In any home with electricity, you are at risk of a power surge. A power surge can damage your electric system immediately, or cause small damage over time. Luckily you can protect your home with whole-home surge protection.
What is a Power Surge?
Before you decide on what surge protection to invest in, you should understand what a power surge is. A power surge is a high-level power spike that is jolted through your home. They can be caused by lightning strikes, area electrical outages such as down power lines, cycling of your devices, or just malfunctions of components in your home.
For high power surges, it could cause immediate damage such as to your electrical panel or crashing hard drives. For minor and more common surges it could cause slight flickers of the power but could affect the integrity of your electrical devices over time.
Types of Surge Protection
When it comes to either a major or minor power surge it is important to have your home protected to avoid damages. There are individual and whole-home protections, but they both work in the same way to absorb and divert the extra energy brought on by the power surge. It will return to normal power output once the surge is over.
Individual Protectors
A quick fix if you don’t want to invest in a whole-home surge protector yet is getting an individual protector. This commonly looks like a power strip with multiple outlets and will help protect everything plugged into it.
There are many different types of individual protectors from multiple outlets to just one so you can decide what fits your appliance needs best.
Whole-Home Protectors
A way to give yourself more peace of mind is to install a whole-home surge protector. This professionally installed system will provide more protection than the individual ones and ensure your home blanketed protection.
This protector requires installation from an electrician, it’s basically an electric panel that will include thermal fuses and indicators for power surges. The system requires an upfront investment, but in the long run, it will prevent you from having to spend money on repairs down the line.
At Arnold Electric Services, our trained technicians will help you with pro tips and whole-home surge protection. To get your home fully protected from power surges, contact Arnold Electric to schedule your appointment, and see what other electrical services we can help with for your home.
