Power Surges Are Inevitable

If there’s one thing Houston homeowners understand, it’s power surges. None of us are immune to having experienced power spikes that damaged an appliance in our homes. Knowing it can happen in an instant helps to see that there are likely benefits from quality surge protection.

Here in Texas, thunderstorms and lightning are a way of life. In fact, in 2019, there were almost 77,000 homeowner’s insurance claims for lighting in the U.S.  Lightning can strike a tree outside your home or just about anywhere and travel through your telephone lines, television and electronic devices and shorten their lifespan.

While powerful surges that occur with lightning can do more sudden damage, smaller power surges eventually break down the internal circuits of a device. Even though you may not notice until it’s too late and a device fails, the fact remains that your home’s devices are slowly being damaged without surge protection.
 

Surge Protection is The Best Line of Defense

Power strips won’t protect your devices. a power strip does is give you extra power outlets so that you plug in more devices.
 
For most home or small businesses, proper power protection is not utilized.  Electrical outlets connecting to the IT or AV equipment are often not dedicated, redundant, isolated, or protected.


How Does Surge Protection Work?

Traditional surge protectors typically rely on Metal Oxide Varistors (MOVs) as the primary surge protection component, and generally offer very little in the way of noise filtering. The performance of an MOV degrades with every surge that it is subjected to, allowing more and more surge energy to reach the connected equipment.

Additionally, power anomalies such as over/under voltage can degrade power supplies. shortening their lifespan. High frequency noise can cause lock-ups and erratic equipment operation. Power outages will result in equipment downtime, and can cause damage to hard drives/systems that are not shut down properly.

The solution to fully protecting a server requires a combination of equipment. UPS devices protect from power outages and ensure a proper shutdown sequence to prevent hard drive damage / data loss. A UPS however, will not provide adequate protection against surges, spikes, and high frequency noise.

The newest generation of multi-stage protection solutions combine the functionality of a power distribution unit (PDU) with the highest level of protection available. These specialized hybrid products use patented technology incorporating a combination of MOV’s, gas tubes, and silicon avalanche diodes.
 

The Takeaway

Most modern homes today have whole house surge protection as a necessary safety feature. It’s cost-effective and typically costs less than the price to pay for one damaged appliance.

Considering that homeowners today use more electrical equipment than ever before, it makes sense to have quality surge protection because it often pays for itself.