether or not whole home surge protection is something they should look at investing in for their New Orleans home. Is whole home surge protection a good investment? Our New Orleans Electricians here at MK Electric Man are glad you asked.
What Is A Power Surge?
To start with, a power surge is a short burst of electricity that can range anywhere from a hundred to hundreds of thousands of volts. The higher the voltage, the higher the potential for raw destructive power. Depending on the strength of the surge that hits your home, these can damage, or completely kill any and all of your valuable electrical devices that aren't adequately protected.
What Causes Power Surges?
There are a wide variety of different things that can result in a power surge, some of which can even originate inside your home. The most common causes of power surges include things like motors starting up, which tends to create small surges that will start to degrade the quality of your electronic devices over time. Utility companies also produce these surges from time to time as electricity is delivered to your home, which can actually be a great deal stronger than anything that originates inside your home. Downed power lines in the aftermath of a storm can also be a common cause of stronger surges, and then of course there are lightning strikes, which can be downright devastating to your home's electronics if they aren't protected properly.
Whole Home Surge Protection
Electricity is constantly seeking the path of least resistance to the ground, and having a whole home surge protector installed on your home's main electrical panel can help redirect a lot of that unwanted electricity right to where it wants to go in your home's ground conductor before it is able to get into the circuits of your home's panel. To ensure that your home has the right amount of protection, it is wise to make sure that each individual panel has a surge protector installed.
Will Whole Home Surge Protection Stop All Power Surges?
The short answer to this question is, no. Extremely strong power surges are sometimes able to destroy the surge device or some of the surge might make it past the protector. This makes it extremely important to layer your protection. Most electricians will recommend that you cascade your surge protection devices, giving your home multiple layers of defense where it needs it most. Surge strips make an excellent addition to this layered defense setup, as they can provide you with an effective backup in place to absorb any excess electricity that makes it past the protective layer on your electrical panel.
Are Plug-In Protection Strips Enough?
Once again, the answer is no. Plug-in surge protectors form an excellent second line of defense, but they just don't have the kind of capacity to provide adequate protection on their own. When you combine them with a true, whole home surge protection setup, however, they work to make an extremely effective network defense to keep your home well guarded against stray power surges.
