On Sunday, February 9, 2014 11:21:58 PM UTC-5, Bob_Villa wrote:
On Sunday, February 9, 2014 9:28:28 PM UTC-6, Oren wrote:

On Sun, 9 Feb 2014 19:11:29 -0800 (PST), Bob_Villa



wrote:







Whole house surge protection is pointless and costly...protect the individual items that need it at each point of use. .02







Care to explain that notion?







Why exactly it is useless; used in conjunction with individual SPDs.



Since runs of different surge loads possibly share the same conduit or are run side by side...surge will be induced after the protection. Leaving the expensive device impotent.

The destructive surges that destroy equipment almost always
originate from outside the house, with lightning being the prime
cause. Lightning striking the utility lines somewhere in the
vicinity results in a surge. You want to stop those before or
just as they are entering the house. A panel mounted whole house
surge protector does exactly that, by diverting the surge current
to ground. Additional protection via plug-in protectors should be
at any appliances that are connected to more than just AC, ie cable,
phone, etc. It's a tiered approach, and a whole house unit is
the first line of defense. But, it's not always possible either,
eg folks living in apartments, rental properties, etc. In that
case plug-in is all you can do.

As for expensive, a good whole house surge protector costa about
$125.