"Fred" wrote in message
.. .
mm wrote in
:

Is it possible to repair a whole house surge suppressor?

At 100 to 200 dollars, I don't want to keep buying new ones.


Totally unnecessary. Call your power company about every other year and
file a report that your lights are blinking when the wind blows. They'll
send out a service truck to investigate with a guy we don't pay anywhere
near enough to risk his life working around the 23KV primary on the pole.
Ask him to check your house's connections at the pole for tightness,
paying special attention to the NEUTRAL connections, which are the ONLY
way your 120VAC can surge up to 240VAC if neutral comes loose and there's
a big load on the OTHER phase from the one your computer is on. While
he's there, ask him to inspect the grounding on your meter base and
verify its lightning gap hasn't been damaged by any hits. It's inside
the meter base and he's the only one with a replacement seal to install.

Please consider offering these great lineman a refreshing beverage to say
thank you for the free service they provide you. I usually show up with
a cold Coke for each of them as they are nesting the bucket and stowing
their HV gloves. I'm more of a shock to them than anything the
generators can produce....(c;] If it's quitting time when they finish, I
move from Coke to a quality beer as they've had a hard shift in the hot
sun. Guess who's power gets restored FIRST after the next storm!....(c;]


If your house if FIRMLY attached to the pole transformer, "surges" are
virtually impossible UNLESS you get hit by lightning. NO surge
protector, no matter how expensive, says anything about LIGHTNING
PROTECTOR, ever. That would be a lie. The 23KV primary phase of
America's 3 phase Tesla multiphase AC power system is quite stable. The
natural magnetic hysteresis of the 60 hz core in your distribution
transformer prevents any pulses from being sent to your house until the
lightning protector in its primary fuse holder explodes in defeat.

"Surge Protector" is a great sales gimmick. If you want to save your
computer, buy it a nice UPS to protect it from LOSING power, especially
during disk write operations where you can lose EVERYTHING on that drive.

If you're intent on spending money, please consider replacing your
breaker panel breakers on all electrical outlets and appliances with GFI
breakers, making it much less possible to kill a child sticking a metal
object into America's absurdly designed bladed receptacles designed in
1900. The only way to get shocked after their installation is to get
right across the powerline from hot to neutral, which rarely happens to
kill anyone. I support GFI installation 100%!


I agree with the GFI protection on all household outlets. Good idea.

As to the "free" service, that is not true. We pay for the service in the
distribution fees on
the electric bill. So it's the same as "free health care".

As to the service guys getting paid what they deserve, that's between them
and the
utility. I would offer them a well deserved chilly also.


tm