Lightning Safety Awareness Week

NOAA's annual Lightning Safety Awareness week started yesterday. Its held at the onset of the summer storm season to help people prepare. Its a great time to review not only personal lightning safety but how to protect your home. The IEEE surge protection guide helps you do just that. 


For more information on surge protection visit our website.

Lightning claim averages on the rise again

According to the Insurance Information Institute ( I.I.I.), there were more than 186,000 lightning claims in 2011. This resulted in a decrease of 13% from 2010 claims however, the average lightning claim was $5,112 , up 5.5% from 2010. So the reported claims have decreased while the claim amounts have increased. I.I.I. further reports that the average cost per claim has risen 93% from 2004 through 2011, at the same time that the actual number of paid claims fell by over 33 percent over that time frame. They speculate that an increased use of lightning protection systems has resulted in the decrease in claims.

From their Press Release: “The number of paid claims is down, but the average cost per claim continues to rise, in part because of the huge increase in the number and value of consumer electronics in homes,” said Loretta Worters, vice president of the I.I.I. “Plasma and high-definition television sets, home entertainment centers, multiple computer households, smart phones, gaming systems and other expensive devices—which can all be destroyed by power surges—continue to have a significant impact on claims losses.”

The take away from these statistics is to prevent increasingly costly damage in the 1st place and these claims will continue to decline.



Learn more about whole home surge protection.

Surge Protection references

There are a number of third party organization references for surge protection information. For instance APT (parent company of surgeassure) is a NEMA member and NEMA has a website devoted to surge protection, NEMASURGE.


Other sites for surge references include:
State Farm
NIST "Surge Happens"


There are also a number of lightning related sites such as: 
Environment Canada
National Weather Service
National Lightning Safety Institute
Insurance Information Institute

Daisy Chaining.....Don't do it!!!

I've said this before in another post but it bears repeating. Don't daisy chain surge protectors or plug extension cords into surge protectors. Don't do it.


Way too many people making the mistake of daisy chaining and then experiencing an electrical fire. 


Check out this guys question on Ask, Should I replace this surge protector? The responder while not really answering the question properly did give him some practical advice; call an electrician.


The web is full of questions like these on forums. Without getting overly technical just know that surge protectors need to be plugged directly into a grounded receptacle in order to function. While it might be tempting to plug an extension cord into a surge protector to extend cord length don't do it. Cough up the money to have an electrician install a new outlet.   

Surge protector strips: grounded and protected indicator lights

Recently I was posed the questions: "Are both the RED and GREEN indicator light supposed to be on at the same time?" and "What is the difference between  the Grounded and Protected indicator lights?" 


The green grounded light and the red protected light on the plug-in protectors serve two 
different functions. 


The green light indicates that the receptacle has a ground reference. Grounding references are vital for surge protection because Ground is the exit pathway for the excess surge current. No Ground reference and your surge protector will not work. This is why surge protectors are not used on 2-prong outlets. Be mindful, some 3-pronged outlets may not have Ground tied to them and this will be evident when you plug-in the surge protector and the green light is not illuminated.

Ungrounded outlet

Grounded outlet

The red light indicates that the surge protection elements are working. If the red light extinguishes then the surge protector is no longer protecting your equipment. 


Our surge protectors are designed so that they shutdown when the surge protection elements have expired. Always be mindful of the "failure mode" of your surge protection. Some manufacturers products will continue to allow current to flow to your equipment after the surge protection elements have expired. So unless you notice an extinguished indicator light you won't know that your equipment is now unprotected.  

surgeassure SAP6T2V1

For more FAQ's check the website.

Surge protector, TVSS, surge arrestor, lightning suppressor; what is the difference???

There are a lot of terms thrown around in the electrical industry to describe a surge protector. These include TVSS (transient voltage surge suppressor), surge arrestor, lightning suppressor, and Surge Protective Device (SPD) among others. At one point some of these products had differences in installation and application usages but as of major industry changes in 2009 all of these terms have been abandoned by the surge protection industry in favor of the term Surge Protective Device. So while you may hear these terms still being used for under 1000 volt applications (like your home) they are all in fact "surge protective devices." 

For more information on surge protection check out the FAQ.

Surge Suppressor 

Won't my circuit breakers protect me from surges?

A common question we get from homeowners on the support line is why circuit breakers don't just trip when the surge occurs. The oversimplified non-engineer speak answer is that circuit breakers don’t react quickly enough to protect sensitive electronic equipment.  Surge protectors reacts in less that a billionth of a second, much faster than a breaker tripping and the surge even is over before the breaker knows that it occurred. 

It’s also important to note that Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter (GFCI) circuit breakers are not surge protectors and therefore do not provide surge protection, another misperception. They protect against shock hazard.