Pretty much everyone knows about your standard surge protector but most don't know about whole home surge protectors or about the new codes. Glad you have it all together!
I wasn't aware of these until watching your video on this. It does make 100% sense to install one if you don't have one already. Definitely going to get one and install it as I don't have one currently. Great informative video 😊😊😊 Thank you for posting this video.
@@Hawka-Loogy That is not what the code is saying. It is just saying that a SPD is to be supplied at all services. Supplied does not mean given, it just means it has to be there. Now some utility companies will sell them and they install them directly into the meter. I personally did not like that option as they are either around the price of the one in the video or more expensive, they oftentimes don't have an alarm or way of letting you know they need replaced, and often are not rated for as high of surges as the one in the video. But it is an option at a cost of course.
One point - when using a multimeter to measure voltage in a box, you may want to show how to insure continuity of the meter leads with the ohms function or placing the leads on a known live circuit before measuring the voltage. I once did a firefighter assist with EMTs for a guy who was severely burned when working in a 440 V box. Subsequent investigation showed that one of his meter leads was open. Since that time, I always check my meter leads before measuring potentially dangerous voltage.
@@keacoq a voltmeter is fine if you trust it and it's auctully a good quality one Also most of the higher end fluke meters and stuff could like that could also technically be called one as they measure voltage
Seems like these should be built into smart meters and monitored by utility so they can replace as needed instead of expecting random seniors and busy parents to stay on top of it.
@@polarys425 Your sarcastic comment is exactly correct. If it's now considered a critical function of the grid then it should be monitored and maintained by grid operation specialists, not random grandmas and grandpas.
@thedaveking the power company stops at the meter. I guess you want them to take care of your breaker panel too. Maybe you should call them to come out and reset a breaker when it trips. Bunch of nanny state idiots.
For Safety reasons, you should inform your viewers the following: Prior to using your multimeter when checking for voltage after you switched off the breaker, or disconnect Switch. You should first check to ensure your meter is actually in working condition by testing a known live device.
I'm a RF engineer, definitely not an electrician. But I have designed high power limiters for the RF transmitters (which I also design). Essentially, limiters perform the same function as a surge protector, just a different type of scenario. The importance of keeping the wires short is due to the wavelength of the transient(s) (i.e. the 'surge') spike and also to reduce inductance of the wire - both which limit the effectiveness of the SPD's ability to clamp a surge. Transients voltages (i.e. a lightning strike) can be converted from the time domain to the frequency domain, and that frequency has a physical length, depending on the medium it's in (air, a printed circuit board, etc. affect the physical length). If the SPD is a quarter wavelength away from the connector point (i.e. the breaker) at the frequency of the transient, the SPD's 'shunt' impedance will appear as an 'open' at the breaker, meaning the SPD is ineffective. Also, when I mentioned the transient and converting it to frequency above - transients actually contain a multitude of frequencies, all which have a different wavelength. Unfortunately, it's not an easy problem to solve by attaching a SPD outside the box. The ideal solution is to install a SPD inline, between the feed and the breaker box since this eliminates the lead inductance and the wavelength issue. But that is not practical on a retrofit. Personally, I'd still install one. A surge can take on many forms, and you almost need to attack it from many directions (SPD at the box, surge protectors at outlets, etc.). Honestly, I'm surprised the electrical box manufactures haven't designed a panel with a replaceable, high quality and inline SPD at part of the electrical box (between the feed and breakers) - that would be the ideal solution for a new build. I'm not an electrician, so maybe there's some out there already? I know Square D makes a SPD that fits in a breaker spot, but that has some limitations (I have several of the those). No doubt it's a tough nut to crack and if it's from lightning, it tends to do what it wants. And there's other surge scenarios that an external SPD will work as intended, so it's definitely a crap shoot at times. Our house had a direct hit last year. Ironically, it hit the roof, bypassing the breaker box and the surge protectors located there, and snuck in via other paths (the outdoor can lights). TV issues due to going in thru the power line - no issues. HDMI ports? - kapow! I guess you do what you can. Sorry if I got a little technical. There's really a lot going on in order to make an SPD effective, and I really just lightly touched on some of the important details. Likely a surge is defined as certain waveform by the NEC (correct me if I'm wrong), and a SPD is designed around those conditions. Whew - that's a lot of typing! :)
@@alexwolf8019I don't know if the the breaker would trip of not, probably just depends on the duration of the surge and/or if the SPD becomes permanently shorted. I assume if the SPD is shorted, the mains have enough current to blow it to bits - hence the breaker. As you mentioned, ideally the SPD is in-between the mains and the breaker box, then the surge protector provides a low impedance across a wide spectrum of transients. I've seen SPD's used in outlets mention the line can open up if the the MOV trips, some don't.
As a retired RF engineer I concur fully with this gentleman's statement here. I am skeptical of the effectiveness of these devices because of the thin gauge and long length of the wires that connect the device to the power supply bus.
@@basspig Greetings from a fellow RF engineer (mostly-retired)! Surge protectors are an interesting subject. Simple at first, until you dig into the details. I mentioned above we had a direct hit from lightning so I started to replace my outlet surge protectors with new ones just to be on the safe side. Bought a Philips outlet surge suppressor at Wallymart. Probably like most, I tended to focus on the clamping current...until I noticed the clamping voltage. 900V!! Yikes - why bother.
@@Mark-hb5zfWe had many challenges at radio tower sites. For obvious reasons. :-) One of the most effective measures I've had against lightning was winding the last 20' of mains cable into a loop, several turns-worth. The first step in absorbing surges is to present as high an impedance as possible BEFORE the shunting device. In my experience, the surge protector devices do little to protect sensitive electronics. Just having a power outage can kill computer equipment that is not on a UPS, as I have found out over the last 25 years. Surge protection has to take into account both differential and common mode voltage spikes. Then there's the EMP factor with lightning, inducing currents in any wires connected between devices, such as USB cables computers and peripherals. Only Faraday shielding the building can solve that last one. I had an interesting call from a NY radio station I was CE at in the 1990s. They'd suffered a lightning strike on their tower, co-located with the studio. All of their computer monitors displayed distorted images with "rainbows". I knew right away what happened. So upon arriving, I grabbed a bulk tape eraser, powered it up and walked up to each monitor and de-magnetized them. All back to normal.
@@basspig Loops - Neat idea to help get a little bit more inductance on the outside of the shield for free, heck of a lot better than just a straight run. Did the setups usually just employ one protection device, or did you have several, spaced a certain distance apart? Were the protection devices a gas discharge tubes (I don't have much experience with those)? Now that I mentioned a gas discharge tube, I wonder if those could be used in a SPD for the breaker box? I was assuming the SPD's for the breaker box are just a bunch of MOV's? Maybe that was the wrong assumption. OP: Don't mean to hijack the comments, but it is sort of related w/respect to surge protection, albeit a little more obscure side of the topic.
How it works: the device detects excess voltage in the entire electrical system (since it’s all at the same voltage) and diverts the excess to ground. As long as it’s connected anywhere in the panel it should drop the voltage for all circuits in the panel (because of the common bus - anything that can drop voltage can affect other items, kind of like when your lights dim when your a/c comes on).
Until that 20 amp breaker trips due to a surge that's greater than 20 amps, then it's useless, unless you're constantly looking at the LED's. This is the first time I've seen this kind of device, and I'm not electrician; just someone who understands electricity very well. But, something seems wrong about this whole thing. If you're protecting the whole 200 amp panel, shouldn't the surge protector be rated for 200 amps? Am I missing something?
The breaker doesn't trip due to a surge. These devices briefly short that surge to ground themselves. That's the protection and the one he recommends can send 140,000 amps to ground. The breaker only trips if the surge is so great the device sacrifices itself to spare your home. That's why the 20 amp breaker trips.
@@theclearsounds3911 you’re missing that a 20A breaker doesn’t trip the instant 20A on a circuit is reached & that spikes are usually very short duration. All breakers have a tolerance for how long an over-current condition is allowed to persist before they trip. Even a 20A breaker can generally take 200A for a second or two before it trips, which is a much longer duration than the average power spike. So having to have a 200A breaker for this application is overkill for no real benefit.
Whole home surge protectors are very expensive and have a limited life. I installed BRANCH circuit protectors (20 amp) as my 20 of them cost less than a third of a whole-house protector. My house is 98 years-old and isn't "code" anyway, although it's electrically far SAFER than new construction. My late Daddy and I were both in aircraft electric repair and worked with 600 volt 400 Hz AC, he in B-47's and I in F-4 Phantom II's and "Scooters" and combat repair of other aircraft in SE Asia. We re-wired this house for my Grandparents, and the four "BX" armored cable 14 gauge circuits I use ONLY for lights. When I bought the house from the estate, I ran 10 gauge Romex to things like my entertainment center outlet and 2 gauge "220" to the detached garage for my shop and installed a new sub-panel in the garage. The Sola brand protectors I used claim they'll stop 5 or 6 major surges (like near-by lighting strikes) then they're gone. In 30 years I haven't needed to replace one yet.
Hello sir, can you explain to me a little bit about "branch circuit". Are these like independent breakers with surge protection? I want to protect all my 120 v and 240 v equipment. Can you point me to the right direction? Thank you. OM
We had a bad linesman do a repair (dirty power) on the powerpole near our house. A year later we came home to a disaster. The neutral had dropped from the pole, the power had nowhere to go back to and the voltage kept climbing in our house. Destroyed two water heaters, two whole house electrostatic filters. all small electronics from alarm clocks to gaming consoles. Destroyed many plug in surge protectors and set fire to my air compressor in the detached garage. The garage was full of acrid black smoke as the fire caused the compressor oil to leak which in turn caught fire.
@kidkv Unfortunately, this was not a short circuit situation, a dropped neutral causes voltage climb, it is not a ground fault. The electric company took full responsiblity, paid all claims outside of insurance company involvement, their head trainer was actually the guy who responded and came out and took photos of the bad connections, and the fire damage in the garage, said it was the worst connections he had ever seen in 40 years and would use this as a case study and develop training materials on the importance on following the SOP on making neutral connections. As you are an expert in electrical engineering you would know that the neutrals and the ground connect to the same bus bar and all go back to the neutral at the pole. If there was a short and the main trip to the house supply went then everything would have went to the ground circuit and to the ground rod. But please keep commenting, your input is very valuable.
@dansanger5340 Thanks for your comments, I looked into that subsequent to your comment. Yes, a surge protector would not have helped me on the voltage continuing to climb, only a good neutral connection can save you. That is why as soon as you see you have dirty power, call the electric company to see if there is a bad nuetral. We obviously did that but they either did not do anything and said they did or just made another bad connection. I don't know, maybe there is a device that detects a sustained voltage increase, and can somehow trip a breaker to simulate a ground fault, I shall keep researching.
You missed the absolute most important reason the these got placed in the 2020 NEC! I designed electrical systems since my first NEC 1981 started in 1983. I have attended NEC classes every 3 years and had additional classes on NEC numerous times. My last class was 2020. Up until 2005 to 2008 the NEC was always about life safety. That was its rock hard core principle for being written. Then, the electrical manufacturers started getting their employees inserted into the different panels. It didn’t take long until the NEC is now used as a very strong sales tool. Being on the panel, “THEY WILL TELL YOU” I can not bring up changes to the NEC, I can only vote for or against suggested revisions. Who made the suggestions, you might ask, other people within their company. Before 2017 NEC none of the panel board manufacturers made these devices. Then they decided they could make them and force you to pay them for them. That my friends is how to make money in the US!
Note the disclaimer text displayed noting that is recommended that additional surge protection should be installed on “sensitive” equipment. I suppose the technology may have improved but to this point it has always been my understanding that a “whole house” protector would not protect any “sensitive” device, a.k.a. “circuit boards”.
Several years ago the local electrical contractors lobbied the city council in an effort to change the local code to prohibit home owners from doing any of their own electrical work in the name of safety. We can all say that was BS.
@@ThisIsToolman Before these panel board company manufactured units, I had many meetings with the specialized companies. You are right. They wanted layers of surge protection down to the surge receptacle. So, where is the life safety? They had to stretch very hard to find anyway to call it life safety.
@ThisIsToolman that’s not what it was for. There are still internal surges that happen that you want to protect your sensitive electronics from over time being worn down.
