Are you using protection???

[ThomasW]

Just finished a complete replacement of the main breaker panel for the house. Why you ask? Protection my son.....

Image not available

The green LED in the device at the top right line of breakers is the status indicator light of a whole house surge protector = GE-THQLSURGE.

This thing has a surge current limit of 27,000 amps PER leg of the 220V line. The clamping voltage is 500V and the response time is less than 1 nanosecond. It's a sacrifical unit. When it's done it's job and the LED is dark, the unit is dead and must be replaced. Fortunately it just snaps in/out like any of the breakers.

Now you don't need to replace your panel to obtain the benefits of whole house protection. Many units are available that are add-ons to existing breaker panels/services. Leviton makes in-wall



and surface mount units. Any of these devices range in price from about $200 and up...



All the mfgrs of whole house surge protection devices recommend 'point of use' devices in addition to the whole house units, for protection for delicate/sensitive/mission critical equipment. Brick Wall are very good point of use devices, that don't use MOV's that deteriorate overtime. Now these little hummers are pricey. Brick Wall license's the technology from a different company. I've spaced out their name but will find and post it later. Their products are a little cheaper.

Now you say that can't happen to me!. Well that's what I thought until a surge wiped out my CRT-FPTV that was on a line with a Triplite surge protector...........

Oh and if you're wondering why I replaced my entire panel? Well when I was getting quotes for the separate whole house protectors; I found out that the company that build my main panel and breakers lost their UL rating. Why? Because the breakers weren't tripping at the rated load 8O

If anyone has a panel made by 'Federal Pacific' that uses 'Stab-Loc' breakers think seriously about getting a new panel installed.




theAudioWorx
Klone-Audio

[Lex]

Good post Thomas, certainly money well spent by those that have major investments in audio video! Also a good "alert" on that specific brand.

Lex

[JonMarsh]

A lot of good information there, Thomas. For any home owner in an area prone to electrical issues (especially storms), this is no laughing matter. Think of all the gear you've lost over the years that way- remember the Sony power amps, shortly after we met ?


Regards,

Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[Andrew Pratt]

If anyone has a panel made by 'Federal Pacific' that uses 'Stab-Loc' breakers think seriously about getting a new panel installed.

Hmm that might be what my house has now....going to check that shortly.

[Andrew Pratt]

That's exactly what my panel box is... :x

[jstwong]

Great tip for everyone! Andrew, sorry to hear that you might have a problem on your hands. Hopefully, things pan out for you! I have also been thinking about going with a surge protector at the panel. Perhaps I can draw some inspiration from this...

[ThomasW]

Andrew

Check with a local electrical contractor.

The one's I contacted for quotes to install the surge protector stated that the "F-P' panels with the Stab-Loc beakers lost their UR approval. This was because the breakers weren't opening until they reached loads higher than the ratings on the breakers (so that can = fire). But that houses that had them installed were 'grandfathered' in to the current electrical code, (again in the US). This of course makes no sense if they were a significant fire hazard.

What you'll find is that if you need to buy new breakers they cost 10 times the price of any other brand (at least here in the US) because the company can't make new ones only refurbish old ones. Now again that makes no sense to me. But when I changed out some breakers 5yrs ago the Stab-Loc were 5+ times the cost of the other brands. At the time it didn't dawn on me to ask why. And no one at the home center stores said anything about them.

If your panel is outside it's relatively easy to change out for a new one. In my house the panel was on an interior wall. That made removal of the old and installation of the new a real pain.

New panels and breakers themselves aren't very expensive. It's the labor and the permits that jack up the price. Also the need to have the main power cut and then reinstalled of course adds to the fun.

I worked with the crew that lowered the labor cost.

My neighbors allowed me to run extension cords from their outside outlets to power stuff like the fridge, microwave, etc. I'm very lucky this happened at this time of year, since neither the furnace or AC were needed. I used Coleman lanterns for light and have a gas cooktop that made life 'off the grid' more tolerable. Had to hand wash all the dirty dishes though. It was sort of like camping out but with the advantage of sleeping in my own bed




theAudioWorx
Klone-Audio

[PMazz]

I feel your pain.

