Surge protection

[GVA]

Hey I thought I would bring up a new topic to bore everyone I guess I'm good at that....

Due to the complex solid state controls that are in the new pellet stoves what are people out there using for their surge protection........
I hardwired a INTERMATIC power gard to my main panel it protects my whole house rather than just what is plugged in to the outlet.. pretty inexpensive too when you add up the costs of surge protecting power strips that you have all over the house (like the one your computers are hooked up to).


Just wondering what everyone else thinks

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

Absoluty. I keep a good amout of control boards on hand because lightning knocks them out regularly here. I dont know about the rest of the country , but lightning is a real problem here. My house has got hit twice in 3 years.

 

[GVA]

I hope thats not why your photo is on fire Just kidding...
Did the lightning wipe out any of your control boards?????????

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

the first time, yes. My computer, tv, stero, telephones, satalite boxes etc. Now i have surge protectors on every thing. I need to take a photo and post it, lightning hit agin about 3 weeks ago and split a nice pine right down the middle next to my house. Lightning is dangerous around here. You dont find my hiking much past 11:00 am.

 

[elkimmeg]

not a silly topic but a real good advice about protection of you pellet stove investment, Makes sense to me

 

[Shane]

I had to repair 2 chimneys on the same street that were damaged by lightning w/in a week of each other. One was a direct hit. The other was where the lightning hit a tree. It spiraled down the tree and blew the front picture window out. It's a good thing there was no one in there there were pieces of glass lodged in the wall. You do have a good point about the surge protection. Advice I must admit I should take myself, as I look at my pellet stove plugged into a normal outlet.

 

[hilly]

MSG, Are you serious about not hiking past 11:00am? Is this year round or just at certain times of the year? On the We(s)t Coast here, we might hear a thunder storm three or four times a year, but that's about it. In fact, I don't even know of anybody whose house has been hit by lightening.

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

im dead serious. People get hit here all summer long. Not in the winter, just the summer. Like clock work, storms roll over between 12:00 and 2:00. When your above tree line its downright dangerous. There were seven people struck on local peaks this year, and previous years are about the same. You mix the storms colliding with the contential divide. no humidity, and big ole blocks of iron around you, thats a bad combo. As matter of fact, longs peak has so much iron in it it creates its own weather. Some kid got hit a few weeks ago mowing his lawn, the news said that it was from a storm over 5 miles away.

 

[hilly]

That is wild! I talk about it here with my science students as part of the electricity unit, but for all of us it's more of an abstraction than anything. I didn't realize that so many people got hit by lightening...maybe I should go buy a lottery ticket!

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

here is a lightning link for CO.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/05/0522_030522_lightning.html
That high country there talking about is my backyard. I live 1000 feet below tree line.

 

[begreen]

The best surge protection is an uninterruptible power supply. The stove will see regulated voltage and you'll have about 10 minutes of runtime which will cover those temporary blackout blips. An 800-1000va unit should do.

 

[velvetfoot]

I also have that same whole house surge protector. I'm not confident that such an easy and cheap thing to install would actually protect the whole house electrice, but maybe since I installed it, it won't ever be tested, knock on wood!

Many things are not practical to install a separate arrestor, like the dryer, oil burner, stove, dish washer, etc. Everything has electronic controls nowadays.

 

[GVA]

unfortunatly i'm sure most people don't have surge suppressors on thier stoves or computers but rather power strips which equal nothing in my thoughts.
again the surge suppressor is to prevent against surges in power which can happern year round I'm not nessicarily talking about lightnig strikes but merely voltage spikes.....
The whole house protection i'm sure would fail if a bolt of lightning hit my power lines as would a plug in style... But I feel better knowing that with the exception of a bolt of lightning that my house is protected against surges and transients.
A UPS is cool but why spent the extra money?

 

[begreen]

UPS is cool if you have a pellet stove because the stove keeps on cooking during those short power outages. If it looks like it's going to be a long one, then you have time to shut it down gracefully. And it does a better job at surge protection. For about $100-200, that's good insurance. A new control box can cost $120+.