Modern 21st-century home life is quite different from the typical household of 50 years. We are all practically swimming in electronic devices.
Your kitchen alone will be filled with plenty of plugged-in electrical appliances, and then you have your desktop PCs and various entertainment devices.
Of course, you also need your all-important HVAC appliances as well, for both the summer and winter seasons.
The problem with having these appliances is that they’re all at risk if your home ever goes through a power surge. You could end up with blown up circuit boards and electronics, and you basically lose them all so you’ll have to buy new ones.
Power strips are nice, as they offer extra outlets and provide some sort of surge protection. However, these are good enough for minor surges.
But they’re not enough. There’s always a chance of a major power surge, such as when power lines go down or lightning strikes near your home.
Even a sudden change in electricity usage in a nearby factory can lead to a power surge in your home.
You need a whole house surge protector to make sure that your appliances are protected. These whole-house surge suppressors are hard-wired to the service panel.
Both types of surge protection work the same basic way. For most times, they just act normally, letting the electrical current flow through them.
But if the level of voltage is suddenly higher, these devices immediately redirect the excess voltage to the ground wire.
The premium surge protectors can do this virtually instantaneously, reacting to divert the excess voltage in less than a nanosecond. That’s 1-billionth of a second.
You can pick and choose the best one for your needs, but you have to make certain that you install it properly for optimal protection.
You can, of course, simply hire a professional to set up the whole house surge protector for you. That may be the best choice for most households.
Quick Navigation in this Resource
Whole House Surge Protector Installation
But if you insist on doing it yourself, you should follow the following steps:
1. Prepare Your Tools
These include the following:
- Cordless drill or driver
- Electrical tape
- Flashlight
- Flathead screwdriver and screws
- Hammer and nails
- Pliers
- Voltage detector
- Wire strippers
2. Flip the Main Switch
This turns the breakers off and cuts power to your home.
Don’t open the panel before doing this first. Use the voltage detector to confirm that the power flow has stopped. Once you’ve flipped the main switch, you can unscrew and remove the whole panel door.
In case there are energized wires even with the breaker switched off, take precaution and only work with the part where you need to connect your surge arrestor.
3. Mount the Surge Protector
You should read the surge protector’s manual on how to mount the device outside the panel.
Look closely once you’ve removed the front panel, and you should see one of the small knockout areas shaped like a circle. This is on the side of the panel that meets the wall. Knock out on one hole gently, making an opening for the surge protector wires.
Use this opening to feed the wires through, and guide them through until you’re ready to connect. Use the screws, drill, and screwdriver to secure the surge protector into the wall.
4. The Wires
Be sure you know what the various wires of the surge protector are all about, depending on the colors of the wires.
Now you can strip the insulation off the tail ends of the cables. Set the end of the wire into that part of the stripper that reads 14 AWG.
- Green wire—ground / Earth. Connect to the ground bus bar on the right
- White wire—neutral. Connect to the neutral bus bar on the right
- 2 black wires—complete the circuit. Connect both to a dipole circuit breaker. Mount close to the main power wires
5. Returning the Panel Cover
Replace the panel cover, before you flip back on the main breaker. Flip the dipole circuit breaker switch and check either the display or lights to confirm that it’s working.
FAQs
What’s the most dangerous type of power surge for your electronics?
These are the surges caused by lightning. If lightning strikes a utility pole near your home, then it could send up to 200,000 amps and tens of thousands of volts through the wire and past your main breaker panel. The power surge will burn through all your electronics. Say goodbye to your TVs, circuit boards, hard drives, and expensive kitchen appliances.
The good news is that the lightning has to strike pretty close to your home to cause this kind of damage. Past a mile from your place, the light strike probably won’t affect your electronics.
What else can cause a power surge?
While lightning-induced surges are dangerous, they’re not all that common. It’s more likely that your power surge will be caused by the sudden changes in a nearby factory’s use of electricity, or by downed power lines.
You can even end up with a minor power surge when you have too many high-energy-using electrical devices working in your home at the same time. It may be a problem if you have too many air conditioners running, while you suddenly decide to use several water-heating devices and other high-energy appliances at the same time.
With the whole house surge protector, does that mean there’s no need for the plug-in surge protectors?
Actually, the whole home surge protector works best with the plug-in surge protectors. The whole-house suppressors can’t really stop the whole surge. Up to 15% of the excess voltage can sneak through, which the less powerful plug-in surge protectors should be able to deal with.
Conclusion
Installing a whole house surge protector in your home is an investment. It minimizes the risk that a powerful electrical surge can ruin the motherboard of your costly refrigerator, the temperature controls of the pricey oven, the huge TVs, and the essential desktop computers.
You can end up with a loss of up to $15,000. That makes your whole house surge protector such a worthwhile expense. The cost is only $650 or even $1,000 but you get the peace of mind you need, assured that your electrical devices at home won’t get fried!