On Oct 6, 8:50*am, "John Grabowski" wrote:
This is after reading and talking to others, I'm thinking about this..
I'm not very educated on electricity so I wonder 2 things right away..
What brands are good for whole house protection and how do I know how
much protection I need? Can I just go by the amperage in the circuit
panel (main circuit breaker) ? One person gave me a brand called
Eaton and told me depending on model (Ultra being the best and most
expensive) from maybe $250 to $500 but said it could be more if I
don't have a spare circuit breaker to wire into. Suggestions
welcome.

I prefer to protect individual circuits that have electronic devices
such
as computers and TV's. I heard a neighbor had a whole house unit and
when
it blew, it took an electrician and half a day to get power back.

*The surge suppressor will blow up when it is not properly grounded. It is
designed to absorb the surge and then dissipate it to ground.

Just a clarification. *The surge protector doesn't absorb
the surge, it just shunts it to ground, assuming it has a
ground. *You have that process described below.

*Thanks for the clarification Trader4. *You are correct about the shunting.

With no

ground it just overloads, but still provides some surge protection though
it
is only once.

With no ground at all, it would seem all it could do
would be to clamp the various conductors so that
the voltage on any of them relative to the other would
be 600V or so.

*I'm not sure about that. *All I know is that the ones that blow up are
usually the ones with no ground.


That's interesting. I take your word for it. It's just that
I'm having a hard time figuring out why that would
happen. With a proper ground almost all the surge
energy passes directly through the surge protector.
Without it, it would seem a lot less energy would pass
through it. Maybe Bud or one of the other guys has
some thoughts.