As a 40+ year Florida resident, I've had multiple equipment failures discovered after lightning events. The common denominator for all failures was each device being directly connected to earth ground or connected to a buried telephone or coaxial cable. Lightning can transiently change earth ground voltage potential in the area near a strike.
When clamping the wires in the breaker, make SURE that you are NOT clamping on the insulation!!!! It looked like there was some insulation under the clamps at 12:12 and 11:56.
I put one of these in my home a few years ago after a near direct hit from lightning fried some network components. Thankfully that's all the lightning took out. No issues since.
I live in Japan. Houses are supplied with 100-0-100V split phase power similar to the US (120-0-120V) system. However, in Japan, the neutral is never bonded to Earth ground. (Actually the neutral is Earth grounded at the distribution transformer.) The main breaker is always a GFCI breaker and 200V appliances are provided with a separate Neutral and a green wire wire to Earth ground. I am planning to install a whole house surge protector due to the large amount of electronic devices I have. Thanks for your video.
That is much more sensible than the systems we have in the USA and in Europe and beyond. The mantra in bonding is "single point ground" but our practices ignore that altogether. Single point ground violations are responsible for most equipment damage but do not present much of a life or fire hazard, so we still have them.
@@flagmichael You took the words out of my mouth. The US practice is bad from an engineering standpoint because it sets up a parallel path and the possibility that unbalanced neutral current can flow through the ground back to the utility transformer from the service panel. It is rare but could happen in some circumstances. Of course the utilities aren't covered under the NEC so they are going to put in their own ground by gawd. The NEC sort of admits the folly of this practice because for separately derived systems (where the user owns the transformer) the neutral is only bonded to ground at one location and not both.
I was ahead of the curve as I have been putting a hole house surge protector on the homes I buy for 25 years just for the very reasons you told us about. Having one electronic equipment smoked taut me a very painful lessen.
For 50 years and longer never had a surge issue damaging anything. Last year I added a Square-D surge protector that fits into a breaker slot on my homeline panel. It is doing its job silently, still no surges that need protecting against ever noticed. Codes compliance keep electric people busy making money.
We live in Newport News VA, perhaps our area and Dominion power has little troubles with surges. We also almost never lose power. Last time without power was Hurricane Isabel, was out for 12 days which was tough, but the Troy-Bilt 8000 watt generator worked well for the whole house with the interlock. @@HowToHomeDIY
I often observe "it is better to be lucky than good." You are in an area that does not get a lot of lightning strikes on the lines. Usually people in vulnerable areas take strikes every few years or even more frequently. The cost of having an SPD installed is a tiny fraction of the cost of a healthy lightning strike. Five years ago I retired from IT Filed Services for a Fortune 100 electric company. (There is only one here in Arizona, but I don't feel right mentioning their name.) Many of our communication facilities took lightning strikes, with a few costing us less than $1000, most in the $3000 - $20,000 range. The last big one I attended did over $30,000 damage to one piece of equipment and it took me more than a year of puzzling to understand how it got in.
Surge protection was a major part of my job before I retired (including faraday cages and other over the top attempts at subverting Mother Nature), but I never thought about the house. Thanks for the pome in the ribs!
Most of my focus was controlling lightning damage to equipment in remote comm sites. Our house is not tall enough to be a lightning target (unlike the towers at our comm sites) so I only have trouble with modest surges on our underground lines.
Florida native. I've had plenty of damage to equipment over the years **BUT NEVER from the mains*. Even when buildings were directly hit by lightning, the power lines were NOT affected. Equipment was always damaged on the signal side, or from EMPs. I still use surge protection, but I think they're very much overrated. Perhaps the threats are different in a different part of the country.
For many of us, our heat pump is our most expensive electrical device. There are surge protectors specifically designed for HVAC equipment and installed at its shut-off box with no breaker required. They'll protect against internal and external surges. In addition to the FS140, I installed the Intermatic AG3000 next to my compressor. You might want to review them.
If the NEC is worried about saving smoke detectors, they should force the detector manufacturers to install MOV's or other such surge device in their devices. It seems to me that they made the surge protectors code because they are trying to protect their useless arc-fault breakers that they put in code a couple cycles back. Therein lies the problem with having electrical manufacturers on the NEC code making panel. Its a money issue diguised as a safety issue.
Thanks for the great video. Living in Florida, the lightning capital of the US, I decided to protect our home with an Eaton whole house surge protector. I installed it 7 years ago and the two green lights on the unit are still glowing 😀. It was very easy to install and certainly feel more secure in the event of a lightning strike. Prior to the install, we did have a strike nearby and it blew out our security alarm system which wasn't a cheap repair. Hopefully, these devices will protect like they advertise.
My home builder installed two breaker-style EATON whole house surge protectors during construction, and they've already been putting in work dealing with surges due to heavy storms and partial brownouts. They're still going strong. The next goal is to eventually get a whole house backup generator so we don't have to worry about the occasional blackout.
We live in an area that has numerous power bumps and outages every week. Have already burned through 2 battery back-ups for our computers and have had to replace circuit boards on several appliances. We had the power company electrician here working on wiring to our barn and I asked if he would also install a whole home protector on the house. He refused - said they don't work for the type of surges we get would only work for high surges that we are unlikely to get so not worth the expense. Honestly - I disagreed (even though I know nothing about how it all works) It just seems to make sense to me that the protection would help. Glad to hear code has changed - we are doing some remodeling this spring - I'm adding this to the list.
Your videos have taught me a lot. I'm just 10 days away from my one year mark as a new electrician with no schooling. I can honestly say that you have helped me more than my 17 year experienced mentor. THANK YOU BROTHER
Siemens makes a two position breaker which is also a surge protector. It is available as either a 15 or 20 amp breaker. QSA2020SPD or QSA1515SPD. Allows you to add surge protection to a full panel. Eaton and Sq D have breaker size surge protectors that do not function as circuit breakers for a lower cost. These will work fine if you have extra room in the panel.
Thank you, I actually have a few of these I acquired at an auction, may not be same brand, I did not realize that they were a code requirement now. So I will move up getting one of mine installed in the near term. As to the value of these, they may not save a damn thing but they also might be the difference between a fire or not. Screw the cost of the equipment, my concern is losing my home, so I am going to say better safe than sorry. Most surges only last milliseconds and no this is not going to be good enough for a direct lightning strike but it should make the difference in a nearby one. It might or might not help in an emp event, but then the ones that are specifically sold for that purpose are basically just one of these. I was an electrician in the past but not anymore, I do my own wiring, I am lucky enough to live in a state where I can still do my own work, I do not pull a permit for a damn thing. No one's business but my own. If you have no ability to get to your box, or room in it. You could piggy back it onto any 2 pole circuit, even your oven but the dryer or the hot water heater would be easier, just add it in an extension cord fashion. Note this would not NEC approved but it would work. I am not sure it would help as I said but it damn well would not hurt. We all waste thousands of dollars on things like insurance we hope we never need. This is just one more of those things. If you can afford it or just like me happen to come across one, it is worth having for that hope it might help in an emp event. I can live with the loss of my electronics, I cannot live with the loss of a home due to a fire. I really think it is a shame so many men cannot understand or in fact install a device like this, this is one of the reasons our civilization is in such trouble, every man and in reality every woman as well should understand enough to know how to do things of this nature. There is a world of difference between choosing to hire work done and being dependent on someone else because you cannot.
But here is the deal , a few day ago from typing this , we had bad power supply from the wind knocking the lines This SPD won't protect your home from that but that will destroy more electronics But here is one thing they will protect, your darn AC/heatpump when the darn thing is just trying to get started, yes your AC/heatpump pulls a lot of amps enough amps that those darn things just won't let them run , meaning you can say bye bye to cool air in the summer and If you have a heatpump, you will be forced to use the Emrgency heat source all winter long simply because the locked compressor amps are high enough to always blow that device
We have 2 houses with deep wells on the same property. Replacing a pump on a deep well is a pain in the ass. Homeowners insurance pays most of the cost but not all of it. Thanks for the heads up.
I installed the Eaton whole house protector 10 years ago at my service panel. Less than a week after I installed the surge protector, There was a lightning storm about 10 miles away and the surge came down the utility line. The sword protector work the way it's supposed to. It shunted the excess power to ground, then went back to protecting the house. My TV temporarily shut down and then turned back on. That's how I knew the surge protector was working. The surge protector also protects against stray surges that occur from one year. Air conditioner or air handler turns off. It's an added side benefit. In addition to the whole house surge protector, I use local surge protectors at my sensitive electronic devices, just in case any stray surges get past the main protector.
And have you replaced your surge protector in the last 10 years? One thing few people seem to talk about (thankfully this video did) is that surge protectors only last 3-5 years before they don't really function anymore.
"My TV temporarily shut down and then turned back on. That's how I knew the surge protector was working." No that just means you probably experienced a voltage sag that are very common when utility reclosers operate during thunderstorms and wind storms. It probably had nothing to do with the surge protector.
I think it was added because our grid is getting flakier. More sags, brown outs, black outs, etc. I grew up in rural Ohio 50+ years ago and we didn't have outages very often. Forward to today, in suburbia, and it blinks every couple weeks visibly, drops enough to trip ups on monthly or more, and every few years goes out for days on end. Utilities arent keeping up on needs or maintenance.
I went with an Eaton surge protector that fits inside my Eaton panel. It's really easy to install. You just pop it in like a 240V breaker, then connect a single wire to the neutral buss. It doesn't have as high of a surge rating as some of the externally mounted devices, but it should be good enough in most cases.
Do I want whole house surge protection on my house? Yes. Do I think it is the place of the NEC to require it? No NO. It has become very clear to me, that manufacturers of devices have clearly influenced the NEC to require things that go far beyond fire safety. The NECs mission was always to provide for fire and electrical safety. Many of the newest code requirements are clearly unrelated to safety and have the sales of devices in mind. I would not be surprised if some states were to say it has gone too far and go back to say, the 1999 code book. The cost of all this is what is making homes unaffordable. This a perfect example of what was once a great organization gone amuck.
I understand where you are coming from but don’t see how this is one of those instances. You say the NEC is for safety and I clearly laid out why they implemented this code to protect safety devices from being damaged to where they would not function properly anymore in the event of a fire, carbon monoxide, etc. So who if not the NEC should require this? It has solid reasoning. The amount of people attacking this idea, their only reasoning is it must be about money when the evidence is clear that a whole home surge protector can in fact make the home a safer place. Just seems like a conspiracy theory based on nothing. And to say this is item and others are what are driving home prices up is false. Come on now. Home prices didn’t double, triple, or even quadruple in price because of a surge protector or other items like it and I think you know that. Did my cost of groceries, gas, etc. go up because of surge protectors too? Not trying to be sarcastic, just making the point that it was due to a lot more than a new requirement here or there.
It may be nit picking but you are right... the NFPA is all about life and fire safety. I'll forgive the over-reach but it could be troublesome precedence down the line.
I'd have to upgrade at least my breaker box if not the service level to add a SPD to my house. I don't have any empty breaker locations in my electrical box... But I'm planning on a breaker box upgrade in a year or two as I'd like a couple more circuits (separate lighting and outlets in the basement, outdoor outlets, conversion from gas to induction cooking, etc.) Now that I know about the requirement for a SPD, that "up charge" won't be a surprise and I can plan it into the budget.
Next door neighbor rebuilt their entire kitchen. Fancy new appliances, controlled with state-of-the-art electronics. A few months later we had a huge power surge. Fried everything in their kitchen. Thousands in damages. That new stuff is EXPENSIVE. They got a whole house surge protector installed very quickly. Me ... I got hit with the same surge, but no fancy electronic appliances in MY kitchen. All Old School. My computers and electronics do, of course, have heavy duty surge protection.
Excellent and informative video. I put this same Siemens device into my home about a year ago. I had experienced a few surges through the years that fried some of my electrical equipment and wanted a solution that would limit that in the future. After doing some research, I found the Siemens unit to be the most effective for a homeowner. Pretty straightforward to install too.
Glad to see you spreading the word. I installed a Siemens one in my panel that just took the place of a 240v circuit breaker for the dryer I wasn't using, very convenient packaging.
You're very fortunate to have access to the main outside supply breakers. Where I live these are only accessible by the local utility and they use this as a selling point for their subscription-based surge protection plans. I installed an Eaton CHP ULTRA inside but would love it if I could also add an external device.
Excellent video. Did not know that device is required on new work now. I put one on my panel years ago (I’m a retired electrician). They were really expensive back then too.
