Summer is a wonderful time of year for trips to the beach and picnics at the park. Unfortunately, we always have to keep our eyes to the skies for the unexpected thunderstorms in CT. High humidity levels create some powerful lightning storms that can wreck havoc on your home's electrical system. Surge protection can help safeguard your home's electronics and well water system.
What is surge protection?
When hearing the term "surge protection," most people instantly picture a small piece of equipment that has many outlets and then plugs into a wall outlet. Such equipment usually looks like this:
However, these strips do NOT protect your entire home, no matter how many you use. Also, they will not protect larger pieces of equipment in your home such as your well pump. Whole house surge protection is installed into your electrical panel. It is therefore hidden from sight, and eliminates the use of all those outle strips. A licensed electrician can install the surge protector quickly. This graphic from ESFI provides further information on the differences between the outlet strips and complete surge protection for your home.
What does whole house surge protection do?
Each year, there are nearly 1 MILLION lightning strikes. While lightning cannot be avoided, being proactive pays off. Lightning creates an extremely high surge of electricity and your home is not equipped to get rid of that extra electricity. A whole house surge protector will take that burst of electricity and safely divert it to the home's grounding system.
Recently, a lightning storm ripped through our home base in Columbia, CT. We replaced THREE well pumps for homeowners because they were damaged by the surges in electricity. The homeowners were without water for an extended period of time. On top of our bills, they had to replace televisions, computers, laptops and microwaves that got fried. Altogether, the damages amounted to THOUSANDS of dollars. Our price for whole house surge protection? Only $499.00! This is a fraction of the cost to replace all the appliances and equipment in your home that use electricity. To take advantage of our summer whole house surge protection special, please call 860-228-1036 to schedule your installation. Simply mention this blog post to secure your savings!
Please note: There is no device that can handle a direct lightning strike. The best surge protection is to unplug your devices if you suspect strong lightning storms are headed your direction!
