Seems to me there is such a thing as a whole house surge protector. Maybe something to look into as spring and summer are looming. I dunno.
It reminded me though, maybe 30 years ago so my memory is a little foggy, my telephone communications guy was telling me about a grounding issue. I think we had set up an isolated ground system for some of the more important equipment. According to him there was a lightening strike that followed the ground (soil) and into the grounding device and bango. Doing your best to try and protect equipment but then mother nature pitches a fast ball with a curve.
Says you need a 50 amp dual pole breaker which to me is a 220 breaker which would make sense now. So with a 220 it could interrupt power on each leg of the panel. Maybe it can attach to the main breaker instead, but thatās something I donāt touch since it is live all the time.
Just goes to show, Amazon is not always the cheapest. Menards has it for $75 with the 11% off. But they also have the square D which is my brand of panel.
The nice thing about Menards is they have PDFs if installation instructions, so yeah need to tie it into a 220 breaker. 30 amp is fine. Got to read a little more if you can use an existing breaker or have to have a separate one. My dryer breaker is right at the top so Iād like to use that. I do have a spare 30 amp and space I could fit it in though at the bottom. Or suppose I could relocate the dryer if the wire inside is long enough. Canāt tell without taking the cover off. At any rate more than anyone wants to know but guess one is in my future. Gives me an excuse to drive to Menards anyway.
Either way from the you tubes and lit, everything on the panel is protected still. Just better to have at the top for faster response sending the spike to ground.
They also recommend computers etc. having additional surge protection. Not a sparky so canāt explain it. I would think in my case though, having a UPS on the computers plus running my cable/phone/router/wifi on a UPS should suffice.
Did say though a big spike like direct lightening hit and the little guys give up their life for nothing and all your stuff is ruined anyway.
Havenāt seen it in this house but in our old one, Iāll swear there was a ball of lightning or static charge or something that went from one side of the house to the other. About the size of a bowling ball and only lasted a few seconds. We thought we were seeing things and maybe we were.
Edit: You have to kinda interpret sparky talk but yeah you can use an existing 220 breaker or even two adjacent 120 breakers. It just means that if that breaker trips (such as for my dryer), surge protection will be lost until you reset the breaker. Duh. So guess I schedule a trip to Menards.
A surge protector does not interrupt power, it limits peak voltage. The closer to the hot lines coming into your house, or on the hot lines before getting to your house, the better. Your utility can attach a lightening protector to the transformer on the pole outside your house.
These whole house protectors are often one shot protectors. Once they arc over, they are done and must be replaced. A gap protector which can be attached to some meters will restore itself as they use air as the dielectric.
But none of these whole house protectors will protect from a ground surge which is caused when lightning hits the ground very close to your house. It puts a very high voltage on the ground wires in your house and into your equipment. Some strip (or circuit) surge protectors have some protection on the ground lines, or claim they do anyway. The one that was supposed to protect my internet modem was supposed to have ground protection.
About 30 years ago, we had a similar ground strike right outside the house that took out a lot of my electronics, including a brand new answering machine. Since I had just bought the answering machine, I took it back and claimed it as an out of box failure. Had to buy a new stereo amp and other stuff though. They were not new.
Edit: just to clear something up. When there is a surge on the power line that exceeds the surge protectors voltage rating (typically 600 volts), the poles in the surge protector will ionize the dielectric between them and start conducting. At that time, when the arcing occurs, the voltage needed to maintain the arc drops considerably lower than the voltage that initiates it, but that voltage needs to be above normal line voltage. When the surge voltage passes, the surge protector deionizes and line voltage returns to normal. Many surge protectors sacrifice themselves during a surge and must be replaced.
Another Edit: when I went back to the home page, I got the yellow banner, I believe that is the first time Iāve seen it on the home page, but I coud be wrong.
Thanks. I wasnāt seeing ads at all for part of the day and they came back last night. Please keep us posted, because there seems to be some difficulty pinning down the problem.