I have the exact same Siemens surge protector installed this spring, but I don't think it's been very effective. This summer, we experienced a lightning strike nearby, and many of our electronics were still affected.
These are surge protectors not lightning protection. Lightning can induce thousands of volts at thousands of amps which require equipment magnitudes more expensive. Just thought you should know. Some of the snake oil sales types call what you have lightning protection, but it isn't. The primary purpose of the grounding rod found on many homes is primarily for diversion of lightning strikes (up to a point). Verifying that the grounding (earth ground) wire from the main breaker box is the correct gauge for your service, is securely connected to your grounding rod (no corrosion-weather protection is advisable as well as some anti-corrosion chemical especially in salt water locations), and a verification that your grounding rod is sufficiently deep for your locale. In many locations this is not possible due to hard and dry rock formations close to the earth's surface. Austin, Texas is a good example, as many electric utility personnel run earth ground testing on large structures there.
A couple of hundred feet of wire beyond the protection will inductively pick up surges from near misses! Lightning creates what called an EMP and in some cases all it takes is a long enough foil trace on a circuit board to pick it up and cause damage!
@@TheDigitaldoug They are intended for all surges, including lightning protection. The present standard for SPDs is 200,000 amps - the standard replaced Transient Voltage Surge Suppressors (TVSS) that were typically rated at 25,000 amps. Given that lightning averages about 100,000 amps for the first millisecond or so before it drops off SPDs are plenty... but as others mention inductive surges can be very large indeed. All the protection in the world doesn't matter unless the installer is serious about single point ground.
@@flagmichael you must have weak lightning where you live, as lightning will destroy almost anything and no SPD stands a chance. Like I said only snake oil salesmen push this lie.
This was a great video. I am not an electrician and was not aware of the new requirement. The Siemens SPD is a solid device and I have used it to protect field devices here in lightening ally Florida. This is important to note. These devices depend upon good low ohm grounding to give the best protection. Maybe you could elaborate on that aspect for everyone.
I would say "single point ground" is far more important than low ohm grounding. Here in arid Arizona our engineers struggle to get the ground below 10 ohms, even with a large array of chem rods. Think of it like this: a typical lightning strike on a system that has one ohm ground resistance will produce a 100,000 volt jump in the surrounding terrain. Just make sure all your grounds reference to one point, and all is well.
Glad to know these exists, I’ll be looking into getting one. It would’ve been really helpful to show what to do in most homes, as few have extra or empty breaker capacity.
I have a Siemens sub-panel right next to the main panel with a number of available breaker slots, and installed a Siemens SPD "breaker" in it. That part was easy. Just slot it in like a normal breaker and attach the neutral wire to neutral. Done. The SPD applies to the whole house, but it is also integrated with two 15A breakers (one on each hot) which can break a circuit if the surge protection triggers. At the moment I don't use the breakers. It has two LEDs (one for each hot) indicating that the surge protection is good. Small surges that don't blow the surge protector's internal fuse(s) (which are separate from the breaker) will trip the breaker and the SPD will remain good once you've reset the breaker. However, any surge large enough to blow the internal fuse(s) (on any SPD) usually requires replacement of that SPD. But here's the problem, these SPDs can only deal with relatively small surges, usually up to no more than 30-100 joules depending on the unit. Once they blow, they are no longer protecting anything. So I dunno... I'm wondering exactly what kind of surges these devices are meant to protect against? They obviously can't protect against a lightning strike anywhere even remotely close to the house. They can't protect against any sort of continuous problem on the grid for the same reason. One can put sensitive circuits on the breaker part of the surge protector, but that certainly isn't protecting the whole house. So these SPDs can only protect against relatively low-energy surges... but what cause those? What are they supposed to be protecting again?
I had one installed years ago just because it was a good idea. I also have a point of use at the inside and outside AC units. My electronics inside have battery backups. Florida is the lightning capital of the world
When testing if terminals are hot or dead ALWAYS connect your meter leads to GND/Neut FIRST, THEN touch the "hot" to test. If you touch the HOTs first, your meter and leads are HOT (if energized) and shock hazard exists!
Interesting requirement that still dose not remove the need for individual device surge protection. About 20 years ago lightning struck a tree roughly 200' from the house, but the dog wire went thru the roots causing all of the splices to blow fry the board and arc to the phone line next to it, the phone line fried the modem on my desktop. After that I surge protect all outside sources.
I have seen Square D, Homeline series that have what looks like a 2 pole breaker that pops in place for around $100 or so. I do building inspections for the city I live in. It is a neat and tidy job when finished inside of the service panel.
I am no electrician and may be wrong, but I understand that even heavy duty surge protectors cannot protect your home from a lightning strike. Please correct me if I'm mistaken Thanks!
Indeed they cannot . The one I installed five years ago did, however, APPEAR to protect from surges caused by hits to the nearby primary power lines. You also need either a SP power strip or outlet surge protectors to completely protect "sensitive" devices ( computers, TVs etc.).
There's a lot of factors that go into determining what will survive a strike. Like if it's a direct strike, the total energy of the strike, where the strike hits, if you have a "ground window" or not, etc. Most residences can't afford the cost of what it takes to protect against a high energy direct strike.
It won't protect in the event of a direct strike, but they do help when a strike is down the line a ways. For direct strikes you would need a lightening arrestor, which is a completely different animal.
yesterday installed the Boltshield FSPD140. Same installation principle as with this model. I only have one panel outside the house with multiple knockouts at bottom and only one on the side-bottom like in this vid. My main breaker is at the top of the panel so had to drill out a new hole on the left-side closest to the main breaker. Wired it up like in this vid and it worked like a charm. The only thing about the Boltshield is upside down because of it being on the left of the panel(who cares) and it has wires for an alarm hookup.
The NEC is becoming a design manual with all their requirements. With that said, I've had a surge protector since the mid 90's. It helped the old incandescent light bulbs last a lot longer.
True, someone is making a lot of money. Also, the insurance companies have a stake in these devices. I have seen a three 200 amp MOV explode in a large spindle drive on a CNC machine explode do to a power surge and it took out every SCR all 6 of them and to 2 trigger transformers. So even if you have something in place if the surge is too high then you are still "SOL" And as always, it's not about protecting you, it's about the money!
I installed a GE whole house surge protector after a power surge destroyed the blower motor in my furnace. The price for the GE surge protector has more than doubled since I installed mine. This Siemens device offers a lot more protection but was not available when I was looking for a whole house surge protector.
And as an EE this is where i get pissed at the code making panels. Computers have had far less failures for many years. AND yes it is a threat but for them to come out as that for a reason with no statistics behind these changes erodes the authority of the CMP and makes us as EE scratch our heads and go great a bunch of sparks and fire fighters who don't really understand the problem.
i lived in a small country where brown out, load shedding and other interruptions was frequent so for over 20 years now we use inexpensive surge boxes that plug in the receptacle and the appliances plug into them that monitors over and under voltage, surges especially for refrigerators it provides a delay restart to allow the fridge compressor to relieve some pressure before restarting.. i seen similar items on Amazon for ago $30 now a days plus for really sensitive stuff a UPS works wonders
I went to four sites and they all gave a non-answer answer. One said it works exactly like a power strip surge protector, which does not make sense either. How does it stop the surge in the other breakers? I can see it tripping the 20-amp breaker but how does it protect the whole house?
My understanding is that it detects excess voltage in the entire electrical system (since it’s all at the same voltage) and diverts the excess to ground. As long as it’s connected anywhere in the panel it should drop the voltage for all circuits in the panel (because of the common bus - anything that can drop voltage can affect other items, kind of like when your lights dim when your a/c comes on).
@@rnash999 It has limitations. If the surge is too large/energetic, the surge protector's breaker will trip and the house will be exposed to the full surge.
The surge protector is not a current device interrupter (like a breaker) but a voltage monitor that can detect high voltages in the nano second (10 to the -9 power) range and shunt or short said excess voltage to ground. Since the device uses high speed power semiconductors it can only work up to the rating of the semiconductor--thus the lights that tell you if it fails. This type of device is a sacrificial device that needs replaced if hit with an excess charge, but its typically cheaper than all the other items that would need replaced. In addition, if your earth ground circuit isn't low resistance (as it should be) then you have a restriction in the path the clamped current wants to travel to. Professionals can measure your earth ground resistance. In wet locations you should be ok if all was installed correctly. In rocky, dry, and desert conditions this becomes a major problem and needs tested and fixed if possible.
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What should also be required are voltage detectors at the main panel with the ability to disconnect the entire service if the voltage rises or falls below a safe threshold.. We had many times over the years when we had brown outs that fried home electronics and appliances which could have been prevented if the power was just cut off.. These events cost us many thousands of dollars for fried TV sets, computer power supplies, refrigerator and freezer compressors, washer, dryer and furnace motors and so on.. Now we have a solar inverter that takes care of all that and can use low or dirty power in combination with our batteries to create stable power.. If it can't then it shuts down and turns everything off..
I had a fire, had the ancient Fed Pacific panel, might’ve been the reason..I installed surge protectors (well, electrician did) on every panel including the new 200amp incoming service. Had my service upgraded, then added a surge protector in the downstairs panel that has a circuit that travels outside to the chicken coop..used the one recommended by the electrician, the ones that look like double breakers that fit in the existing panel.
🤔 quick question I'm curious because.. it's a whole house surge protector but it's only inputed through two 20 amp breakers or it's just a section of the panel being protected ?please clarify for me
EMP SHIELD... if you are installing a whole home surge protector, you may as well install EMP protection. The unit is rated for outdoor install as well. They were designed for the military to keep Bradleys working in an EMP attack. Also they replace it for free if you take a lightning strike (ab the only think that can overpower it). Install is exactly the same. I have one on both my houses and all 3 vehicles as well. (They make them many situations including solar panels.)
As an electrical engineer , the concept of a EMP shield that you can just wire in is blasphemous . At best these are glorified surge protectors . You might as well buy one that’s not trying to sell itself as magical (like the one in the video) . Though even those are questionable Do not waste any more of your money friend !
@@jonathanruiz8723 my understanding is it near instantaneously (in a few nanoseconds) routes the electrical overload/pulse to ground... and continues to do so to keep the long lasting E3 from causing damage. How does that not work? I mean it won't protect things not plugged in to the system obviously... but why are they useless? And why does the military use similar things if they don't work? (And I'm not being a smart ass, I'm a "why" person so my mind needs to understand why something does or doesn't work for it to make sense. )
@@Firemedic2105 that’s precisely how a surge protector operates. Hence why i called it a glorified surge protector ! The problem is near instantly is not fast enough . An EMP will obliterate the electronics before such device can do anything . The only way to really protect from an EMP is to not get hit . Your vehicle will never be in conditions where a surge protector is necessary . And wherever it would be , there likely already is one. As to why the military uses such things: it’s not that surge protectors are useless , it’s just not for EMP’s. Tanks are EMP resistant due to the armor being a pretty good faraday cage more than anything . But our military spares no expense !
@@jonathanruiz8723 As a utility engineer I'm going to disagree with you on how fast certain electronic shunt circuits can operate to stop EMP before it gets to a critical damage level. The circuits do exist, as just behind the Military is the Utilities in trying to shield the grid from EMP damage (and Utilities understand that good reliable equipment is not cheap). However, I looked at the EMP Shield site and I laugh. In my opinion the wiring and size of the device along with the cost is far to small for a house (I'd expect several thousands $ for a 200 Amp house based protection device based on this technology, and about double that for 400 Amp service). It would also be best if the device was wired after the meter and before the panel with its own separate ground rod. I am sure that the Military does indeed use this technology (1st line of defense: Faraday cage; 2nd line if you can handle the size and weight is a iron core transformer (1:1 or other ratio) - which is a fantastic surge and decent EMP protector by itself; 3rd line of defense is very expensive electronics such as the kind that EMP Shield is using (just properly sized for the load - a EMP Sheild home size device may actually be the appropriate size for a Bradley). In reality, perfect Faraday cages rarely exist so you typically see a combination of these approaches for dealing with EMP (starting with a fairly good Faraday cage if conditions allow). Note that above ground utility lines by their nature are not protected by any Faraday cages at all). Note that some of the modern utility lightning arrestors operate fast enough to ground EMP on utility lines and prevent damage. Unfortunately it will be decades before all the older ones are normally replaced with such modern ones - if the Utility decides to install these lightning/EMP arrestors at all.
