Quote:
Originally Posted by robertmee
I would suggest in purchasing a whole house surge protector for installation at your main breaker panel. You can use point of use surge protectors, but only for convenience of using multiple outlets as they aren't much good at protecting against actual surges.
Good Luck
Robert |
A whole house TVSS (Transient Voltage Surge Surpression) comes in handy for lightning strikes by acting as a "first defence" against a surge, however I wouldn't use it as a replacement for point-of-usage devices for two reasons.
1. They clamping rating is often a good many orders of magnitude higher than that required to fire your equipment. If it trips you'll likely having a smoking device here and there as well.
2. They often do not protect against localized power surges. If the vacumn cleaner explodes and pumps and extra 200 volts into the line for a milisecond, it's going to find the easiest path to earth, often along the neutral line...which means it's going to be "testing" every device long the way on that circuit until it reaches the service panel and can be transferred from the neutral bus bar to the ground.
If I recally correctly, that is...
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This doesn't mean you shouldn't invest in one. For the $200 USD (approximately) it's a very good purchase because of the extra line of defence it gives you. Also, if you end up using any devices that communicate on an X-10 signal over the power lines, you can rest assured those inline devices would also be protected. Something a point of use suppressor cannot do for you.