Now that I know, I would really like to get this. We live in an area where we get severe summer storms, and considering our streets are lined with 50-year-old maple trees, on average we get 3-4 lightning strikes in our neighborhood per summer so I think it makes sense.

Our house is 3 weeks away from completion though, is this something that can be installed now or should it have been done during the electrical wiring? Anybody have this? If you do, can you share the product and cost?

Last question, I understand true whole house surge protection needs one protector at the electrical box, but then additional "individual" protectors for certain things like TV's etc. Can someone clear up for me what separate individual items would need protecting (TV's, PC's for sure...but what about appliances, stereo's, speakers?) And what do the individual protectors look like?

Sorry for all the questions, but I've googled my heart out on this one but most of it is sooooo technical I need a bit of extra help please!

Thank you,
Lora

You also need to realize that surge protectors 'wear out'.
Each time they are tripped some damage is done to the MOVs that clamp the voltage.

Kelly

As I understand it, the whole house protector on the panel box protects for electrical surges, then the individual protectors are needed for any type of surge potential coming from other lines that come into your house (such as cable & internet). So it makes sense why I would need individual protectors on PC's and TV's, but why would I need them for my stereo or appliances? Wouldn't these already be protected by the panel box protector?

Thanks for your help!

Since the home I'm building is smack dab in the lighting capital of the world (we have a professional sports team called the "Lightning" for a reason) I made whole house surge protection probably the first option I chose when I planned my home.

I told my electrician that I wanted whole house surge protection along with dedicated circuits to isolate my home network servers ( a couple of Apple Macintosh's and mirrored drive subsystems) and to isolate my home theatre system (flat panel tv, digital amp, DVD player etc...). And of course I wanted to protect all the expensive stainless steel appliances with motors from dangerous surges/ nearby lightning strikes.

I recommend the use of a Square D Surgebreaker Plus whole house surge protector mated with a square D homeline load/circuit breaker. What this device does is it is hardwired to protect the entire circuit breaker, the AC line, 2 coaxial cable lines, and 4 telephone lines. It is a surge suppressor that can handle loads up to 80,000 amps. It is designed to be installed in what is called B or C locations (which is good) as it can handle pretty high voltages.

As this device can only tackle surges that occur from outside the house in, you should always install point of use surge protectors at each device especially sensitive devices such as home theater system components and computer components. For my home theater system I am installing a Panamax EX4300 surge protector/line conditioner. I like this unit because it has switching technology and a great warranty against component damage. Along with the Panamax surge protector I had my electricians install a couple of electrical boxes that would accept the Panamax Max In-wall Power kit TL so that I can hang my flatscreen TV and hide the all the cables in the wall.

Getting back to surge protection. You will hear of something called surge arrestors. You don't really need these if you buy the Surgebreaker Plus, unless you have multiple load centers or a different surge suppressor that was designed for A or B locations and handles up to 6000 volts only. Then you will need a surge arrestor before the suppressor to handle larger surges such as from lightning strikes. Also, some outdoor motor devices such as well pumps need to use surge arrestors.

So what are my recommendations to protect against surges:

A) Start with your electrical plan. Its very easy to create dedicated circuits to protect your home theatre system and desktop computer or server. Its as easy as telling your electrician: I want dedicated circuits for my home theatre outlet(s) and my server outlet(s). At the very least this will protect your computer from the hairdryer or vacuum cleaner.

B) Use a whole house surge protector- I highly recommend Square D surgebreaker Plus. Its pretty comprehensive protection.

C) Use surge arrestors for outdoor pumps or in situations when you cannot run your telephone lines, and or coaxial lines through your load center. If you're building a new home just buy the Square D Homeline load center along with the Surgebreaker Plus system and you should be good to go.

D) Employ Point of use surge protectors that you find in any electrical appliance store. Uninterruptible Power supply surge protectors are a plus for computers as well. You need these end use protectors to further refine transient surges as well as to protect from internal surges which are more common than outside the house surges.

One caveat, make sure your cable provider's cable box will be compatible with your whole house surge protector. Sometimes they may degrade your digital signal to the point that you can't get digital cable channels.

And one other thing. If you are building in an area that is prone or has the possiblity for long power outages, it is much MUCH less expensive to add an electric generator power transfer switch now then to add one later. It cost me only $200 extra to add this plus the cost of the copper wire to each covered circuit. I used a Square D QC load box to house my transfer switch.

