Surge protection keeps your home and appliances safe from power surges. Rather than installing a surge protector in place of power strips, which often don’t provide protection or only protect single outlets, a professional installs these at your electrical panel. When your home or the area around your home experiences a sudden voltage spike, the surge protector sends the electrical overage into the ground. In this guide, we’re going to go a little more in-depth into how these surge protectors provide your home with extensive benefits.
1. Protects Your Appliances
A power surge can be very damaging to appliances that you have in the home. However, having whole-home surge protection will keep these units safe. Instead of frying your appliances and requiring you to purchase new ones, it will send the electrical overage into the ground and prevent appliances from absorbing the excess electricity.
Home appliances that you can protect by installing whole-home surge protection include:
- Refrigerator
- Stove and oven
- Dishwasher
- Washing machine and dryer
- Microwave
- Air Conditioner
- Air fryer
Surges that can damage these appliances can also come from inside the home. Most people don’t realize this, but an appliance turning on or an HVAC unit cycling on or off can send a jolt of electricity into the electrical system. This is why, in older homes, the lights will sometimes flicker when the air conditioner switches to a higher speed.
For example, if your air conditioner cycles on and the microwave is using the same circuit, there’s a chance that both appliances will create a mini surge in your electrical system. Having whole-home protection absorbs these surges and helps extend the lifespan of your appliances. If you notice your lights flickering when you use your appliances, contact a licensed electrician to inspect your electrical system.
2. Protects Your Electronic Devices
Electronic devices are more sensitive than appliances because many of them have small microchips inside them that are very delicate. The circuit board in these devices uses low voltage, and a spike of high voltage can easily damage them. Using whole-home surge protection is like putting armor on your electronics to keep them protected.
Without this armor, when a sudden surge hits your gaming PC, the motherboard could fry, or permanent damage could happen to another expensive internal component of the computer. In addition to damaging the internal components of your computer or gaming system, a power surge could fry the power supply, or it could corrupt saved data on the internal drive of your system.
Some of the electronic devices that you will be protecting with whole-home surge protection include:
- Computers
- Gaming consoles
- Televisions
- Routers
- Smart devices
3. Prevents Electrical Fires
When you have whole-home surge protection, you can stop a surge from affecting your home. Some surges can be as high as 10,000 volts or more, and your home’s electrical system is only able to handle, on average, about 120 volts. When the spike of electricity gets through to your home’s electrical system because there is no block in place, the wiring will overheat, the insulation will melt, and the bare wires can create a spark. This can quickly become an electrical concern that could turn into a full-fledged fire.
Other ways that electrical fires can start in your home all relate to an electrical power surge. Your computer could overheat and short-circuit. Once this happens, the burned-out internal components can get hot and ignite nearby flammable material.
Unfortunately, most electrical fires hide from view when they begin, making them more difficult to notice. Once fire catches at a later point, the chain reaction is difficult to stop on your own, especially if you and your family are not home when it happens. Having whole-home surge protection reduces the chance of hidden concerns that could start a fire when your family is not aware.
4. Increases the Lifespan of Your Electrical System
Surges that your home experienced before the installation of whole-home surge protection may have damaged the electric system itself. The wires, panels, and outlets wear down much faster, so you will need additional maintenance and occasional repairs to ensure your system is up to par. Regardless of the size of the surge, it runs through an unprotected system. This extra stress on the system will eat away at insulation as well as corrode components and connections. Without the stress, your electrical panel and other parts of your system will have a longer lifespan.
5. Helps Save You Money
A power surge can be very costly, especially if you have a lot of appliances and electrical devices that are constantly at risk. If you find that power surges are common at your home, contact a member of our team at Accurate Home Services to have whole-home surge protection installed. Of course, there is an initial installation cost, but you will likely see less of a need for maintenance on your electric system. In addition, if you have property insurance, your premiums may be reduced because you added additional protection.
Most people have $15,000 to $20,000 worth of electronics and appliances inside their homes. If a power surge took out all of those items, purchasing them again would be an expensive replacement. That said, if one of the devices caught fire and burned down your home, the loss would be much larger. A whole-home surge protector is an investment, but you will need fewer repairs and replacements, and you will have fewer safety concerns that your family needs to worry about.
6. Provides Peace of Mind
You will have peace of mind about the things that were mentioned in this article, like having working appliances and devices. You also won’t have to worry about items in the house catching on fire. However, you will also be happy to know that your security system, security cameras, and locks will continue to work during storms. This ensures that you have protection that will keep your home safe from theft and intruders, regardless of whether you’re there or not.
In addition, you won’t need to panic because a severe storm is heading your way. You know that, if surges hit the grid, your home is safe. Once Accurate Home Services completes the installation, a whole-home surge protector requires little to no maintenance during its lifespan.
Our Dependable Electricians Can Help
Whole-home surge protection is not something that a new homeowner necessarily thinks about, but it’s definitely an investment worth considering. At Accurate Home Services, we have proudly served the residents of Crandall since 1992. We have provided all of the comfort and peace of mind that the community members need to keep coming to us for their local electrical services needs. We also offer lighting repair and installation services, rewiring, panel upgrades, and generator installation services to our community.
At Accurate Home Services, we are one of the top options for electricians in the Crandall area. If your home doesn’t have adequate surge protection, then contact our team today to schedule an appointment and take care of any other needs you may have.
