How To Protect Home Electronic Devices From Bad Weather & Power Surge?
This article discusses effective ways of staying alert and tackling the issues related to power surges.
How Can You Prevent Home Electronic Devices From Bad Weather & Power Surge?
You can protect home electronic devices from bad weather and power surge by following various preventive measures such as unplugging devices, installing surge protectors, installing lightning protection systems, ensuring added protection for specific devices, upgrading AC units, inspecting your wiring, etc.
Power surges are among the most common reasons behind electricity-related device damage. Even if the lightning does not strike your home directly, it can still send power surges in your home and damage plugged-in devices by striking a power line in your surrounding area.
It’s important to remember that merely switching off the outlets does not protect your appliances completely. Your device may not necessarily be damaged by one strong surge, but many minor surges build up to inflict the damage.
Aren’t you intrigued to know more about protecting your electrical appliances? Read this article attentively till the very end for taking all the preventive measures beforehand. As we are aware, a stitch in time saves nine. Isn’t it?
Effective Ways of Protecting Your House and Electrical Appliances From Bad Weather and Power Surge
Take the following steps for keeping your devices safe and prevent losses caused by damage to electrical and electronic appliances.
Unplugging Devices
As severe weather approaches or there is a forecast of storms in your area, simply unplug all electrical and electronic devices. This takes away your devices completely off the circuit and prevents any damage if the lightning-induced power surge strikes the home’s wiring system.
Lightning strikes are considered as a leading cause of power surges. Therefore, it’s better to be safe and unplug any home electrical appliances whenever you witness a storm.
Installing Surge Protectors
Installing a surge protector in your home or office serves as an effective way of ensuring adequate surge protection. It is not a reactive measure but rather a preventive measure to be taken by your electrical design services provider.
It’s not necessary that you would be at your home when lightning strikes. In such a situation, you can’t unplug your electrical appliances and devices. Installing a whole-house surge protector comes in handy in such cases.
You can equip your grounded electrical outlets with a plug-in electrical surge protector. This surge protector diverts power surges to a ground connection in the event of their strike. This allows the homeowners to limit the voltage accessed by their plugged-in devices.
To install the surge protector at the primary breaker, you can hire the services of companies that provide electrical engineering design services. This surge protector system serves as a
gateway for controlling the electricity coming into your electrical system.
Whenever there is a spike in voltage, the surge protector gets into action and shuts off the power supply. It redirects the excess electricity to the underground wire.
Installing Entire Home Lightning Protection System
You should install the whole-home lightning protection system for protecting your entire home against electrical surges. As a homeowner, you would require the services of a licensed electrician for installing a service-entrance surge protector.
A service-entrance surge protector is installed between a home’s main electrical service panel and the electricity meter located outside the home.
The entire home lighting system prevents power surges from entering the internal wiring system of your home and thereby protects all plugged-in electrical devices and appliances within your home.
Additionally, you can install another whole-home protection system such as ground rods and bonds, lightning rods, and main conductors.
These are professionally installed systems that work together for capturing lightning strikes and directing the flow of excess electricity to the ground.
Inspecting Your Wiring
The presence of faulty wiring can also damage your electrical appliances and devices. You need to inspect your wiring for detecting the wires that are damaged or exposed.
The damaged wires increase the chances of power surge by offering little resistance and disrupting the flow of current to the specific outlets they are connected with.
You need to look out for signs for identifying the faulty wiring. If you have frequent tripping of circuit breakers, buzzing sound, vibrations or burning smells coming from outlets or visible burn marks on your outlets; it indicates faulty wiring.
In case you notice any signs of faulty wiring, you need to contact your electrician as soon as possible to avert danger.
You should hire a professional and experienced wire installation specialist for
conducting a thorough inspection of your electrical wiring system. This involves tracking the wires inside the walls and checking all the wires individually.
Upgrading AC Unit
Upgrading your air-conditioning unit is an effective way of preventing power surges. Whenever you start your AC unit, it increases the current flow in your building. Unfortunately, as it happens multiple times a day, it increases the likelihood of electric surges in your home.
Thus, if you have older AC units, ensure to upgrade them with newer energy-efficient models that require significantly less electricity to operate.
This results in the reduced excess current in circulation on restarting the AC units and thereby causes reduced incidences of power surges.
Added Protection for Specific Devices
Some electrical and electronic appliances, including computers and refrigerators, are very sensitive and hence require added protection. These specific sensitive devices need special care even when you have already installed a whole-house surge protector.
Install surge stations for your phone stations and cable lines. In addition, ensure that you have a good-quality UPS (uninterruptible power station) installed for protecting your computers.
Always use power strips to expand your wall outlets’ capacity and connect multiple electronic appliances that are in close proximity to one another.
Other Measures
Even though you have taken a wide range of preventive measures, you should review your home insurance policy and ensure that it covers you from a disaster strike.
As not every policy covers everything inside your home, you should ensure that your policy offers strong coverage.
Also, ensure to invest in a good-quality battery-powered radio. This comes in handy when the electricity supply goes out for long periods during bad weather conditions.
With a radio, you can stay informed about the ongoing weather conditions prevailing in your area and take required steps like moving your family to a safe location if climatic conditions worsen a lot.
