Surge Protection

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Don't forget some electronics are in 'stand-by' while being plugged in, a very close hit could be the same as a direct hit (I don't know, as I said lightning is strange stuff).

Most of our storms here in the desert SW bang up in mid afternoon, I work nights, so I just unplug the protectors to be safe on bad days. Bad days being dew points in the 70's and temps near 100...we gonna have a some serious lightning. I don't need to listen to music with the light shows we get, low rumbles after the first crack that sends the dog on my lap, I have to say I really enjoy storms out here, so rare we get rain, the smell is intoxicating :cool:
 
I'm adding 10,000 KVA surge protection to each of my AC units. They each lost $2000 driver boards as well as communication boards at the furnaces.

breakerwiring.jpg
 
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RCHeliGuy said:
Turning electronics off during an electrical storm seems prudent and seems to offer the most protection.
Click to expand...

Decades ago, my grandmother had this little TV in her kitchen, and a nearby lightning strike actually fused the switch contacts so that the TV was always on. After that, she would just unplug it when not in use (and she really didn't use it all that much). Ever since then, I've been wary of leaving things plugged in when we get a really nasty storm. Although there are times I'm not home, or the storms roll in so quickly, that I don't have time to yank the plugs on the important stuff! I keep thinking of that switch, and how the cheap switches in, say, a power strip could probably face the same end result if hit with enough lightning.

I'm definitely going to look into protection though, especially after having read this whole discussion. All it takes is once...
 
RCHeliGuy said:
I'm adding 10,000 KVA surge protection to each of my AC units. They each lost $2000 driver boards as well as communication boards at the furnaces.

View attachment 18453
Click to expand...

Nice neat panel. I like Square D / Schneider products.

Man I hate Arc Fault Breakers. A huge ripoff in my opinion. For me the negatives far out weigh the benefit.
 
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stuwee said:
I don't need to listen to music with the light shows we get, low rumbles after the first crack that sends the dog on my lap, I have to say I really enjoy storms out here, so rare we get rain, the smell is intoxicating :cool:
Click to expand...

Agreed. We get alot of early evening thunderstorms in the summer where I live. We call them "microbursts". Wind will go from calm to 20 to 30 mph gusts with a temperature drop of 15 to 20 degrees accompanied by a deluge of rain (and sometimes hail) for a short period of time. Mother nature at her best. And with the hills / mountains surrounding the valley, low end bass to die for. I mean really low, shake the house stuff.
 
Brad225 said:
Nice neat pane. I like Square D / Schneider products.

Man I hate Arc Fault Breakers. A huge ripoff in my opinion. For me the negatives far out weigh the benefit.
Click to expand...

They came with the house and haven't failed on me so I'm OK with them, but I've heard that some of the earlier units were trouble prone. BTW I was told that the regulations have changed to use more Arc Fault Breakers than I currently have installed. Since my office is considered a bedroom and I have a room in the basement that was finished as a bedroom, those are both supposed to have Arc Fault Breakers too.

No wimpy 15A breakers in the whole box :)

I'm going to have to move 4 wires left and 4 wires right and swap the breakers so I have access to the HVAC breakers on the right side where the Surge Suppressors will go. They suggest the surge wires be short and as straight as possible and after I move the breakers I'll have a straight shot to the breakers and the ground strip.

I'm going to try to keep it as neat as I can. This is as cleanly a wired box as I've ever seen.
 
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RCHeliGuy said:
They came with the house and haven't failed on me so I'm OK with them, but I've heard that some of the earlier units were trouble prone. BTW I was told that the regulations have changed to use more Arc Fault Breakers than I currently have installed. Since my office is considered a bedroom and I have a room in the basement that was finished as a bedroom, those are both supposed to have Arc Fault Breakers too.

No wimpy 15A breakers in the whole box :)

I'm going to have to move 4 wires left and 4 wires right and swap the breakers so I have access to the HVAC breakers on the right side where the Surge Suppressors will go. They suggest the surge wires be short and as straight as possible and after I move the breakers I'll have a straight shot to the breakers and the ground strip.

I'm going to try to keep it as neat as I can. This is as cleanly a wired box as I've ever seen.
Click to expand...

Opening your panel and seeing the care that was taken must give you a good feeling about how the work in the house was done. You are very fortunate.

I have had 2 or 3 Arc Faults that didn't even allow power through them and had to be replaced. You would think for $40+ per breaker they would work flawlessly. There have been times when we have had rain for a few days and it is very humid that they will trip if you plug something in. I realize that they are just working but the level of sensitivity is a bit much.

The NFPA that governs over a multitude of things is not the most above board entity. That is from first hand knowledge dealing with them.


Received the surge protection to go in both panels and on fiber optic/coaxial/phone lines today. Hopefully I will be able to get them in this weekend.
 
