Protect Your Electronics: Choosing the Right Surge Protector for Thunderstorms

[Loren Booda]

If a thunderstorm approaches, would you turn off your electronics, unplug them or rely on a surge protector to avoid frying your circuits?

 

[Loren Booda]

Arghhh! A surge knocked out my clock radio just last night. (BIG SNOW!) I've tried unplugging it and plugging it back in. It shows the display "12:00" but will not budge from there. Thank God my computer's OK!

Any suggestions?

 

[dlgoff]

Arghhh! A surge knocked out my clock radio just last night. (BIG SNOW!) I've tried unplugging it and plugging it back in. It shows the display "12:00" but will not budge from there. Thank God my computer's OK!

Any suggestions?

If I were having problems with lightning causing surges on my electrical circuits, I would unplug my computer and maybe TV. But be warned that lighting can get into phone lines or cables providing you internet service. So unplug them also. I had to replace a modem once due to a lightning surge on my phone line.

 

[westom]

If a thunderstorm approaches, would you turn off your electronics, unplug them or rely on a surge protector to avoid frying your circuits?

Your question was answered almost two month ago in:
Surge Protector Settings

Effective protectors only come from companies with a better reputation such as Intermatic, Square D, Siemens, Keison, Leviton, or General Electric. An effective Cutler-Hammer solution sells in Lowes and Home Depot for less than $50.

For over 100 years, the only effective solution has always been about where energy dissipates. No protector provides protection. Repeated because the sentence bluntly confronts a popular myth. No protector provides protection. A protector is only a connecting device to protection - as the NIST said in that previous discussion. Either you connect energy harmlessly to Earth - energy does not enter the building. Or that energy hunts for ground inside the building and destructively via appliances. Only you make that choice.

Either spend $25 or $150 for protectors *that do not even claim protection in their numeric specs*. Or spend $1 per protected appliance for the solution that is used anywhere and everywhere that surge damage must not happen. Your choice. Either chose a scam. Or use science to properly Earth an effective protector.

Early 20th Century Ham radio operators would disconnect antenna leads. Even put that cable inside a mason jar. And still suffer damage. Even disconnecting was not effective. Damage stopped when that antenna lead was earthed. No mystery once you learn what has always been required for surge protection.

Protection is always about where energy dissipates. A protector is only as effective as its Earth ground.