Surge Protection Devides are not all they are cracked up to be. The NFPA has stated that Metal Oxide Varisistors (MOV) based SPDs have been known to catch fire under sustained overvoltage episodes. They do not protect sensitive electronics in those instances nor when brownouts occur. What are the design elements of any SPD. Newer ones may or may not have the sam issues.
Leviton also makes a surge protection outlet. Its NOT a first line of defense item, but its great as supplemental protection. I use it for TV that are not on surge protector with battery backup and fridges / washers or any fixed appliance that has a plug.
A ridiculous requirement. This has little to do with protecting personal electronics, and is more about protecting insurance companies against claims. (In case you don't know it, the NFPA is, essentially, insurance companies)
@@HowToHomeDIY no, but if you ever read the information that comes with one of those things you'll discover that it really doesn't protect against much of anything. (Like... Lightning strikes)
That’s one thing and the only thing they list as not being able to protect against a DIRECT lightning strike. Almost nothing can. But it still protects from grid surges and depending on distance away can absolutely help with lightning strikes that are not direct.
Had one and had a direct lightning strike to the power line right above the transformer. Blew the shit out of all kinds of stuff! Those protectors will protect if the strike is a long way away but there doesn't seem to be any "cutesy trinket" that can stop a close hit. Cost me several hundred in circuit boards in various appliances.
I'm skeptical that these consumer oriented surge protectors do very much at all. Especially considering that they only have 14 or 16 gauge wire that goes to the breaker panel. I would want to have busbar going to a surge arrestor and I would want to have gas spark gaps as well as some type of metal oxide varisters. And it's even more necessary in this day and age with the possibility of Electric magnetic pulses either by man-made or solar events. And then of course there's the issue where you have a car crashing into a utility pole and dropping a 13 kV line onto a 240 volt distribution line. You have to be able to protect against those types of events as well. These little consumer surge arresters are useless for that.
The surge arrestors are specifically for lightning damage, not for freak accidents. Amazingly, the Surge Protection Devices do not need heavy gauge wire; they only do their thing for a handful of milliseconds. The same gauge selection used for power wiring is plenty for SPDs.
@flagmichael unfortunately, freak accidents occur all too often. Trees fall on power lines every day, causing HV to come in contact with LV lines. And the shortness of the lightning event means the energy is up in the RF range, which means any inductance in the wires to the MOV will diminish the surge reduction effect of the MOV due to impedance of the wires at the high frequency of a lightning strike. My preferred solution is a large loop of wire before entry to the building. The loop absorbs mush of the transient energy through its inductance, and what remaining energy gets through is suppressed easily with surge arrestors.
Is there any way to check how many on the nec board have stock in or own surge protector companies? There needs to be a study on how many lives would have been saved if the house or business had one of these surge protectors. Who oversees the nec board? Also, will the NEC board pay for anything in your house that is damaged if these devices they require don't work? If not, there would definitely be an indication that their motives are not in the interest of the homeowner.
So, many of them probably cannot. However, if you research the one in this video, the Siemens FS140, you will find where it is one of the SPDs recommended for an EMP event along with installing ferrites on the Line 1, Line 2, Neutral, and Ground.
This does not protect from EMP. EMP is atmospheric and not a line. This item, while not a bad think in many circles this is just another money maker for contractors. You can even have a small monthly fee protection by your utility and save the crazy money they charge to buy and install this device. Notice they don't tell you how much, there is a reason - it's expensive.
I said it won’t buy itself but it is one of the highest recommended surge protectors for an emp with ferrites also installed. They are way less expensive than the electronics and circuit boards I and so many others in the comments have lost from surges. To argue not having one installed is better is laughable to be honest.
My electrician recommended one for the house while we were upgrading a bunch of stuff, adding a circuite, etc. I already had one on the HVAC, but am glad the breaker box, aka whole house, also has one.
If the government requires you to purchase a product, you can be guaranteed that lawmakers were lobbied by that industry to mandate their products purchase. It's truly disgusting...
I want to install both a power generator And Solarpanels to my late 19 50’s motel. Heating in NH is mostly electric baseboard heat. The panel is 200 amp service.
@@johnschutt9187A typical surge lasts less than 20ms and is just a voltage spike. All you need to protect your devices is have something physically closer that clamps the voltage to a safe level and absorbs the power difference. 20A is plenty to do that. In fact, a 20A breaker would take 200-800 amps to trip in under 20ms.
from the Square D folks: "Most of the residential SPD are limited to 12AWG and 20A max OCPD and the commercial SPD are limited to 10AWG and 30A max OCPD. Because since the transient voltage is only for nano second it does not make sense to go any higher than the 12 awg & 10 awg with respected OCPD. Besides the SPD it self does not draw any current it self anyway, so going with larger gauge conductor is waste of material without any gain"
The surge protector works by shorting the voltage spike to ground. When the surge is large enough, the surge protector sacrifices itself in the process. It becomes a short. The breakers trip to protect your electrical power.
10.7.23 Adam, what would be your thoughts on a breaker box that is full with no room to add this double 20amp breaker? Could one just add the two black wires to 2 separate 20amp breakers all ready in the panel? Or take out 2 single 20amp breakers and put in the double pole 20amp and put the surge and the other wires back on like double 20amp?
The NEC may "require" SPDs (or other devices), but it's up to the AHJs (Authorities Having Jurisdiction) to enact it in a local code. Some municipalities are a few versions behind 2020, or they feel that an SPD isn't necessary.
They are needed for new construction or full service panel replacement. My house built in 2019 did not come with one. I did install a whole home surge on my panel though. After big summer monsoon here in Phoenix valley, where power surge or power cut and the. Turn on surge things like my AC capacitors take a huge hit. I put a surge protector on my AC unit, but then realized I better do the entire house. So I installed one for the whole house. I went with a SquareD HEPD80
had 2 installed when I had electrician wire up a big heat press in my garage. He sold me on it as a way to protect all my electronics in my home. One on the main and one on the subpanel. I wish I had gone with the EMP shield one as the siemens may or may not protect against an emp pulse. Of course if that happens its probably game over anyway.
Just another gadget from politics and business lobbyists to make us buy mandatory devices. Anti siphon hose spigots Water heater safety devices that drove the prices up over 500 percent as far as the anti siphon devices that malfunction within three years causing major costs to replace them. Same thing happened with the h20 heaters. They are about 8” taller causing much higher cost to replace them and they also like to malfunction due to being electronically controlled gas valves instead of mechanically controlled gas valves . Both use millivolts to operate however. Arc fault is another product pushed into market by lobbyists
You stated to cut the wires shortest possible for faster signal; Signal travels (close to) speed of light, the length of the cable (that length) don't think would affect the signal speed.
I put one in a couple years ago. And you don't have to connect it through a breaker. You can connect Type 1 SPD's directly to the bus bars (line side) if you know what you're doing. But most viewers of this vid don't...may as well go the breaker route.
From the installation guide: Line Side versus Load Side Installation The FSPD Series is tested and qualified as a Type 2 SPD per UL 1449 4th Ed. The TPS4 03 and 09 series are tested and qualified as a Type 1 SPD. This SPD can be installed on the Line Side of the service overcurrent device. Type 1 SPDs may also be installed in UL Type 2 applications. The TPS4 11 series is tested and qualified as both Type 1 and 2 SPD. As a generalization, it is more practical to install as Type 2 on load side of main overcurrent device for maintenance reasons.
As a service Electrician, I find the breaker feeding the surge protector tripped quite regularly. Once reset the surge protect will have the correct status LEDs lit.
There is a later version of the box you recommend and the only complaint is that the wiring is about 15 inches shorter than the original. Thanks for the videos!
Wish I had one. A couple years back we had a surge that knocked out my thermostat. It was during the pandemic, and replacements were very hard to come by due to supply chain issues. Basically had no HVAC for well over a week.
Not helpful now, but for others or future - you can bypass the thermostat entirely. All a thermostat is is basically a switch, so you can manually turn on/off fan and AC if you have exposed wiring. TH-cam vids out there for how to do this. Useful to know in a pinch.
I have been looking to install one of these on my house for a few years now but just haven't pulled the trigger on it yet. We have very "dirty" power in my neighborhood and frequent power outages. I have several UPS batteries that frequently sound their alarms. I am going to prioritize this now, I didn't know it was such an easy install.
would have been nice if nec code had always made the power company surge protect the feed to your house, because one device could protect about ten houses on that transformer.
My utility offered MOV installation for just the price of the devices back in the '80s (haven't checked since). They aren't perfect - I used them in various sizes for protecting electronic in our Van de Graaf lab. Very fast spikes could get past them (ferrite inductors helped that) and very large surges could over-power them (vaporise). Remember that cable, phone, etc. lines are still not protected. MOVs can and should be added to those, too.
Oh my gosh, I was just quoted a price of over $1,000 to have one of these installed in my home! Seems a bit ridiculous considering how little time it takes to install and the price of those units. Your video makes it look easy enough for a confident DIYer to do.
I added 1 to the sub panel i installed for a Computer Room. Luckily the house main panel has a Surge Device already. The new gfci/afci integrated circuit breakers are awesome too.
Installing a single large shunt protector in the main panel is a bad idea. They work better to clamp overvoltages (and don't self-destruct as easily) when there is some series impedance ahead of them. Therefore smaller MOVs installed near or at the load do a better job than one big one at the service entrance.
During a power outage my surge protector started a fire in my panel. When the water heater turned off, my 25kw generator just started working harder to overcome the shorted surge protector.
Were you aware of these surge protection devices? Also, do you think they make more sense to install now after watching this video?
Yes we knew all about all surge protection
Pretty much everyone knows about your standard surge protector but most don't know about whole home surge protectors or about the new codes. Glad you have it all together!
Sir: you read from code, that the utility company is directed to provide a unit upon request?
I wasn't aware of these until watching your video on this. It does make 100% sense to install one if you don't have one already. Definitely going to get one and install it as I don't have one currently. Great informative video 😊😊😊 Thank you for posting this video.
@@Hawka-Loogy That is not what the code is saying. It is just saying that a SPD is to be supplied at all services. Supplied does not mean given, it just means it has to be there. Now some utility companies will sell them and they install them directly into the meter. I personally did not like that option as they are either around the price of the one in the video or more expensive, they oftentimes don't have an alarm or way of letting you know they need replaced, and often are not rated for as high of surges as the one in the video. But it is an option at a cost of course.
Knowing how to install it is valuable but understanding how it works is much more valuable.
One point - when using a multimeter to measure voltage in a box, you may want to show how to insure continuity of the meter leads with the ohms function or placing the leads on a known live circuit before measuring the voltage. I once did a firefighter assist with EMTs for a guy who was severely burned when working in a 440 V box. Subsequent investigation showed that one of his meter leads was open. Since that time, I always check my meter leads before measuring potentially dangerous voltage.
Excellent advice, especially if your meter leads are "well used!"
agreed
defn always check your meter on a known live source
yeah I didn't like how he did that either. I keep a wiggy and noncontact pen with my meter at all times for this
A voltmeter is not a good tool to verify the absence of voltage.
@@keacoq a voltmeter is fine if you trust it and it's auctully a good quality one
Also most of the higher end fluke meters and stuff could like that could also technically be called one as they measure voltage
Seems like these should be built into smart meters and monitored by utility so they can replace as needed instead of expecting random seniors and busy parents to stay on top of it.
Ah, yes. Push it off on someone else.
@@polarys425 Your sarcastic comment is exactly correct. If it's now considered a critical function of the grid then it should be monitored and maintained by grid operation specialists, not random grandmas and grandpas.
@@polarys425 found the utility @sshole. get back to work boi
Licensed electricians will disagree with you, obviously.
@thedaveking the power company stops at the meter. I guess you want them to take care of your breaker panel too. Maybe you should call them to come out and reset a breaker when it trips. Bunch of nanny state idiots.
For Safety reasons, you should inform your viewers the following: Prior to using your multimeter when checking for voltage after you switched off the breaker, or disconnect Switch. You should first check to ensure your meter is actually in working condition by testing a known live device.
I was thinking the same thing and I am not an electrician.
