Surge Protectors Help Your Home's Energy Efficiency

A surge protector protects your electronics in the event of a lightning strike, electrical system failure, or power outage. Spikes or drops in the electrical current traveling through your home’s electrical system can damage appliances, HVAC system components, computers, and home theater equipment. These fluctuations, which may be the result of lightning strikes, tripped circuit breakers or short circuits, are unavoidable, but installing a surge protector helps prevent these surges from causing damage.

These devices can provide more than just protection, though. They can also help lower energy and maintenance or repair costs. Homeowners have a few options in terms of the types of surge protectors available. These can be divided into two categories:

1. Whole house: controls the flow of electricity into your home.

2. Point of entry or use: Controls the flow of electricity from the outlet to the item plugged into it.

A whole house surge protector is wired into your home’s electrical system to protect your entire home. Point of entry devices are connected directly to the items you wish to protect and are available in a few different types. These include:

• Computer surge protectors have inlets for coaxial cable, standard plugs and Ethernet cables.

• Standard surge protection devices consist of multiple outlets on a power strip. These should not be confused with a standard power strip, which works like a multi-outlet extension cord, but does not provide surge protection.

• Home theater surge protectors have numerous outlets, as well as inputs for coaxial cable.

• Energy conservation surge protectors protect most types of electrical equipment, and help reduce the amount of energy used in your home. They consist of two outlets that are always on, and additional outlets that can be turned off when not in use.

A combination of whole house and point of entry devices typically provides the best protection and energy savings.

For more information about surge protection and its benefits in the Tulsa and Broken Arrow area please contact us at Air Assurance.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in the Tulsa and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). 

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

Surge Protection: There's More To It Than a Power Strip

Surge Protection: There's More To It Than a Power Strip

If you're like many other homeowners, your home is full of expensive and complicated appliances and devices, making surge protection more important than ever. Home entertainment systems, kitchen appliances and the heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) system inside your home employ sensitive electronic circuitry to varying degrees. Many homeowners rely on power strips that promise surge protection or plug-in surge protectors to protect their electronics. The protection they provide may be adequate for small spikes in the power supply, but probably can't protect against a lightning strike or a spike in the power caused power returning after an outage.The lightning strike doesn't even need to hit your home to cause catastrophic damage to the appliances inside. Lightning can hit a power pole as close as a mile, travel into your home and burn up your computers and appliances.Other problems associated with power surges could be caused by a high energy using appliance, like a laser printer or your HVAC equipment turning off. Suddenly that extra power will be directed to another appliance and damage its components. It may take months or longer for the appliance to fail or the effect could be immediate.The best protection against power surges caused by lightning, power outages, or electrical fluctuations are whole-house surge protectors. These devices are installed at your circuit breaker box and send excess voltage into a ground wire. Once the flow returns to normal, these surge protection devices allow the power to return as normal.If you aren't home to turn the circuit breakers off when the power goes out or a bad storm is nearby, a whole-house surge protector will give you the assurances you need that you probably won't come home to any problems with your appliances and electronics.It can take time and money to replace your appliances, especially those you rely on for comfort and convenience, like your HVAC system. To learn more about surge protection for your home, contact Air Assurance. We've provided trusted HVAC services for the Broken Arrow area for more than 30 years.Normal0falsefalsefalseEN-USX-NONEX-NONE/* Style Definitions */table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-priority:99;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;mso-para-margin:0in;mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";}

Our goal is to help educate our customers in the Tulsa and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). 

Image courtesy of Shutterstock