I started wondering about this during our last power outage as a distraction to help me fall asleep and now it’s keeping me awake. How long does it’s take for a surge protector to start protecting after the power is restored after and outage? I’ve never had a problem with this but I’m wondering if restoration of power after an outage is smooth enough to avoid damaging anything or if there’s enough of a jolt to do some damage? And if it’s can came back with enough of a jolt to cause damage would a surge protector offer protection then? I’m referring to a garden variety power strip so many of us use to plug in our TVs and the like around the house, nothing too exotic.
Most garden variety power strips offer no to little surge protection.
Thank you for your response. I guess I should have been more explicit in my question about the protection regarding surge protectors in general by specifying these power strips in the house have built in surge protection and I’m not specifically worried about the surge protection capabilities of the variety of surge protectors we have in our house at this specific time but more of the capabilities of this type of product in general.
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Well, I have a whole house surge, as well as a bunch of high joule surge protectors, and haven’t noticed any issues since a few outages. In terms of how the surge protector works, it’s essentially electrical inertia, right? Anything over a certain rating gets stopped, and the charge redirected to ground.
Are you concerned about a power bubble sneaking past the surge protectors?
Partly a surge overwhelming past the surge protector as if lightning struck the house and partly wondering if the surge protector would even do anything when the power is restored. A couple of our surge protectors have a light on them that is supposed to indicate that surge protection is working in addition to the light that indicates power is being supplied to the surge protector, and these lights are off when the power is out. If there is a power surge when the power is restored would the surge protector start working fast enough to protect whatever is plugged into it?
My grandfather used to unplug things when lightning storms started to prevent damage due to lightning strikes and power surges. He’d wait until the storm was passed and the power restored if it was out before he plugged things back in to avoid damages caused by power surges when the power was restored, the same concern I have but with an older level of technology.
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I looked into these and decided not worth it (UK based, we don’t seem to get power surges like seems to be a problem in the US(?))
General internet consensus seemed to be the cheap ones aren’t that good, and also have a finite lifespan which is difficult to quantify/measure.
Higher joule rating is better.
Most of these cheap ones use Metal Oxide Varistors to push the excess voltage into the earth cable. There’s no electronic wizardry starting up, it’s my understanding they protect all the time.
Obviously, of you don’t have good grounding, they’re useless.
They don’t protect against direct lightning strikes because of the energy involved.
The expensive ones, installed correctly, do seem to work if you have problematic power supply.
I unplug what I can during lightning storms if I’m in the house, it’s the cheapest and most effective protection.
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If you value your equipment, the best and only surge protector you should use is the Triplite Isobar.
I see, you’re concerned about degradation, like what happens to breakers and electronic components in general…short answer is, there will eventually come a point where the surges will fail, and it was conventionally (traditionally) recommended to replace a surge protector every few surges or few years, whichever came first. Typically, a quality surge protector using quality components can last a while, and will bear the brunt of electric fluctuations. More advanced ones can even smooth out dirty power; some UPS can do all of the above.
If TLDR, surge protectors are electrical crumple zones, they are intended to scapegoat as the point of failure.
**they will continue to work until they don’t anymore, just replace them for peace of mind
***technically, every device “surges” when turned on, even if hypothetically only drawing what it needs. We only consider surges to be sustained spikes as HIGHER than the rated or expected power.
I use both whole house and power strips. Belt and suspenders approach.
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