[Novalug] Whole house surge protectors

[Bonnie Dalzell]

On Tue, 26 Jan 2010, Roy Wilson wrote:

>
> Bonnie:
>
>
>> In Baltmore County Marlyland BG&E has a whole house surge protector
>> option. You rent it from them for $1.50 a month on your electric bill and
>> they install it as a special collar between the meter and the plug that
>> the meter fits in. I have had one for at least 15 years and since we got
>> it we have not lost motherboards. we used to loose at least a motherboard
>> a year. it does not protect from phone line surges or ground surges.
>
> Roy
>
>  They're line filters, not really surge protectors (they don't clamp). 
> "Most" (there's always an exception) surge/spike damage sneaks up phone 
> lines or from ground potential, that "whole house" unit won't help with 
> 99% of those.
>
>  GOOD surge protectors have very fast clamp times and work on all three 
> lines - hot, neutral (return), and ground.  They'll stop a spike or 
> surge dead, but usually self-destruct on any seriously large surges 
> (which is why when the light on one goes out or starts blinking, toss 
> it, it's dead).

Ours has two lights and we were told that if they go off it is dead 
and we need to get a new unit. I was told there was internal "stuff" 
(pardon the technical term) which would be destroyed in stopping a 
surge. Since I got the thing over 10 years ago I sort of forgot some of 
the details

Right now I cannot find anything at the BG&E site about our whole house 
surge protector but here is a info panel from another utility.

http://www.mpw.org/electric_surge_protection.aspx

I do use additional surge protection in the house for the computers 
and tvs also.

>
>  Other than direct building or line lightning strikes, I've rarely seen 
> a spike take out anything other than a modem.  Ground potential rises 
> until it sneaks right up the phone line.
>

We had some bad surges when the some incompentant (and probably NOT local) 
dove hunters used the phone lines and power lines for their plastic dove 
lures and then when the doves landed next to the lures they shot out the 
phone and power lines with shotguns.

Living in the country is entertaining

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                        Bonnie Dalzell, MA
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