Hope this all helps.

The cost for the Square D surgebreaker plus with installations was $495 from my builder, this included the homeline load center.

Second, don't assume it cannot happen to you regardless of where you live. I had friends who lost just about EVERY electrical appliance, component in their New Jersey home from a nearby lightning strike and subsequent surge. They lost all their TVS, computers, stereo equipment- even their telephone answering machine.

At the very least, your kitchen appliances and other electrical appliances will last longer if they're protected from even minor surges.

A very small investment, but much more useful than body sprays in the shower;)

A surge protector IS a surge arrestor (usualy a Metal Oxide Varistor or MOV across the hot to neutral and from neutral to ground and hot to ground) and sometimes some additional filtering to increase the impedance seen by a fast rising surge voltage.
You can filter off some of the surge voltage with an L filter section (series inductor, shunt capacitor).

Full up lightning protection for communications lines (like at the central office of a telco) uses a cascade of devices with lower and lower clamp voltages to protect the electronic switching gear now used just about everywhere in the US.
It starts with spark gaps, moves on to MOVs and other clamp devices like TVSS clamps, and even zener diodes.
Most phones already have some protection built into them.

If you are ever in a high rise building that takes a lightning hit you can often tell since all the CRTs will 'jiggle' as the current from the strike creates a magnetic field in the building grounding system.

The Square D surgebreaker plus is dually rated to be used both before or after the main disconnect. Used on its own it can be located in both B and C locations. Basically its like a really beefed up "surge strip" that's hard-wired into your home. Again, however for well pumps or in situations where you have multiple load centers you may want to have secondary surge arrestors as well. For most applications the Square D Surgebreaker Plus along with point of use surge protectors (TVSS) will be all most people here will need.

On my current project, the owners are installing, among other things, an emergency generator, hydronic basement heating, electric floor heating in the baths, a home theatre and recirculating instant hot water. I suggested surge protection. No interest.

They are pretty worthless for resale, but can save you thousands possibly tens of thousands of dollars while your living there. Not bad for a $295 upgrade. Its now a requirement for new construction in Orlando Fl.

You need to learn more about what these devices are and how they work.
Any device that can clamp undesired voltage is called a serge arrestor.
Whole house units mostly use larger MOV devices so they can carry the current that follows with the surge when they switch on.
Power strips also use MOVs in smaller sizes and lower voltage ratings than the while house model.
TVSS devices are a specially constructed semiconductors with a defined breakdown voltage.
They are usually very power limited with low voltage devices being able to support higher current, but higher voltage devices being very current limited.
Each has its place in surge work.
Typically the lightning designs I have worked on use spark gaps as the first line of defense, followed by MOV devices, and then TVSS devices.
Mixed in between the devices are low pass filters made with components rated to withstand the leak through of the protection device in front of them.
TVSS devices have some advantages for load capacitance, but are often still cause excessive signal loss at higher frequencies.
For these circuits passive filters must form the first line of defense (even a spark gap will load the signal badly).

Any of these devices can be used in just about any location if they are packaged suitably.

Again for anyone interested in whole house surge protection the Square D surgebreaker Plus is likely what you are looking for. It is a surge suppressor that is hardwired next to your service panel and it has the capacity to protect your phone lines and coaxial (cable TV, DSL etc...) as well as AC lines. It is not classified as a "surge arrestor", which again is a device you may hear about from your electrician and it still has its place in many applications even if you decide to use the Surgebreaker Plus as mentioned previously. Talk to a qualified electrician as to whether or not you will need secondary surge arrestors.

If you're really interested to understand the difference between the two download this PDF about TVSS versus surge arrestors and how they're classified.

http://www.panamax.com/pdf/SAvsTVSS.pdf.

Also, always make sure the surge strips you buy and plug into your walls are UL listed as "transient voltage surge suppressors" (TVSS) they will state it on the box. This certifies that the device will operate as a surge suppressor and will do so in a safe manner. There should never be a situation where you are installing a "surge arrestor" inside your dwelling space, in fact you're breaking the NEC code if you do and worse you can start a fire in your home. Don't ever let an electrician tell you otherwise- always follow code it's there to protect you and your family. It's when some tradesmen begin to believe they know more than they actually do that they start ignoring codes and people start losing their homes or worse. When you're dealing with electricity Its always good to have an inspection done to make sure it was done right and to code- not just any old way that the tradesman thinks might work.