I'm a RF engineer, definitely not an electrician. But I have designed high power limiters for the RF transmitters (which I also design). Essentially, limiters perform the same function as a surge protector, just a different type of scenario. The importance of keeping the wires short is due to the wavelength of the transient(s) (i.e. the 'surge') spike and also to reduce inductance of the wire - both which limit the effectiveness of the SPD's ability to clamp a surge. Transients voltages (i.e. a lightning strike) can be converted from the time domain to the frequency domain, and that frequency has a physical length, depending on the medium it's in (air, a printed circuit board, etc. affect the physical length). If the SPD is a quarter wavelength away from the connector point (i.e. the breaker) at the frequency of the transient, the SPD's 'shunt' impedance will appear as an 'open' at the breaker, meaning the SPD is ineffective.
Also, when I mentioned the transient and converting it to frequency above - transients actually contain a multitude of frequencies, all which have a different wavelength. Unfortunately, it's not an easy problem to solve by attaching a SPD outside the box.
The ideal solution is to install a SPD inline, between the feed and the breaker box since this eliminates the lead inductance and the wavelength issue. But that is not practical on a retrofit. Personally, I'd still install one. A surge can take on many forms, and you almost need to attack it from many directions (SPD at the box, surge protectors at outlets, etc.).
Honestly, I'm surprised the electrical box manufactures haven't designed a panel with a replaceable, high quality and inline SPD at part of the electrical box (between the feed and breakers) - that would be the ideal solution for a new build. I'm not an electrician, so maybe there's some out there already? I know Square D makes a SPD that fits in a breaker spot, but that has some limitations (I have several of the those).
No doubt it's a tough nut to crack and if it's from lightning, it tends to do what it wants. And there's other surge scenarios that an external SPD will work as intended, so it's definitely a crap shoot at times. Our house had a direct hit last year. Ironically, it hit the roof, bypassing the breaker box and the surge protectors located there, and snuck in via other paths (the outdoor can lights). TV issues due to going in thru the power line - no issues. HDMI ports? - kapow! I guess you do what you can.
Sorry if I got a little technical. There's really a lot going on in order to make an SPD effective, and I really just lightly touched on some of the important details. Likely a surge is defined as certain waveform by the NEC (correct me if I'm wrong), and a SPD is designed around those conditions.
Whew - that's a lot of typing! :)
@@alexwolf8019I don't know if the the breaker would trip of not, probably just depends on the duration of the surge and/or if the SPD becomes permanently shorted. I assume if the SPD is shorted, the mains have enough current to blow it to bits - hence the breaker. As you mentioned, ideally the SPD is in-between the mains and the breaker box, then the surge protector provides a low impedance across a wide spectrum of transients. I've seen SPD's used in outlets mention the line can open up if the the MOV trips, some don't.
As a retired RF engineer I concur fully with this gentleman's statement here. I am skeptical of the effectiveness of these devices because of the thin gauge and long length of the wires that connect the device to the power supply bus.
@@basspig Greetings from a fellow RF engineer (mostly-retired)! Surge protectors are an interesting subject. Simple at first, until you dig into the details. I mentioned above we had a direct hit from lightning so I started to replace my outlet surge protectors with new ones just to be on the safe side. Bought a Philips outlet surge suppressor at Wallymart. Probably like most, I tended to focus on the clamping current...until I noticed the clamping voltage. 900V!! Yikes - why bother.
@@Mark-hb5zfWe had many challenges at radio tower sites. For obvious reasons. :-)
One of the most effective measures I've had against lightning was winding the last 20' of mains cable into a loop, several turns-worth. The first step in absorbing surges is to present as high an impedance as possible BEFORE the shunting device.
In my experience, the surge protector devices do little to protect sensitive electronics. Just having a power outage can kill computer equipment that is not on a UPS, as I have found out over the last 25 years.
Surge protection has to take into account both differential and common mode voltage spikes. Then there's the EMP factor with lightning, inducing currents in any wires connected between devices, such as USB cables computers and peripherals. Only Faraday shielding the building can solve that last one.
I had an interesting call from a NY radio station I was CE at in the 1990s. They'd suffered a lightning strike on their tower, co-located with the studio. All of their computer monitors displayed distorted images with "rainbows". I knew right away what happened. So upon arriving, I grabbed a bulk tape eraser, powered it up and walked up to each monitor and de-magnetized them. All back to normal.
@@basspig Loops - Neat idea to help get a little bit more inductance on the outside of the shield for free, heck of a lot better than just a straight run. Did the setups usually just employ one protection device, or did you have several, spaced a certain distance apart? Were the protection devices a gas discharge tubes (I don't have much experience with those)?
Now that I mentioned a gas discharge tube, I wonder if those could be used in a SPD for the breaker box? I was assuming the SPD's for the breaker box are just a bunch of MOV's? Maybe that was the wrong assumption.
OP: Don't mean to hijack the comments, but it is sort of related w/respect to surge protection, albeit a little more obscure side of the topic.
How it works: the device detects excess voltage in the entire electrical system (since it’s all at the same voltage) and diverts the excess to ground. As long as it’s connected anywhere in the panel it should drop the voltage for all circuits in the panel (because of the common bus - anything that can drop voltage can affect other items, kind of like when your lights dim when your a/c comes on).
Thanks for the explination!
Until that 20 amp breaker trips due to a surge that's greater than 20 amps, then it's useless, unless you're constantly looking at the LED's. This is the first time I've seen this kind of device, and I'm not electrician; just someone who understands electricity very well. But, something seems wrong about this whole thing. If you're protecting the whole 200 amp panel, shouldn't the surge protector be rated for 200 amps? Am I missing something?
The breaker doesn't trip due to a surge. These devices briefly short that surge to ground themselves. That's the protection and the one he recommends can send 140,000 amps to ground. The breaker only trips if the surge is so great the device sacrifices itself to spare your home. That's why the 20 amp breaker trips.
@@theclearsounds3911 Oh, you are forgetting about the thick coating of snake oil on those puny wires that makes it all work by magic.
@@theclearsounds3911 you’re missing that a 20A breaker doesn’t trip the instant 20A on a circuit is reached & that spikes are usually very short duration. All breakers have a tolerance for how long an over-current condition is allowed to persist before they trip. Even a 20A breaker can generally take 200A for a second or two before it trips, which is a much longer duration than the average power spike. So having to have a 200A breaker for this application is overkill for no real benefit.
Whole home surge protectors are very expensive and have a limited life. I installed BRANCH circuit protectors (20 amp) as my 20 of them cost less than a third of a whole-house protector. My house is 98 years-old and isn't "code" anyway, although it's electrically far SAFER than new construction. My late Daddy and I were both in aircraft electric repair and worked with 600 volt 400 Hz AC, he in B-47's and I in F-4 Phantom II's and "Scooters" and combat repair of other aircraft in SE Asia. We re-wired this house for my Grandparents, and the four "BX" armored cable 14 gauge circuits I use ONLY for lights. When I bought the house from the estate, I ran 10 gauge Romex to things like my entertainment center outlet and 2 gauge "220" to the detached garage for my shop and installed a new sub-panel in the garage. The Sola brand protectors I used claim they'll stop 5 or 6 major surges (like near-by lighting strikes) then they're gone. In 30 years I haven't needed to replace one yet.
not sure what you mean surge breakers?
Hello sir, can you explain to me a little bit about "branch circuit". Are these like independent breakers with surge protection? I want to protect all my 120 v and 240 v equipment. Can you point me to the right direction?
Thank you. OM
We had a bad linesman do a repair (dirty power) on the powerpole near our house. A year later we came home to a disaster. The neutral had dropped from the pole, the power had nowhere to go back to and the voltage kept climbing in our house. Destroyed two water heaters, two whole house electrostatic filters. all small electronics from alarm clocks to gaming consoles. Destroyed many plug in surge protectors and set fire to my air compressor in the detached garage. The garage was full of acrid black smoke as the fire caused the compressor oil to leak which in turn caught fire.
Sounds like a nightmare. A surge protector might not protect against that since they are designed for transient spikes and not sustained increases.
Make sure your ground in the house is good. The one where the ground rod is at.
Sounds like it was your fault, bad ground, don't blame someone else for your fault.
@kidkv Unfortunately, this was not a short circuit situation, a dropped neutral causes voltage climb, it is not a ground fault. The electric company took full responsiblity, paid all claims outside of insurance company involvement, their head trainer was actually the guy who responded and came out and took photos of the bad connections, and the fire damage in the garage, said it was the worst connections he had ever seen in 40 years and would use this as a case study and develop training materials on the importance on following the SOP on making neutral connections. As you are an expert in electrical engineering you would know that the neutrals and the ground connect to the same bus bar and all go back to the neutral at the pole. If there was a short and the main trip to the house supply went then everything would have went to the ground circuit and to the ground rod. But please keep commenting, your input is very valuable.
@dansanger5340 Thanks for your comments, I looked into that subsequent to your comment. Yes, a surge protector would not have helped me on the voltage continuing to climb, only a good neutral connection can save you. That is why as soon as you see you have dirty power, call the electric company to see if there is a bad nuetral. We obviously did that but they either did not do anything and said they did or just made another bad connection. I don't know, maybe there is a device that detects a sustained voltage increase, and can somehow trip a breaker to simulate a ground fault, I shall keep researching.
You missed the absolute most important reason the these got placed in the 2020 NEC! I designed electrical systems since my first NEC 1981 started in 1983. I have attended NEC classes every 3 years and had additional classes on NEC numerous times. My last class was 2020. Up until 2005 to 2008 the NEC was always about life safety. That was its rock hard core principle for being written. Then, the electrical manufacturers started getting their employees inserted into the different panels. It didn’t take long until the NEC is now used as a very strong sales tool. Being on the panel, “THEY WILL TELL YOU” I can not bring up changes to the NEC, I can only vote for or against suggested revisions. Who made the suggestions, you might ask, other people within their company. Before 2017 NEC none of the panel board manufacturers made these devices. Then they decided they could make them and force you to pay them for them. That my friends is how to make money in the US!
The US fire code saw the same. What was initially a descriptive code evolved into a prescriptive one, open to local authorities’ rules.
Note the disclaimer text displayed noting that is recommended that additional surge protection should be installed on “sensitive” equipment. I suppose the technology may have improved but to this point it has always been my understanding that a “whole house” protector would not protect any “sensitive” device, a.k.a. “circuit boards”.
Several years ago the local electrical contractors lobbied the city council in an effort to change the local code to prohibit home owners from doing any of their own electrical work in the name of safety. We can all say that was BS.
@@ThisIsToolman Before these panel board company manufactured units, I had many meetings with the specialized companies. You are right. They wanted layers of surge protection down to the surge receptacle. So, where is the life safety? They had to stretch very hard to find anyway to call it life safety.
@ThisIsToolman that’s not what it was for. There are still internal surges that happen that you want to protect your sensitive electronics from over time being worn down.
As a 40+ year Florida resident, I've had multiple equipment failures discovered after lightning events. The common denominator for all failures was each device being directly connected to earth ground or connected to a buried telephone or coaxial cable. Lightning can transiently change earth ground voltage potential in the area near a strike.
When clamping the wires in the breaker, make SURE that you are NOT clamping on the insulation!!!! It looked like there was some insulation under the clamps at 12:12 and 11:56.
I put one of these in my home a few years ago after a near direct hit from lightning fried some network components. Thankfully that's all the lightning took out. No issues since.
I live in Japan. Houses are supplied with 100-0-100V split phase power similar to the US (120-0-120V) system. However, in Japan, the neutral is never bonded to Earth ground. (Actually the neutral is Earth grounded at the distribution transformer.) The main breaker is always a GFCI breaker and 200V appliances are provided with a separate Neutral and a green wire wire to Earth ground. I am planning to install a whole house surge protector due to the large amount of electronic devices I have. Thanks for your video.
Interesting hearing about electrical practices in Japan. Just curious, do you have any nuisance trips on your main?
That is much more sensible than the systems we have in the USA and in Europe and beyond. The mantra in bonding is "single point ground" but our practices ignore that altogether. Single point ground violations are responsible for most equipment damage but do not present much of a life or fire hazard, so we still have them.
@@flagmichael You took the words out of my mouth. The US practice is bad from an engineering standpoint because it sets up a parallel path and the possibility that unbalanced neutral current can flow through the ground back to the utility transformer from the service panel. It is rare but could happen in some circumstances. Of course the utilities aren't covered under the NEC so they are going to put in their own ground by gawd. The NEC sort of admits the folly of this practice because for separately derived systems (where the user owns the transformer) the neutral is only bonded to ground at one location and not both.
I was ahead of the curve as I have been putting a hole house surge protector on the homes I buy for 25 years just for the very reasons you told us about. Having one electronic equipment smoked taut me a very painful lessen.
