Lightning surge can melt wiring? Surge Protectors do work right?
Question:I have four surge protectors protecting my PC from surges/lightning strikes. (Protector 1 -> Protector 2...). Now when the surge protector reacts it send the lightning strike to the ground or neutral. I have a Belkin SurgeMaster Gold (nothing should get passed it though, right?). Is it possible for the housing wiring to melt because my protector conducted a big surge that was caused by a near by lightning strike? My house has circuit breakers and safety switch's (trip switch's).
My Surge protectors can protect my PC from a lightning strike surge right (that is sacrifice itself for the PC)?
Thanks.
Answers:
depends how close the lightning is . there is no such thing as a perfect insulator... with enough voltage (and lightning is in the millions) anything will fry.. your pc may be protected but what about the rest of the house. there is a device designed to be put at the breaker panel to protect the whole house... but nothing is 100 percent against lightning. when my pc is not in use i unplug it from the wall outlet...the best protection available
Surge protectors are a MUST for PC owners! In older homes, it is possible for the wiring to sustain damage but that is what the fuses are for. They blow,and break the circuit so that electricity cannot run through it!
it helps stop it but it might not... and yes wires can melt but not offen my friends house hit all the time most time it kills the tv and anythings with it. i dont think it surge backwards to a box should worry about it.. nothing you can do its just sometime that happens how many times has your house been hit or any house you have live in... i disconnect mine when i can .surges just dont come from lighting
A surge protector is only as good as the house wiring if the wiring system is properly ground then yes it will be Okay But if it is not properly grounded then I would say NO. If you are investing in all those surge protectors I would have installed a whole house surge arrestor at the service panel that way it if lighting strike it will be isolated at the panel verse at each outlet. Check and make sure you have ground wire from your service Panel to the cold water meter Should be #6 if you have 100 amp service and that you have a ground wire going outside to 2 ground rods that are driven into the ground outside of the house. Hope this helped.
I work in a electrical supply house and i will say you sound like you are as protected as most other people are. I can also tell you that lightning is awesome, and there is nothing you can do to protect from a direct strike. I have seen some serious damage from it. Lightning came in my house from the pole outside and fried a TV and all my telephones. Surge protectors cant hurt anything however. There is one thing that I have a question about, If you live out in the country somewhere especially, when the power company runs power lines, at the end of the run you are more at risk for that sort of thing. You know, the surge kinda moves down the line and it just sucks for you cause you are at the end. If you find this is the case, you can probably get the power company to extend the line a little ways.
If your home electrical service panel consists of circuit breakers instead of fuses, if you use a surge protector, AND your electrical service has an adiquate ground ( metal rod outside driven into the ground with a heavy copper wire coming from it) then yes you sould be safe. Except from a direct lightning strike to your PC. Have a good day.
I have never seen a surge protector that could block a lightning strike.. I tried to get "INTEREX" to replace their SP that fried my PC back in '98... They wouldn't even respond...
P.S.. Don't buy their products!!
UNPLUG!
I'd say that your PC is just as vulnerable as you are.
if lightening hits the power line some distance away, your surge protector should work.
if it's close enough to put your house at risk, the surge protector would be about as useful as the New Orleans dikes.
BUT, the good news is that the odds are greatly in your favor.
if there's something that you absolutely must protect, you should already have a back up disk, so that if your hard drive crashes, you have a copy. other than that, any money in high quality surge protectors would be far better spent in backup.
'the protector will sacrifice itself but with enough power the spark can still jump the gap, so to speak. The most effective way to protect your home is to isolate it from the community power source by putting an isolation type transformer between it and your home. The reason they aren't,t common is that they aren't cost effective on the housing scale.
USA John T has a good answer. Make sure your electric system is solidly grounded, including all the receptacles. If you have a metal water pipe coming into your house, make sure it is bonded to the ground system, as well as having two ground rods. The better the ground system (less resistance to earth) the easier it is for the surges to be safely conducted to earth.
Interestingly, many of the answers said OK to using surge arresters, but not one of them mentioned the energy rating of the arrester. Yes, surge arresters are rated for how much electrical energy they can safely interrupt. They are rated in jouelles. The higher the number, the more protection. The cheapies are rated for less than one thousand jouelles. A powerful surge - such as lightning or when an auto hits a pole - generates many thousands of jouelles, and will skip right across the contacts as if they did not exist. The better the arrester, the more you will pay for it. You have to decide what equipment you want to protect, and how much it is worth to you. I am not familiar with the Belkin Surge Master Gold. Call the manufacturer of your PC, and ask their technical dept what rating arrester you should have. Want to have some fun? Call the place where you bought the arrester and ask them about the ratings. Most do not even know they are rated.
Good luck.
No.
Surge protectors are for POWER SURGE, not lightning.
Lightning arrestors are for lightning protection.
NOTHING is going to protect from a direct lightning strike. You're talking about 100,000 amps at 1,000,000 volts.
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