All of these devices try to clamp at a set voltage and divert the voltage (and current that follows) onto the safety grounding system and (hopefully) back to earth ground.

All of them fail catastrophically when you exceed the ratings of the device.
Decent description of most types of clamping devices:
http://www.littelfuse.com/tvss.html

Some actual design data:
https://www.sea.siemens.com/consultant/SurgeCalc/p_nav6.html

A litle better tutorial then Panamx
http://www.apttvss.com/faq-main.asp

Do you need fusing?
http://www.carebase.com/WP-SPD-Surge-Protective-Device-Fusing-vs-kA-Ratings.htm
Excerpt"
"Since 90 plus percent of all SPD/TVSS devices utilize Metal Oxide Varistors (MOVs) as the prime design approach for surge suppression, there exists a major incompatibility between the suppression technology and that of the short circuit fuse. For example, the MOV operates or responds typically (per manufacturers' specifications) within 50nanoseconds or less while the response time of short circuit fuses (per manufacturers' specifications) is in the millisecond range. This equates to no matter what the event, fault current, major transient temporary overvoltage; the MOV will fail before the fuse can operate."

On Semiconductor ap note for avalanche diodes
http://www.onsemi.com/pub/Collateral/AND8230-D.PDF

A typical TVSS diode data sheet
http://www.onsemi.com/pub/Collateral/P6KE6.8A-D.PDF
High current and high voltage (AC line needs to hold off 168 Vpk) are not in the cards for these devices.
The power density gets to high in the diode junction.

The classifications you are speaking of as being BS are not Panamax standards they are industry and code standards. Every piece of literature you will read will say the same thing.

For those who want an easy to understand guide see this little article from This Old House. They also talk about the importance of surge protection and why not to take it lightly. I've seen this happen in several homes in the past and its so easy to avoid.

TVSS and surge arrestors are classified by UL.

http://magazine.iaei.org/magazine/00_b/conner.htm

"What is a surge protective device and what does it do? A surge protection device is a device composed of any combination of linear or non-linear circuit elements intended for limiting surge voltages on equipment by diverting or limiting surge current."

"Each type of TVSS is intended for use on the load side of the main service disconnect in circuits not exceeding 600 volts rms."

"The basic safety standard used to test TVSS is UL 1449, the Standard for Safety for Transient Voltage Surge Suppressors. UL 1449 addresses construction items such as enclosure requirements, minimum wiring size for internal wiring as well as field wiring, acceptable spacings between circuits of opposite polarity or to metal walls of an enclosure, proper grounding means, and suitability of mounting to name a few. UL 1449 also contains testing, marking and installation instruction requirements."

"Another type of surge device is the surge arrester. Low voltage surge arresters rated up to 999 volts ac are intended to afford protection against surge related damage to secondary distribution wiring systems and/or to downstream equipment."

UL is making business for itself. Even as they describe the devices there is no actual difference except the upper voltage limit.

A TVSS is an assembly of parts that can contain MOVs, spark gaps/tubes, avalanche diodes (AKA 'TVSS diodes'), zener diodes, and any other electronics you care to put in the thing.

The distinction does not matter for anyone purchasing and using the equipment outside of an industrial setting.

The real difference between the two is how they're tested and receive their ratings for safe application.

Straight from the UL managing editor's article:

"It is important to understand that a surge arrester should not be installed on the load side of the main overcurrent protective device unless it has also been investigated as a TVSS. The reason for this is that the surge arrester has not been subjected to the Abnormal Overvoltage Tests of UL 1449 which, as noted above, are critical tests for usage of a surge protective device on the load side of the main overcurrent protective device."

In other words, surge arrestors should not be installed in your living room because they haven't tested for safe application in that environment.

Ignoring UL listings is like telling a person who's buying a car that there's no difference between between a Nascar race car and your normal everyday automobile. Yeah, they both have four wheels, an engine, and a steering wheel, that doesn't mean they serve the same purpose. Put Granny behind the wheel of a 600 HP machine and see how she does down Mainstreet.

Distinctions DO matter. I wouldn't be recommending to anyone to ignore UL listings under the assumption that "UL is making business for itself". They are there to avoid fires, deaths, and property loss. Anything else is just sloppy careless advice.