For 50 years and longer never had a surge issue damaging anything. Last year I added a Square-D surge protector that fits into a breaker slot on my homeline panel. It is doing its job silently, still no surges that need protecting against ever noticed. Codes compliance keep electric people busy making money.
Weird. I haven’t even been on this earth that long and have had numerous things damaged by surges until I installed this.
We live in Newport News VA, perhaps our area and Dominion power has little troubles with surges. We also almost never lose power. Last time without power was Hurricane Isabel, was out for 12 days which was tough, but the Troy-Bilt 8000 watt generator worked well for the whole house with the interlock. @@HowToHomeDIY
@@HowToHomeDIY how many smoke detectors have you had to replace due to surges?
I often observe "it is better to be lucky than good." You are in an area that does not get a lot of lightning strikes on the lines. Usually people in vulnerable areas take strikes every few years or even more frequently. The cost of having an SPD installed is a tiny fraction of the cost of a healthy lightning strike.
Five years ago I retired from IT Filed Services for a Fortune 100 electric company. (There is only one here in Arizona, but I don't feel right mentioning their name.) Many of our communication facilities took lightning strikes, with a few costing us less than $1000, most in the $3000 - $20,000 range. The last big one I attended did over $30,000 damage to one piece of equipment and it took me more than a year of puzzling to understand how it got in.
Weird, been on earth 40 years two houses, no decided broken from surges...
Surge protection was a major part of my job before I retired (including faraday cages and other over the top attempts at subverting Mother Nature), but I never thought about the house. Thanks for the pome in the ribs!
Most of my focus was controlling lightning damage to equipment in remote comm sites. Our house is not tall enough to be a lightning target (unlike the towers at our comm sites) so I only have trouble with modest surges on our underground lines.
Florida native. I've had plenty of damage to equipment over the years **BUT NEVER from the mains*. Even when buildings were directly hit by lightning, the power lines were NOT affected. Equipment was always damaged on the signal side, or from EMPs.
I still use surge protection, but I think they're very much overrated. Perhaps the threats are different in a different part of the country.
Never from the mains. Agreed.
For many of us, our heat pump is our most expensive electrical device. There are surge protectors specifically designed for HVAC equipment and installed at its shut-off box with no breaker required. They'll protect against internal and external surges. In addition to the FS140, I installed the Intermatic AG3000 next to my compressor. You might want to review them.
Which I recently got, due to an issue with the system. Nice to have that intermediate protection between the unit and the panel.
I have an FS140 on my main I was wondering IF an extra Intermatic AG3000 would be redundant. ?
I added ditek
If the FS140 is truly a "whole house" protector, what is the advantage of having additional surge protectors specifically for the HVAC?
@@thetayz72 yeah multi level is best
If the NEC is worried about saving smoke detectors, they should force the detector manufacturers to install MOV's or other such surge device in their devices. It seems to me that they made the surge protectors code because they are trying to protect their useless arc-fault breakers that they put in code a couple cycles back. Therein lies the problem with having electrical manufacturers on the NEC code making panel. Its a money issue diguised as a safety issue.
Conspiracy theories have been great on this subject.
Thanks for the great video. Living in Florida, the lightning capital of the US, I decided to protect our home with an Eaton whole house surge protector. I installed it 7 years ago and the two green lights on the unit are still glowing 😀. It was very easy to install and certainly feel more secure in the event of a lightning strike. Prior to the install, we did have a strike nearby and it blew out our security alarm system which wasn't a cheap repair. Hopefully, these devices will protect like they advertise.
My home builder installed two breaker-style EATON whole house surge protectors during construction, and they've already been putting in work dealing with surges due to heavy storms and partial brownouts. They're still going strong. The next goal is to eventually get a whole house backup generator so we don't have to worry about the occasional blackout.
We live in an area that has numerous power bumps and outages every week. Have already burned through 2 battery back-ups for our computers and have had to replace circuit boards on several appliances. We had the power company electrician here working on wiring to our barn and I asked if he would also install a whole home protector on the house. He refused - said they don't work for the type of surges we get would only work for high surges that we are unlikely to get so not worth the expense. Honestly - I disagreed (even though I know nothing about how it all works) It just seems to make sense to me that the protection would help. Glad to hear code has changed - we are doing some remodeling this spring - I'm adding this to the list.
Your videos have taught me a lot. I'm just 10 days away from my one year mark as a new electrician with no schooling. I can honestly say that you have helped me more than my 17 year experienced mentor. THANK YOU BROTHER
Siemens makes a two position breaker which is also a surge protector. It is available as either a 15 or 20 amp breaker. QSA2020SPD or QSA1515SPD. Allows you to add surge protection to a full panel.
Eaton and Sq D have breaker size surge protectors that do not function as circuit breakers for a lower cost. These will work fine if you have extra room in the panel.
Thank you, I actually have a few of these I acquired at an auction, may not be same brand, I did not realize that they were a code requirement now. So I will move up getting one of mine installed in the near term. As to the value of these, they may not save a damn thing but they also might be the difference between a fire or not. Screw the cost of the equipment, my concern is losing my home, so I am going to say better safe than sorry. Most surges only last milliseconds and no this is not going to be good enough for a direct lightning strike but it should make the difference in a nearby one. It might or might not help in an emp event, but then the ones that are specifically sold for that purpose are basically just one of these. I was an electrician in the past but not anymore, I do my own wiring, I am lucky enough to live in a state where I can still do my own work, I do not pull a permit for a damn thing. No one's business but my own. If you have no ability to get to your box, or room in it. You could piggy back it onto any 2 pole circuit, even your oven but the dryer or the hot water heater would be easier, just add it in an extension cord fashion. Note this would not NEC approved but it would work. I am not sure it would help as I said but it damn well would not hurt. We all waste thousands of dollars on things like insurance we hope we never need. This is just one more of those things. If you can afford it or just like me happen to come across one, it is worth having for that hope it might help in an emp event. I can live with the loss of my electronics, I cannot live with the loss of a home due to a fire. I really think it is a shame so many men cannot understand or in fact install a device like this, this is one of the reasons our civilization is in such trouble, every man and in reality every woman as well should understand enough to know how to do things of this nature. There is a world of difference between choosing to hire work done and being dependent on someone else because you cannot.
But here is the deal , a few day ago from typing this , we had bad power supply from the wind knocking the lines
This SPD won't protect your home from that but that will destroy more electronics
But here is one thing they will protect, your darn AC/heatpump when the darn thing is just trying to get started, yes your AC/heatpump pulls a lot of amps enough amps that those darn things just won't let them run , meaning you can say bye bye to cool air in the summer and If you have a heatpump, you will be forced to use the Emrgency heat source all winter long simply because the locked compressor amps are high enough to always blow that device
We have 2 houses with deep wells on the same property. Replacing a pump on a deep well is a pain in the ass. Homeowners insurance pays most of the cost but not all of it. Thanks for the heads up.
My best guess is the NEC Board now requires surge protection because they all own stock in Siemens.
I installed the Eaton whole house protector 10 years ago at my service panel.
Less than a week after I installed the surge protector, There was a lightning storm about 10 miles away and the surge came down the utility line.
The sword protector work the way it's supposed to. It shunted the excess power to ground, then went back to protecting the house.
My TV temporarily shut down and then turned back on. That's how I knew the surge protector was working.
The surge protector also protects against stray surges that occur from one year. Air conditioner or air handler turns off. It's an added side benefit.
In addition to the whole house surge protector, I use local surge protectors at my sensitive electronic devices, just in case any stray surges get past the main protector.
And have you replaced your surge protector in the last 10 years? One thing few people seem to talk about (thankfully this video did) is that surge protectors only last 3-5 years before they don't really function anymore.
"My TV temporarily shut down and then turned back on. That's how I knew the surge protector was working." No that just means you probably experienced a voltage sag that are very common when utility reclosers operate during thunderstorms and wind storms. It probably had nothing to do with the surge protector.
@RCRadioShow I'm also burst in ESD protection and worked for electrical contractor.
If it had been a voltage sag other devices would have shut down.
I think it was added because our grid is getting flakier. More sags, brown outs, black outs, etc. I grew up in rural Ohio 50+ years ago and we didn't have outages very often. Forward to today, in suburbia, and it blinks every couple weeks visibly, drops enough to trip ups on monthly or more, and every few years goes out for days on end. Utilities arent keeping up on needs or maintenance.
Sags, brown outs, and black outs have absolutely nothing to do with surge protection at all. They are for lightning protection.
I put one on my house after a near lightning strike took out many of my appliances. No damage in 15 years.
I went with an Eaton surge protector that fits inside my Eaton panel. It's really easy to install. You just pop it in like a 240V breaker, then connect a single wire to the neutral buss. It doesn't have as high of a surge rating as some of the externally mounted devices, but it should be good enough in most cases.
When I updated my panel I did the same.. Just snaps in.. No wiring needed.
They come in different capacities. There is a reason this siemens unit is big like that.
Those are the better rated ones anyways. EATON CHSPT2ULTRA Ultimate Surge Protection
Do I want whole house surge protection on my house? Yes. Do I think it is the place of the NEC to require it? No NO. It has become very clear to me, that manufacturers of devices have clearly influenced the NEC to require things that go far beyond fire safety. The NECs mission was always to provide for fire and electrical safety. Many of the newest code requirements are clearly unrelated to safety and have the sales of devices in mind. I would not be surprised if some states were to say it has gone too far and go back to say, the 1999 code book. The cost of all this is what is making homes unaffordable. This a perfect example of what was once a great organization gone amuck.
I understand where you are coming from but don’t see how this is one of those instances. You say the NEC is for safety and I clearly laid out why they implemented this code to protect safety devices from being damaged to where they would not function properly anymore in the event of a fire, carbon monoxide, etc. So who if not the NEC should require this? It has solid reasoning. The amount of people attacking this idea, their only reasoning is it must be about money when the evidence is clear that a whole home surge protector can in fact make the home a safer place. Just seems like a conspiracy theory based on nothing. And to say this is item and others are what are driving home prices up is false. Come on now. Home prices didn’t double, triple, or even quadruple in price because of a surge protector or other items like it and I think you know that. Did my cost of groceries, gas, etc. go up because of surge protectors too? Not trying to be sarcastic, just making the point that it was due to a lot more than a new requirement here or there.
It may be nit picking but you are right... the NFPA is all about life and fire safety. I'll forgive the over-reach but it could be troublesome precedence down the line.
I'd have to upgrade at least my breaker box if not the service level to add a SPD to my house. I don't have any empty breaker locations in my electrical box... But I'm planning on a breaker box upgrade in a year or two as I'd like a couple more circuits (separate lighting and outlets in the basement, outdoor outlets, conversion from gas to induction cooking, etc.) Now that I know about the requirement for a SPD, that "up charge" won't be a surprise and I can plan it into the budget.
Next door neighbor rebuilt their entire kitchen. Fancy new appliances, controlled with state-of-the-art electronics. A few months later we had a huge power surge. Fried everything in their kitchen. Thousands in damages. That new stuff is EXPENSIVE. They got a whole house surge protector installed very quickly.
Me ... I got hit with the same surge, but no fancy electronic appliances in MY kitchen. All Old School. My computers and electronics do, of course, have heavy duty surge protection.
Excellent and informative video. I put this same Siemens device into my home about a year ago. I had experienced a few surges through the years that fried some of my electrical equipment and wanted a solution that would limit that in the future. After doing some research, I found the Siemens unit to be the most effective for a homeowner. Pretty straightforward to install too.
I had one blow and threw sand in the basement. Nothing else was harmed.
Glad to see you spreading the word. I installed a Siemens one in my panel that just took the place of a 240v circuit breaker for the dryer I wasn't using, very convenient packaging.
What happens when you want to use the dryer,just cus today you are not,maybe tomorrow you are
@@cengeb then I'll hook it to a 240v breaker further down. I have a gas dryer though.
@@cengebor you can get a double pole tandem breaker if the panel can handle it.
You're very fortunate to have access to the main outside supply breakers. Where I live these are only accessible by the local utility and they use this as a selling point for their subscription-based surge protection plans. I installed an Eaton CHP ULTRA inside but would love it if I could also add an external device.
I did this five years ago and I know it worked, two doors down they lost a 80 inch flat screen tv about six months ago to a local lighting strike
Excellent video. Did not know that device is required on new work now. I put one on my panel years ago (I’m a retired electrician). They were really expensive back then too.
