{"id":457,"date":"2019-10-28T11:00:15","date_gmt":"2019-10-28T15:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.schererelectric.com\/blog\/?p=457"},"modified":"2019-10-23T14:43:29","modified_gmt":"2019-10-23T18:43:29","slug":"power-strips-do-need-surge-protector-installed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.schererelectric.com\/blog\/electrical\/power-strips-do-need-surge-protector-installed\/","title":{"rendered":"I Have Power Strips, Do I Really Need a Surge Protector Installed?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Yes, you do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before we discuss further how important a surge protector is\nfor a residential electrical system, we want to emphasize that there is nothing\nwrong with using power strips at the various outlets in your home. In fact, we\nencourage it. Multiple layers of defense against electrical surges are beneficial.\nYou never want to overload an outlet in your house with an octopus plug: power\nstrips allow you to plug in multiple items at a single outlet without the concern\nof tripping a circuit breaker because of a voltage spike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The Job of Power Strips vs. the Job of a Whole-House Surge Protector<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

You probably already through of power strips as<\/em> surge\nprotection. I.e. an important bulwark against damage to your precision electronic\nequipment in case of a massive electrical surge in your house. Lightning is\noften what leaps in mind when people think of a power surge, but other common\ncauses are power lines downed in a storm and accidents at power stations. Voltage\nsurges also come in smaller, harder to notice forms. Those times when you\nnotice flickering lights as a powerful appliance turns on somewhere else in the\nhouse \u2026 that\u2019s a small power surge moving through the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The power strip<\/strong> doesn\u2019t exist as a way to protect your\nequipment from a massive surge through the electrical system. A voltage surge\nas powerful as a lightning strike can easily overwhelm a power strip and damage\nequipment anyway, and the smaller surges will get through the strip. The reason\nto have power strips is to avoid a high electrical demand from equipment\nplugged into an outlet from tripping a circuit breaker and cutting off power to\nother parts of the house. The power strip contains its own circuit breaker that\ntrips first, making it easy for you to restore power. This also helps increase\nsafety at the outlet by reducing the changing of an electrical fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The whole-house surge protector<\/strong> has a much broader\njob. It is designed to stop large voltage spikes as well as smaller spikes from\nreaching the various outlets and power switches in the first place. The surge\nprotector is installed into the house\u2019s electrical panel. When an excessive\nlevel of voltage attempts to flow into the panel, the surge protector channels\nthe electricity into the ground\u2014it\u2019s something like a lightning rod, giving the\npower a safer and easier route to take rather than into the home\u2019s electrical\nsystem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A properly installed whole-house surge protector can defend\na home from most levels of voltage spikes, and it also handles the smaller ones\nas well. You cannot install this type of surge protection on your own, however.\nCall a certified electrician to do the job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Buffalo, NY electrical services<\/a> you need for the best surge protection installation, or any other electrical job you may require, are easy to schedule with Scherer Electric. You can call us anytime\u2014you\u2019ll always get through to a real person, not a machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scherer Electric is Western New York\u2019s Favorite Electrician! Schedule surge protection installation or other services with us today.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The power strip isn’t a way to protect your equipment from a massive surge through the electrical system. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[87],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.schererelectric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.schererelectric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.schererelectric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.schererelectric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.schererelectric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.schererelectric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":460,"href":"https:\/\/www.schererelectric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions\/460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.schererelectric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.schererelectric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.schererelectric.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}