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Brad225 said:
Opening your panel and seeing the care that was taken must give you a good feeling about how the work in the house was done. You are very fortunate.

I have had 2 or 3 Arc Faults that didn't even allow power through them and had to be replaced. You would think for $40+ per breaker they would work flawlessly. There have been times when we have had rain for a few days and it is very humid that they will trip if you plug something in. I realize that they are just working but the level of sensitivity is a bit much.

The NFPA that governs over a multitude of things is not the most above board entity. That is from first hand knowledge dealing with them.


Received the surge protection to go in both panels and on fiber optic/coaxial/phone lines today. Hopefully I will be able to get them in this weekend.
Click to expand...

I've heard the horror stories. Mine were installed 10 years ago and for the 7 years I've been here I haven't had a problem.

I've been fortunate. The phone lines which aren't used except one for my digital base station are also very clean. The coaxial cable is likewise clean as is the Cat 5 that I have running from the cable modem to my router and other rooms.

Copper coaxial and phone lines I get, but surge on optic? Are you sure?
 
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It has a copper trace wire molded to the outside of the main cable. This gets brought up out of the ground to be able to send a signal through it to locate the optic line underground. You know how a lighting strike will find anything metallic to connect to. I would guess this is where the surge protection goes but I will find out when I read the instructions.

I wasn't sure and found to much information about disasters of fiber optic carrying lightning strikes. Our phone line is for the alarm though there is a phone connected that never gets answered. When it rings my wife and I look at it and laugh. No one that we would talk to would call on a land line. Sign of the times I guess.

Keep us updated on how your install goes.
 
Unfortunately there was not enough wire for me to keep everything pretty, but I have the breakers and wiring rotated.
Now I just need to install the surges.

breakerbox1.jpg

breakerbox2.jpg
 
Not quite on topic, but a friend of mine has had some serious problems with power outages where he lives in PA and he decided he was tired of checking his family into a hotel.

So he got a 60kW Kohler generator that comes on automatically if the power cuts out for over 7 seconds and it automatically switches back after the power is up against for a little while.
He says it has 1000 gallons of lp gas and can run for 6 days on a full tank.

That's certainly one way to handle power outages :)

60kwgenerator.jpg
 
Mark, Do those surge breakers go in in place of the normal breakers or is there something else? Did you purchase them on line? If so can you tell me where they came from?

Bring it on Mother Nature.........Just kidding Mom :-0
 
But...... Mark... how does it effect the SOUND!!! LOL....... I just couldn't help myself....
 
I'm going to have to go back in and extend the wires that are currently crossed so that they look like how it looked originally.

I had a master electrician inform me that my wiring would not pass a home inspection whenever I sell my home in the future.

#12 THHN Solid for the 20A Breakers.
#10 THHN Solid for the 30A Breakers.
A pack of "yellow" butt connectors
Use a quality wire connector crimp tool.

Don't worry... I'll make sure to use audio grade butt connectors :)
 
I had a master electrician inform me that my wiring would not pass a home inspection whenever I sell my home in the future.

Did he say why?
Maybe it's about AFCI and GFCI circuit breakers. The newer require these in more and more circuit locations. The GFCI's are mostly OK but the AFCI's can be problematic in older homes and with older appliances.

On new work using one step larger wire can be a good thing.
 
Speedskater said:
I had a master electrician inform me that my wiring would not pass a home inspection whenever I sell my home in the future.

Did he say why?
Maybe it's about AFCI and GFCI circuit breakers. The newer require these in more and more circuit locations. The GFCI's are mostly OK but the AFCI's can be problematic in older homes and with older appliances.

On new work using one step larger wire can be a good thing.
Click to expand...

He said it was simply about how the wiring was crossed at the center.

He said there was nothing unsafe about how I had it, but said that I needed to be able to run the wire from the top to the left and right side of the box and then down to the breakers.

He also asked me if the breakers were "balanced" before I started. He said that is rarely the case in residential breaker boxes, but that sometimes the load was balanced to make sure that the maximum possible current on both sides was matched.
 
Oh, those black wires? They might make it difficult to get the cover plate on.
In a home there might not be much to balance. Everything in a home cycles so randomly. Modern lighting systems don't draw current like the old ones.
You can split:
Heating/air conditioning, water heater and clothes dryer.
Cooking appliances.
 
Speedskater said:
Oh, those black wires? They might make it difficult to get the cover plate on.
In a home there might not be much to balance. Everything in a home cycles so randomly. Modern lighting systems don't draw current like the old ones.
You can split:
Heating/air conditioning, water heater and clothes dryer.
Cooking appliances.
Click to expand...

My electricity bill is only half what it used to be. I have brand new refrigerators, LED lighting throughout and a high efficiency dual fuel HVAC system. I had an audit done to my house and the only place they said I could improve it was to get an on demand heat pump water heater. Given that my gas bill during the summer is one half connection fee, I'm not worried about that one.
 
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