Its not required in New York. They are still following the 2017 NEC
You can get surge protectors that drop into the fuse panel. Super easy if you have panel space.
I have the exact same Siemens surge protector installed this spring, but I don't think it's been very effective. This summer, we experienced a lightning strike nearby, and many of our electronics were still affected.
Might not be installed correctly, or your wiring might be weird..
These are surge protectors not lightning protection. Lightning can induce thousands of volts at thousands of amps which require equipment magnitudes more expensive. Just thought you should know. Some of the snake oil sales types call what you have lightning protection, but it isn't. The primary purpose of the grounding rod found on many homes is primarily for diversion of lightning strikes (up to a point). Verifying that the grounding (earth ground) wire from the main breaker box is the correct gauge for your service, is securely connected to your grounding rod (no corrosion-weather protection is advisable as well as some anti-corrosion chemical especially in salt water locations), and a verification that your grounding rod is sufficiently deep for your locale. In many locations this is not possible due to hard and dry rock formations close to the earth's surface. Austin, Texas is a good example, as many electric utility personnel run earth ground testing on large structures there.
A couple of hundred feet of wire beyond the protection will inductively pick up surges from near misses! Lightning creates what called an EMP and in some cases all it takes is a long enough foil trace on a circuit board to pick it up and cause damage!
@@TheDigitaldoug They are intended for all surges, including lightning protection. The present standard for SPDs is 200,000 amps - the standard replaced Transient Voltage Surge Suppressors (TVSS) that were typically rated at 25,000 amps. Given that lightning averages about 100,000 amps for the first millisecond or so before it drops off SPDs are plenty... but as others mention inductive surges can be very large indeed.
All the protection in the world doesn't matter unless the installer is serious about single point ground.
@@flagmichael you must have weak lightning where you live, as lightning will destroy almost anything and no SPD stands a chance. Like I said only snake oil salesmen push this lie.
We moved into a newly built house 6 months ago here in North Carolina. I don't recall seeing this as part of our punch list of items.
You wouldn't if it was code compliant or not needed per local codes.
This was a great video. I am not an electrician and was not aware of the new requirement. The Siemens SPD is a solid device and I have used it to protect field devices here in lightening ally Florida. This is important to note. These devices depend upon good low ohm grounding to give the best protection. Maybe you could elaborate on that aspect for everyone.
I would say "single point ground" is far more important than low ohm grounding. Here in arid Arizona our engineers struggle to get the ground below 10 ohms, even with a large array of chem rods. Think of it like this: a typical lightning strike on a system that has one ohm ground resistance will produce a 100,000 volt jump in the surrounding terrain. Just make sure all your grounds reference to one point, and all is well.
@@flagmichael exactly. Everything needs to be at the same ground potential. Bonding everything to a single home run is a great start.
Glad to know these exists, I’ll be looking into getting one. It would’ve been really helpful to show what to do in most homes, as few have extra or empty breaker capacity.
I have a Siemens sub-panel right next to the main panel with a number of available breaker slots, and installed a Siemens SPD "breaker" in it. That part was easy. Just slot it in like a normal breaker and attach the neutral wire to neutral. Done.
The SPD applies to the whole house, but it is also integrated with two 15A breakers (one on each hot) which can break a circuit if the surge protection triggers. At the moment I don't use the breakers. It has two LEDs (one for each hot) indicating that the surge protection is good.
Small surges that don't blow the surge protector's internal fuse(s) (which are separate from the breaker) will trip the breaker and the SPD will remain good once you've reset the breaker. However, any surge large enough to blow the internal fuse(s) (on any SPD) usually requires replacement of that SPD.
But here's the problem, these SPDs can only deal with relatively small surges, usually up to no more than 30-100 joules depending on the unit. Once they blow, they are no longer protecting anything. So I dunno... I'm wondering exactly what kind of surges these devices are meant to protect against? They obviously can't protect against a lightning strike anywhere even remotely close to the house. They can't protect against any sort of continuous problem on the grid for the same reason. One can put sensitive circuits on the breaker part of the surge protector, but that certainly isn't protecting the whole house.
So these SPDs can only protect against relatively low-energy surges... but what cause those? What are they supposed to be protecting again?
I had one installed years ago just because it was a good idea. I also have a point of use at the inside and outside AC units. My electronics inside have battery backups. Florida is the lightning capital of the world
When testing if terminals are hot or dead ALWAYS connect your meter leads to GND/Neut FIRST, THEN touch the "hot" to test.
If you touch the HOTs first, your meter and leads are HOT (if energized) and shock hazard exists!
Thank you. I was cringing when he did that.
Interesting requirement that still dose not remove the need for individual device surge protection.
About 20 years ago lightning struck a tree roughly 200' from the house, but the dog wire went thru the roots causing all of the splices to blow fry the board and arc to the phone line next to it, the phone line fried the modem on my desktop. After that I surge protect all outside sources.
Where is your torque screwdriver? Code now requires torque to spec...since you are following 23 nec
I have seen Square D, Homeline series that have what looks like a 2 pole breaker that pops in place for around $100 or so. I do building inspections for the city I live in. It is a neat and tidy job when finished inside of the service panel.
I have the same for the QO series
I am no electrician and may be wrong, but I understand that even heavy duty surge protectors cannot protect your home from a lightning strike. Please correct me if I'm mistaken Thanks!
Indeed they cannot . The one I installed five years ago did, however, APPEAR to protect from surges caused by hits to the nearby primary power lines. You also need either a SP power strip or outlet surge protectors to completely protect "sensitive" devices ( computers, TVs etc.).
Thank you and much appreciated!!@@rzh3443
There's a lot of factors that go into determining what will survive a strike. Like if it's a direct strike, the total energy of the strike, where the strike hits, if you have a "ground window" or not, etc. Most residences can't afford the cost of what it takes to protect against a high energy direct strike.
Good advice. Thank you!@@JCWren
It won't protect in the event of a direct strike, but they do help when a strike is down the line a ways. For direct strikes you would need a lightening arrestor, which is a completely different animal.
yesterday installed the Boltshield FSPD140. Same installation principle as with this model. I only have one panel outside the house with multiple knockouts at bottom and only one on the side-bottom like in this vid. My main breaker is at the top of the panel so had to drill out a new hole on the left-side closest to the main breaker. Wired it up like in this vid and it worked like a charm. The only thing about the Boltshield is upside down because of it being on the left of the panel(who cares) and it has wires for an alarm hookup.
The NEC is becoming a design manual with all their requirements. With that said, I've had a surge protector since the mid 90's. It helped the old incandescent light bulbs last a lot longer.
It's also being heavily influenced by corporations that want to mandate the use of their products
True, someone is making a lot of money. Also, the insurance companies have a stake in these devices. I have seen a three 200 amp MOV explode in a large spindle drive on a CNC machine explode do to a power surge and it took out every SCR all 6 of them and to 2 trigger transformers. So even if you have something in place if the surge is too high then you are still "SOL"
And as always, it's not about protecting you, it's about the money!
I installed a GE whole house surge protector after a power surge destroyed the blower motor in my furnace. The price for the GE surge protector has more than doubled since I installed mine. This Siemens device offers a lot more protection but was not available when I was looking for a whole house surge protector.
And as an EE this is where i get pissed at the code making panels. Computers have had far less failures for many years. AND yes it is a threat but for them to come out as that for a reason with no statistics behind these changes erodes the authority of the CMP and makes us as EE scratch our heads and go great a bunch of sparks and fire fighters who don't really understand the problem.
i lived in a small country where brown out, load shedding and other interruptions was frequent so for over 20 years now we use inexpensive surge boxes that plug in the receptacle and the appliances plug into them that monitors over and under voltage, surges especially for refrigerators it provides a delay restart to allow the fridge compressor to relieve some pressure before restarting.. i seen similar items on Amazon for ago $30 now a days plus for really sensitive stuff a UPS works wonders
Those are what you need not this
Since the all power isn't flowing through the surge protector before going elsewhere, can you explain how it works?
I went to four sites and they all gave a non-answer answer. One said it works exactly like a power strip surge protector, which does not make sense either. How does it stop the surge in the other breakers? I can see it tripping the 20-amp breaker but how does it protect the whole house?
My understanding is that it detects excess voltage in the entire electrical system (since it’s all at the same voltage) and diverts the excess to ground. As long as it’s connected anywhere in the panel it should drop the voltage for all circuits in the panel (because of the common bus - anything that can drop voltage can affect other items, kind of like when your lights dim when your a/c comes on).
I was wondering the same thing.
@@rnash999 It has limitations. If the surge is too large/energetic, the surge protector's breaker will trip and the house will be exposed to the full surge.
The surge protector is not a current device interrupter (like a breaker) but a voltage monitor that can detect high voltages in the nano second (10 to the -9 power) range and shunt or short said excess voltage to ground. Since the device uses high speed power semiconductors it can only work up to the rating of the semiconductor--thus the lights that tell you if it fails. This type of device is a sacrificial device that needs replaced if hit with an excess charge, but its typically cheaper than all the other items that would need replaced. In addition, if your earth ground circuit isn't low resistance (as it should be) then you have a restriction in the path the clamped current wants to travel to. Professionals can measure your earth ground resistance. In wet locations you should be ok if all was installed correctly. In rocky, dry, and desert conditions this becomes a major problem and needs tested and fixed if possible.
What should also be required are voltage detectors at the main panel with the ability to disconnect the entire service if the voltage rises or falls below a safe threshold.. We had many times over the years when we had brown outs that fried home electronics and appliances which could have been prevented if the power was just cut off.. These events cost us many thousands of dollars for fried TV sets, computer power supplies, refrigerator and freezer compressors, washer, dryer and furnace motors and so on.. Now we have a solar inverter that takes care of all that and can use low or dirty power in combination with our batteries to create stable power.. If it can't then it shuts down and turns everything off..
I had a fire, had the ancient Fed Pacific panel, might’ve been the reason..I installed surge protectors (well, electrician did) on every panel including the new 200amp incoming service. Had my service upgraded, then added a surge protector in the downstairs panel that has a circuit that travels outside to the chicken coop..used the one recommended by the electrician, the ones that look like double breakers that fit in the existing panel.
🤔 quick question I'm curious because.. it's a whole house surge protector but it's only inputed through two 20 amp breakers or it's just a section of the panel being protected ?please clarify for me
EMP SHIELD... if you are installing a whole home surge protector, you may as well install EMP protection. The unit is rated for outdoor install as well.
They were designed for the military to keep Bradleys working in an EMP attack. Also they replace it for free if you take a lightning strike (ab the only think that can overpower it).
Install is exactly the same. I have one on both my houses and all 3 vehicles as well. (They make them many situations including solar panels.)
As an electrical engineer , the concept of a EMP shield that you can just wire in is blasphemous .
At best these are glorified surge protectors . You might as well buy one that’s not trying to sell itself as magical (like the one in the video) . Though even those are questionable
Do not waste any more of your money friend !
@@Look_What_You_Did happy for you , I guess?
@@jonathanruiz8723 my understanding is it near instantaneously (in a few nanoseconds) routes the electrical overload/pulse to ground... and continues to do so to keep the long lasting E3 from causing damage. How does that not work? I mean it won't protect things not plugged in to the system obviously... but why are they useless? And why does the military use similar things if they don't work? (And I'm not being a smart ass, I'm a "why" person so my mind needs to understand why something does or doesn't work for it to make sense. )
@@Firemedic2105 that’s precisely how a surge protector operates. Hence why i called it a glorified surge protector !
The problem is near instantly is not fast enough . An EMP will obliterate the electronics before such device can do anything .
The only way to really protect from an EMP is to not get hit .
Your vehicle will never be in conditions where a surge protector is necessary . And wherever it would be , there likely already is one.
As to why the military uses such things: it’s not that surge protectors are useless , it’s just not for EMP’s. Tanks are EMP resistant due to the armor being a pretty good faraday cage more than anything . But our military spares no expense !
@@jonathanruiz8723 As a utility engineer I'm going to disagree with you on how fast certain electronic shunt circuits can operate to stop EMP before it gets to a critical damage level. The circuits do exist, as just behind the Military is the Utilities in trying to shield the grid from EMP damage (and Utilities understand that good reliable equipment is not cheap).
