Electrical power is at the heart of most of our daily activities. Everything from turning on lights to using computers is reliant on electricity. Sometimes, though, electrical issues can occur with devices, fixtures, and appliances when a house doesn’t have defenses against them. In this post, we’ll answer the question, “How does a whole-home surge protector work?” to show you how you can keep things functioning even through potentially damaging circumstances.
What Is a Whole-Home Surge Protector?
A whole-home surge protector is a device that an electrician can connect directly to your home’s electrical panel. It serves as a buffer against large, sudden increases in electricity that may rush through your home’s circuit-using appliances and burn them out, causing irreparable damage. Occasionally, power surges such as these can come from nearby lightning strikes. However, it’s more common for them to originate from downed power lines outside or from the cycling on and off of appliances within the house.
How a Whole-Home Surge Protector Functions
Now let’s get into how a whole-home surge protector works in more detail. A whole-home surge protector is able to stop high voltages from traveling around your house by redirecting electricity. Under ordinary circumstances, it allows electricity to pass through to your appliances, fixtures, and other devices. But when the voltage rises above a safe threshold, special components within the surge protector conduct the electricity and send most of it into the ground through a ground wire. When the voltage lowers back down to a safe level, electricity will once again travel freely through the surge protector.
Whole-home surge protectors usually fulfill their functions using components called metal oxide varistors (MOVs), which change their electrical resistance based on how much voltage they’re exposed to. This trait allows them to activate and deactivate the process of shorting or redirecting electrical currents quickly when electricity exceeds their threshold voltages.
For electrical panel services, call No Shorts Electric today. We can repair your electrical panel and return it to a working condition if it’s damaged, as well as upgrade it to accommodate your modern appliances’ needs.