I have found a whole house unit on www.smarthome.com - the Leviton 51120-1 and the 51120-3 for $200 and $270 respectively. There are others too - I don't know how good Leviton is but I understand they are a very good brand. These units are rated for 50,000Amps and 950 joules - which I think is the maximum surge they can take. This would cut down the surge to roughly 2500 volts (still pretty high) at the main panel. This sounds like the first line of defense - and a wise investment. Do you agree on this approach?

I also found the Lutron 7280 and 7380 "in wall" surge outlets (the 7280 is 15Amps, the 7380 is 20 AMps). The IGW version of each has an audible alarm to indicate the device needs to be replaced - that is a nice feature. These units run in the 35 to 50 dollar range. Nice to have the surge protector built into the outlet so you don't have the ugly stips on the floor. I am thinking about using these on TV, computer, washing machines, and refrigerators - but I still have one last challenge to deal with and that will determine whether I use the Levtion products or not. Maybe you can help us newbies out on this one.

I still have a bunch of 30 amp devices I want to protect (microwave, range oven, and dryers) as well as some 20 amp direct wired (no plug in outlet) devices (whirlpool tub and dishwasher). I don't know how to deal with these. The Square D circuit breaker device looks attractive - but will it fit into my panel box? Are these things a universal design - or are they made for a particular brand of panel box?

If I can find a circuit breaker option that can handle 15A, 20A, and 30A circuits - then I would rather use that then the Lutron outlets. Do you know of any products that provide this? Do all major suppliers of panel boxes like Siemens and others offer surge protection circuit breakers?
I think it would make a lot more sense to have the surge protector in the beraker since it would protect everything on that circuit - rather than using the "by outlet" approach.

Thanks

While I truly do thank you all for your responses, I KNOW I am more confused now than when I started. I apologize for the delay in checking this thread, it's a long weekend here and I haven't had a chance until now.

I was just looking for recommendations on reputed whole house systems and what I should look at, or conversely, what I should avoid.

Sniffdog, thank you for some additional suggestions. I have a local Leviton guy here that I talk to periodically so I might bounce this off him. I'm thinking to then take his recommendation(s) and bounce them off our electrical sub (we deal with the owner and he's truly awesome).

The only reason I haven't done that to date is I was hoping to get an idea what is necessary/what is best/and why....so that when we discuss it, I could be somewhat knowledgeable.

Based on the discussion here, I don't think I'll EVER be knowledgeable enough to Yeay or Nay what is recommended to me. I didn't realize this topic was SOOOOOOOOOO complicated.

Poo! I don't want to pay for what I don't need....but how do I know what that is?

Lora

I have also decided that the Leviton in wall outlets are going to provide a good secondary line of defense for most (but not all) of my expensive appliances and are a very good value. I can add a second level of surge protection to my $5000 refrig for 50 dollars - that's a no brainer. So my recommendation for the second level of defense is either use power strips (which work OK under desks for computer equipment) or the in-wall outlets for things like TV's, washing machines, etc. These in-wall outlets are good for 15amp and 20amp devices - but not higher.

There are a few remaining pieces to the puzzel that I am still researching, and when I find out information I will post it here. I still have a number of devices where I want secondary surge protection but the in-wall outlets or power strips won't work. My well pump, septic pump, bubble tub and dish washer fall under the 15 amp class BUT they are directly wired so there is no outlet plug. An obvious great solution here would be to have a circuit breaker that was also a surge protector - then I could simply use those breakers to protect the entire circuit that these devices are on and be done. I need 15A, 20A, and 30A breakers that are also surge protection devices - I have not found such a product yet.

I also wonder if I need a special device for pump motors which by design create a small surge when they start up.

I also have large current drawing devices that do have a wall plug like my 30 amp 240 Volt electric dryer that plugs into the wall, but I need a 30 amp plug in surge protector - and leviton doesn't appear to make one of those. I did find a 30 amp plug in surge protector made for RV Campers but it is for 120 volts only.

In the end, I may just start out with the whole house devices for the primary protection at the main electrical panels and then use the leviton outlets where I can, and hope for the best on the other devices. I will then add surge protectors to the other things as new products become available - since this appears to be a growing problem.

If you find out anything in your research - please post it.

Thanks

Pass & Seymour 5252-WSP (15A duplex outlet) and the 5353-WSP (20 Amp duplex outlet). These cost 32 and 35 dollars respectively. These surge protectors have an indicator light but noi audible alarm.

P&S also makes the 8200-WSP (15A) and the 8300-WSP (20A) which have the audible alarm and indictaor light. Prices I found on other sites are 48 and 61 dollars respectively.