However, I looked at the EMP Shield site and I laugh. In my opinion the wiring and size of the device along with the cost is far to small for a house (I'd expect several thousands $ for a 200 Amp house based protection device based on this technology, and about double that for 400 Amp service). It would also be best if the device was wired after the meter and before the panel with its own separate ground rod.
I am sure that the Military does indeed use this technology (1st line of defense: Faraday cage; 2nd line if you can handle the size and weight is a iron core transformer (1:1 or other ratio) - which is a fantastic surge and decent EMP protector by itself; 3rd line of defense is very expensive electronics such as the kind that EMP Shield is using (just properly sized for the load - a EMP Sheild home size device may actually be the appropriate size for a Bradley).
In reality, perfect Faraday cages rarely exist so you typically see a combination of these approaches for dealing with EMP (starting with a fairly good Faraday cage if conditions allow). Note that above ground utility lines by their nature are not protected by any Faraday cages at all).
Note that some of the modern utility lightning arrestors operate fast enough to ground EMP on utility lines and prevent damage. Unfortunately it will be decades before all the older ones are normally replaced with such modern ones - if the Utility decides to install these lightning/EMP arrestors at all.
Surge Protection Devides are not all they are cracked up to be. The NFPA has stated that Metal Oxide Varisistors (MOV) based SPDs have been known to catch fire under sustained overvoltage episodes. They do not protect sensitive electronics in those instances nor when brownouts occur. What are the design elements of any SPD. Newer ones may or may not have the sam issues.
Leviton also makes a surge protection outlet. Its NOT a first line of defense item, but its great as supplemental protection. I use it for TV that are not on surge protector with battery backup and fridges / washers or any fixed appliance that has a plug.
A ridiculous requirement. This has little to do with protecting personal electronics, and is more about protecting insurance companies against claims. (In case you don't know it, the NFPA is, essentially, insurance companies)
Ok, why can’t it be both? The homeowner doesn’t want a claim either.
@@HowToHomeDIY no, but if you ever read the information that comes with one of those things you'll discover that it really doesn't protect against much of anything. (Like... Lightning strikes)
That’s one thing and the only thing they list as not being able to protect against a DIRECT lightning strike. Almost nothing can. But it still protects from grid surges and depending on distance away can absolutely help with lightning strikes that are not direct.
Had one and had a direct lightning strike to the power line right above the transformer. Blew the shit out of all kinds of stuff! Those protectors will protect if the strike is a long way away but there doesn't seem to be any "cutesy trinket" that can stop a close hit. Cost me several hundred in circuit boards in various appliances.
We’ve come a long long way from just keeping your house from burning down. We’ll be so safe we can’t afford to eat
Installed same unit in my Fla Condo when I replaced my Main Breaker box 2 years ago.
I'm skeptical that these consumer oriented surge protectors do very much at all. Especially considering that they only have 14 or 16 gauge wire that goes to the breaker panel. I would want to have busbar going to a surge arrestor and I would want to have gas spark gaps as well as some type of metal oxide varisters. And it's even more necessary in this day and age with the possibility of Electric magnetic pulses either by man-made or solar events. And then of course there's the issue where you have a car crashing into a utility pole and dropping a 13 kV line onto a 240 volt distribution line. You have to be able to protect against those types of events as well. These little consumer surge arresters are useless for that.
The surge arrestors are specifically for lightning damage, not for freak accidents. Amazingly, the Surge Protection Devices do not need heavy gauge wire; they only do their thing for a handful of milliseconds. The same gauge selection used for power wiring is plenty for SPDs.
@flagmichael unfortunately, freak accidents occur all too often. Trees fall on power lines every day, causing HV to come in contact with LV lines.
And the shortness of the lightning event means the energy is up in the RF range, which means any inductance in the wires to the MOV will diminish the surge reduction effect of the MOV due to impedance of the wires at the high frequency of a lightning strike.
My preferred solution is a large loop of wire before entry to the building. The loop absorbs mush of the transient energy through its inductance, and what remaining energy gets through is suppressed easily with surge arrestors.
Is there any way to check how many on the nec board have stock in or own surge protector companies? There needs to be a study on how many lives would have been saved if the house or business had one of these surge protectors. Who oversees the nec board? Also, will the NEC board pay for anything in your house that is damaged if these devices they require don't work? If not, there would definitely be an indication that their motives are not in the interest of the homeowner.
So does this surge protector stop the frying of my electronics due to EMP?
So, many of them probably cannot. However, if you research the one in this video, the Siemens FS140, you will find where it is one of the SPDs recommended for an EMP event along with installing ferrites on the Line 1, Line 2, Neutral, and Ground.
This does not protect from EMP. EMP is atmospheric and not a line. This item, while not a bad think in many circles this is just another money maker for contractors. You can even have a small monthly fee protection by your utility and save the crazy money they charge to buy and install this device. Notice they don't tell you how much, there is a reason - it's expensive.
I said it won’t buy itself but it is one of the highest recommended surge protectors for an emp with ferrites also installed. They are way less expensive than the electronics and circuit boards I and so many others in the comments have lost from surges. To argue not having one installed is better is laughable to be honest.
My electrician recommended one for the house while we were upgrading a bunch of stuff, adding a circuite, etc. I already had one on the HVAC, but am glad the breaker box, aka whole house, also has one.
If the government requires you to purchase a product, you can be guaranteed that lawmakers were lobbied by that industry to mandate their products purchase.
It's truly disgusting...
That makes no sense. NFPA does not care about lobbying any more than you or I do.
@@flagmichael You are EXTREMELY naive.
That's a you problem, not a me problem...
Seen a lot of these installed during upgrades of the electrical systems or full remodels in homes. Never even thought about commercial systems.
Special thanks to those device manufacturers for producing sensors that silently fail.
So if it protects once , do you have to install a new one? Or, is it capable of taking multiple "hits" and keep protecting?
@@bruceirvine3962 that's a great question. Nobody knows!
@bruceirvine3962 multiple hits, but wears out.
I want to install both a power generator And Solarpanels to my late 19 50’s motel.
Heating in NH is mostly electric baseboard heat.
The panel is 200 amp service.
So how does a 20 amp surge protector work if you have 200 amp service? I dont understand how it protects the whole panel?
I'm wondering the same thing.
@@johnschutt9187A typical surge lasts less than 20ms and is just a voltage spike. All you need to protect your devices is have something physically closer that clamps the voltage to a safe level and absorbs the power difference. 20A is plenty to do that. In fact, a 20A breaker would take 200-800 amps to trip in under 20ms.
from the Square D folks: "Most of the residential SPD are limited to 12AWG and 20A max OCPD and the commercial SPD are limited to 10AWG and 30A max OCPD. Because since the transient voltage is only for nano second it does not make sense to go any higher than the 12 awg & 10 awg with respected OCPD. Besides the SPD it self does not draw any current it self anyway, so going with larger gauge conductor is waste of material without any gain"
The surge protector works by shorting the voltage spike to ground. When the surge is large enough, the surge protector sacrifices itself in the process. It becomes a short. The breakers trip to protect your electrical power.
A direct result of the manufactures pushing more content to increase margins. I have an SPD on my home but I installed it voluntarily.
10.7.23 Adam, what would be your thoughts on a breaker box that is full with no room to add this double 20amp breaker? Could one just add the two black wires to 2 separate 20amp breakers all ready in the panel? Or take out 2 single 20amp breakers and put in the double pole 20amp and put the surge and the other wires back on like double 20amp?
If you are asking a question like this, have an electrician install it.
The NEC may "require" SPDs (or other devices), but it's up to the AHJs (Authorities Having Jurisdiction) to enact it in a local code. Some municipalities are a few versions behind 2020, or they feel that an SPD isn't necessary.
I like living on the edge.
I even run with scissors.
Whoa, take it easy Evel Knievel!
I only run with safety scissers, I use furman surge and surge x surge protector and a isolating transformer for my expencive sound system and computer
They are needed for new construction or full service panel replacement.
My house built in 2019 did not come with one. I did install a whole home surge on my panel though. After big summer monsoon here in Phoenix valley, where power surge or power cut and the. Turn on surge things like my AC capacitors take a huge hit. I put a surge protector on my AC unit, but then realized I better do the entire house. So I installed one for the whole house. I went with a SquareD HEPD80
"NEMA rated box" means nothing. You need to state which NEMA rating it is. For example a NEMA 1 enclosure is NOT suitable for installing outdoors.
had 2 installed when I had electrician wire up a big heat press in my garage. He sold me on it as a way to protect all my electronics in my home. One on the main and one on the subpanel. I wish I had gone with the EMP shield one as the siemens may or may not protect against an emp pulse. Of course if that happens its probably game over anyway.
Just another gadget from politics and business lobbyists to make us buy mandatory devices.
Anti siphon hose spigots
Water heater safety devices that drove the prices up over 500 percent as far as the anti siphon devices that malfunction within three years causing major costs to replace them.
Same thing happened with the h20 heaters.
They are about 8” taller causing much higher cost to replace them and they also like to malfunction due to being electronically controlled gas valves instead of mechanically controlled gas valves .
Both use millivolts to operate however.
Arc fault is another product pushed into market by lobbyists
You stated to cut the wires shortest possible for faster signal; Signal travels (close to) speed of light, the length of the cable (that length) don't think would affect the signal speed.
It actually does make a difference considering since it’s going that fast it’s also trying to get to your devices.
Just buy the cheap one…… three times
I put one in a couple years ago. And you don't have to connect it through a breaker. You can connect Type 1 SPD's directly to the bus bars (line side) if you know what you're doing. But most viewers of this vid don't...may as well go the breaker route.
From the installation guide:
Line Side versus Load Side Installation
The FSPD Series is tested and qualified as a Type 2 SPD per UL 1449 4th Ed. The TPS4 03 and 09 series are tested and qualified as a Type 1 SPD. This SPD can be installed on the Line Side of the service overcurrent device. Type 1 SPDs may also be installed in UL Type 2 applications. The TPS4 11 series is tested and qualified as both Type 1 and 2 SPD. As a generalization, it is more practical to install as Type 2 on load side of main overcurrent device for maintenance reasons.
As a service Electrician, I find the breaker feeding the surge protector tripped quite regularly. Once reset the surge protect will have the correct status LEDs lit.
There is a later version of the box you recommend and the only complaint is that the wiring is about 15 inches shorter than the original. Thanks for the videos!
Wish I had one. A couple years back we had a surge that knocked out my thermostat. It was during the pandemic, and replacements were very hard to come by due to supply chain issues. Basically had no HVAC for well over a week.
Not helpful now, but for others or future - you can bypass the thermostat entirely. All a thermostat is is basically a switch, so you can manually turn on/off fan and AC if you have exposed wiring. TH-cam vids out there for how to do this. Useful to know in a pinch.
@@MUSCGamecock maybe buy a spare unit? if they are that delicate. They are cheap.
I have been looking to install one of these on my house for a few years now but just haven't pulled the trigger on it yet. We have very "dirty" power in my neighborhood and frequent power outages. I have several UPS batteries that frequently sound their alarms. I am going to prioritize this now, I didn't know it was such an easy install.
would have been nice if nec code had always made the power company surge protect the feed to your house, because one device could protect about ten houses on that transformer.
My utility offered MOV installation for just the price of the devices back in the '80s (haven't checked since). They aren't perfect - I used them in various sizes for protecting electronic in our Van de Graaf lab. Very fast spikes could get past them (ferrite inductors helped that) and very large surges could over-power them (vaporise). Remember that cable, phone, etc. lines are still not protected. MOVs can and should be added to those, too.
Oh my gosh, I was just quoted a price of over $1,000 to have one of these installed in my home! Seems a bit ridiculous considering how little time it takes to install and the price of those units. Your video makes it look easy enough for a confident DIYer to do.
I added 1 to the sub panel i installed for a Computer Room. Luckily the house main panel has a Surge Device already. The new gfci/afci integrated circuit breakers are awesome too.
Installing a single large shunt protector in the main panel is a bad idea. They work better to clamp overvoltages (and don't self-destruct as easily) when there is some series impedance ahead of them. Therefore smaller MOVs installed near or at the load do a better job than one big one at the service entrance.
During a power outage my surge protector started a fire in my panel. When the water heater turned off, my 25kw generator just started working harder to overcome the shorted surge protector.
Bought a new home 2024. AFCI breakers but no whole house surge protector. I will still install. For a couple hundred bucks, no brainer
New to me on the new standard. Thanks for the update.