Let me tell you why, as a West Palm Beach electrician, my favorite part of the job is putting in whole-house surge protectors. This is what I love about being an electrician. West Palm Beach FL has the biggest, wickedest electrical storms you’ll see anywhere. Every year people lose hundreds, even thousands of dollars worth of electrical equipment due to lightning strikes and power surges.
Unfortunately, what some people don’t understand is that lightning strikes are considered ‘acts of God,’ so a lot of times, insurance companies won’t cover the damage. That’s why you must take precautions to protect your goods.
It used to be that people just had outages that were no big deal, really. The worst might be if you lost a freezer unit, and then you’d have to throw out good food; even that was bad enough. But now, with electrical signals coming and going from homes all the time, and having certain pieces of equipment that can act as huge antennas, nearby lightning strikes can cause a whole lot more damage.
In the 90s, as an electrician in West Palm Beach, we saw people’s VCR’s getting blown out by lightning, but now in the 21st century, we see people losing huge entertainment systems, modems, routers, primary computer equipment, as well as very expensive kitchen appliances.
A friend of mine, Sandy, another West Palm Beach electrician who worked for Elcon Electric, told me about one of his customers, a real geek and computer whiz who had tons of computer equipment. He had so many computer-controlled devices ‘ including his appliances. But everything was wiped out because he didn’t think to put in ‘ you got it ‘ a whole-house surge protector.
He had the small strip protectors on all his computer and entertainment equipment, but this particular lightning strike just blew everything up. A whole house surge protector would have been just that extra layer of protection that he needed.
Now don’t get me wrong ‘ he was on the right track with the strips. In fact, part of what you learn when you have a whole house surge protector put in is that you still have to provide the strip protectors for your electronics as well. You can ask any electrician in West Palm Beach, though: when it comes to something as powerful as lightning striking, you need several layers of protection.
A lot of people think about the strips for their computers, but less often about having them for their entertainment centers, and even less than that about having them for their appliances. They are necessary for any piece of equipment or appliance that is subject to surges. Even if you have fairly stable electrical current, a surge can always happen — somebody hitting a nearby electrical pole can cause a surge. Sometimes after the power has gone out, big surges happen when the electricity comes back on. You never know what might happen, or when ‘ but you can certainly be prepared for it.
Whole house surge protectors are that important top layer of protection. The only thing beyond that is to install a lightning rod in case of a direct hit, but of course direct hits more rarely happen.
Those are my observations as an electrician. West Palm Beach has wicked thunder storms with damaging lightning. So as an electrician in West Palm Beach FL, I would love to install your whole house surge protector. It’s not much bigger than a bread box but ties directly in to your circuitry so that everything is protected. Costs have come down a lot, too, in the last couple of years as the technology has advanced.
Have a great day, and give us a call before the next storm rolls in. Remember, too, if you need any other type of electrical work done, whether it’s a new dimmer, a ceiling fan replaced, some new custom lighting, or even a complete rewire, we promise that Elcon Electric will be the right West Palm Beach electrician for you.
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