Whole House or Whole Building Surge Protector

[agave]

Anyone installed or familiar with whole house or whole building surge protector/suppressors? Not the cheap power strips with built-in surge protection, but the kind that you install in the electrical distribution panel.

Looking for recommendations on locally available brands, and where to buy...

TIA

[cyberfunk]

There's some available at popular hardware stores. Sort of a power regulator. I installed one before but it's a 110v regulator. The entire house appliances was shipped from the states and everything is 110v. Like an electronic transformer and voltage regulator. Check your electrical plan load capacity before buying it comes in different load power output.

But how often you bust an appliance from power surges?

[agave]

There's some available at popular hardware stores. Sort of a power regulator. I installed one before but it's a 110v regulator. The entire house appliances was shipped from the states and everything is 110v. Like an electronic transformer and voltage regulator. Check your electrical plan load capacity before buying it comes in different load power output.

But how often you bust an appliance from power surges?

Interesting, sounds like a conventional stepdown transformer/AVR ... that I assume was inserted at the panel to power one or more branch circuits...

Power surges ... not often, but once is enough and one too many. Last surge during a storm went right through the big APC UPSes and damaged many computers and related equipment. Burn marks on power supplies/circuitry and on one convenience outlet. I thought the UPSes had built-in surge suppression but apparently not, or not enough.

The UPSes themselves were not damaged, but some of the connected equipment were.

[cyberfunk]

As far as electrical storms are concerned, even if you have a UPS or Voltage regulator if you're system has the standard local two prong outlets it won't help as much. You need proper grounding with the three prong set up.

[orijinal]

I think I have to agree with cyberfunk. Proper grounding. Sabi mo kasi it happened during a storm and only the gadgets connected to the equipment were damaged. Pero I'll ask my dad kung ano yung ginagawa nya para ma-prevent yung power surge, especially during storms.

[albert_b]

Shouldn't the fuse box protect you from those regular power spikes we get? Well if you need more protection and as far as I can tell, dalawa lang dapat mo bantayan na source ng power surge: 1) lightning strikes & 2) a really bad electrical fault (like power lines crossing or a line-to-line fault) then yeah, you're looking for a whole house surge protection. Let me add lang some info I know about it (though I haven't really put this in my home yet).

As cyber mentioned, you will definitely need very good grounding for this para once the surge hits, the surge protection diverts it to your ground. (I could be wrong here, not an electrician) the whole house surge protection doesn't regulate your electrical voltage so as far as I can tell, there's really no load ratings to consider for this. What happens is that it just gives the power surge an alternate (less resistive) path to take away from your electrical appliances.

Let me also add na yung surge doesn't necessarily have to come from the power lines lang. The can also travel along the tv cable lines and on the telephone lines. So if your rows of computers are plugged onto a router that connects to a DSL hard line, when a lightning hits the PLDT line, the surge will travel and propagate thru your network lines.

Now, unless you're also looking to regulate or stabilize your electrical voltage levels (for example, when the water pump kicks in, the lights flicker) then that's a different story.

[agave]

As far as electrical storms are concerned, even if you have a UPS or Voltage regulator if you're system has the standard local two prong outlets it won't help as much. You need proper grounding with the three prong set up.

Thanks, yes, there is a ground wire distributed to the 3-prong outlets, although most equipment have only 2-prong plugs. In fact, in the last incident mentioned, one evidence that the surge came via power and not via phone/DSL or external antenna is that the burn mark on one outlet was between hot and ground.

Shouldn't the fuse box protect you from those regular power spikes we get?

Let me also add na yung surge doesn't necessarily have to come from the power lines lang. The can also travel along the tv cable lines and on the telephone lines. So if your rows of computers are plugged onto a router that connects to a DSL hard line, when a lightning hits the PLDT line, the surge will travel and propagate thru your network lines.

Thanks for the comments. I believe fuses/circuit breakers will protect against overcurrent (after some delay) but will not prevent overvoltage from reaching the connected loads.

You are right about other surge paths. In previous surge incidents (previous to the last one mentioned), the surge came via phone. In one case, it was discovered that the phone company's suppressor in the phone company's box was not connected. Now, we make sure that their suppressors are not only present but connected, and that we also have phone line protectors on our side.

Surges have also come in from outside antenna, even though there was already a suppressor on the cable. Only sure way that I know to block that is with optical isolation, which we put in.

As for power, it looks like Leviton, Intermatic, and others make panel-mounted suppressors. Don't know about local availability or local prices though, still have to check...

Also, the utility company now grounded the center tap on secondary (120-0-120 V) side of their transformer to reduce chance of future incidents.

[orijinal]

Ngayon ko lang nabasa ulit itong thread. I have to agree agave. I just asked my dad last weekend. He just told me the same thing above. If you have concerns regarding electrical works which "We"(Y-Delta Industrial & Electrical Services) can render you are always welcome to send me a PM.