Home Surge Protection Beyond Just a Fusebox

There is a common myth among homeowners, especially those who’ve bought a home in the last decade, that the electrical grid in a home is already protected from power spikes and similar. While every home today that is up to code has a fuse box to prevent electrical fire damage and sudden loads, that doesn’t equate to surge protection. And, given all the electrical devices people are using today in regular life, a surge can be even more damaging than people realize.

What Exactly Happens with a Power Surge?

While the most recognizable form of a power surge on a home would be a lightning strike or municipal failure, which is why many homes in the Midwest have lightning rods, for example, surges can also happen for other reasons too. Failure of a fuse box system is one of the most common, as well as malfunctioning electrical appliances. Older wiring can be a culprit as well, which is often found in homes bought used and where the wiring hasn’t been upgraded properly for modern life.

What Kind of Damage Can a Surge Do?

As mentioned above, electrical devices can be shorted out and essentially destroyed. The surge comes in so strong, the circuits inside the equipment motherboards melt and are destroyed. That same heat, however, can also trigger a fire, especially with plastics. And that in turn can trigger a house fire. The surge doesn’t even need to get to equipment to create a fire hazard; old wiring behind walls can fail with a surge, triggering enough sparks and flame to ignite old wall material and insulation too. In short, surges are a real problem and concern without sufficient cutoff safety.

A destroyed fusebox is almost a certainty with a surge hit. The fusebox is the primary break point and connection between the municipal grid and the home. Ideally, fuses are sacrificed first, and usually flip off before being destroyed altogether. But, with a big enough surge, a fusebox can be hit, resulting in an expensive repair.

Whole Home Protection

Whole-home surge protection services provide the critical safety net a homeowner needs from a power surge, whether it comes from a lightning strike or an internal equipment failure. This is particularly needed in older homes that might already be strained with dated wiring and modern equipment. Surges can happen with the simplest things too. For example, hair blowers and microwaves have long been problematic with wiring grids that are not upgraded to handle their sudden power load demands. Add in computers, smart TVs, gaming systems, smart kitchen appliances and the list of items that can be damaged grows tremendously.

With a whole home protection in place, the prevention aspect is already in place before the risk occurs. No matter what is changed, added, or plugged in, the protection stays constant, which really helps with a growing family over time. And that includes everything from appliances to casual entertainment equipment too. A professional approach upgrades the fusebox and circuit breakers for the requisite protection, and the ongoing defenses cut off and deny access to a load spike before it ever gets into the home or spreads from one room to the next.

Don’t be a Damage Statistic

With the move towards more and more consumer technology, from Internet of Things (IOT) devices to home security to smart devices, everything requires electrical connection, adding more and more to a home’s power load. That also makes more things vulnerable in a surge. With a home protection service, a homeowner can eliminate one big, disruptive risk right away. While it’s not a perfect solution for every problem that might occur in a home, surge protection definitely prevents an unhappy day from occurring for everyone involved.

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