I just got done (well, almost done) wiring the new shop. If you think single phase is fun, try some 3 phase for a change of pace. I'm batting a 1000 so far as every motor has run in reverse the first time around.

The good part is that it's all surface mounted and in conduit, so adding or changing things around is a piece of cake. Final inspection should happen the end of the week, if all goes as planned. :?

Pete

[Daryl Furkalo]

My house has a Federal box too!

[George Bellefontaine]

Yeow, I just checked mine and thank heavens it's not Federal.




My Homepage!

[Sonnie Parker]

8O

I know mine is not Federal because I installed it myself.

I mentioned this in a thread many moons ago, but it might be worth mentioning again.

I have a protection unit on my entire home through the power company that cost us $4 per month on our power bill. I did this because not only have we been hit with a surge that took out my 61" RPTV.....but we also have momentary drop outs quite frequently. Drop outs took out a relay on our refrigerator that cost us $140 and a drop out just recently got my Sony pre/pro.

The company that makes the protection unit pays for surge disasters and the power company themselves pay for the brown out disasters.

The first culprit since the new protection service was the Sony pre/pro. The power company stated to either have a technician of my choice write up that it was a total loss or bring them a repair bill and they will pay it no matter what. Pretty simple. Of course, being that the Sony is under warranty I elected to send the pre/pro back to Sony. If they tell me they won't fix it due to mother nature then I'll send the bill to the power company.

With our protection, all appliances are covered up to $1000 while items costing more are covered only if we purchase a separate protection unit that the equipment plugs in to. I purchased one for my TV ($8) that covers up to $5000 and purchased one for our HT equipment ($50) that covers up to $25000. If these additional units ever fail or wear out they are replaced by the power company for free.




SONNIE

Cedar Creek Cinema

DVD Collection

BFD Comprehensive Setup Guide

[Lex]

Hmm, that sounds interesting Sonnie, I may check with my power company and see if they offer a similar service, at least for the box level.

oh, and yeah, I was thinking, what I thought this thread was about from the title, hasn't been an issue in a very long time, :LOL:

Lex

[brucek]

Interesting info about "Federal", Thomas. You'd think that a company who's main product is producing circuit breakers would have figured out how to make them trip at the correct time. Too weird eh?

Circuit breakers are an interesting device. A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine wanted to "extra" protect his portable generator that he was using extensively to build his cottage. He wanted it to trip before the preset 15 amp internal breaker provided on the generator itself. Since he wasn't able to easily purchase a slightly lower current breaker we decided to modify a standard 15 amp breaker and mount it in a large power bar. In my lab at work I took a regular 15 amp breaker, drilled out the rivets, took it all apart, and then unwound the coil inside. I then rewound it with sufficient wire to produce a stronger electro-magnet to trip the breaker at about 13 amps, then put the whole gizmo back together. It works great and trips quite nicely at 13 amps now.
Anyway, long story to make my point of - what the heck's with Federal? - don't they know how a breaker works........

I agree it's a good idea to use "whole house" surge protection. There are a multitude of devices in a home that will benefit from this practice, including just about every appliance you own since they're all controlled by electronics today.
Of course, there's no protection from a direct or near-direct lightning strike. In these rare occurances, the spike produced will jump and fry anything in its path. It will laugh at a surge protector and jump right across it. This is millions of joules produced when you take a hit on a power line beside your house.
It doesn't happen very often though, so most spikes are as a result of a hit far away and the level that reaches your home through the power, cable or phone lines can usually be shunted to ground quite effectively - and more so when you have installed whole house protection that will transfer the energy to ground before it gets past the loadcenter. Certainly, it's wise to also provide local power bar type surge protection at your HT system to take care of any reduced spike that may get through the whole house system.

One of the problems with surge protectors is that they are sacrificial. Usually the "business" part of a surge protector is an MOV (Metal Oxide Varistor) that shorts to ground when it receives a spike over a certain voltage level. They react very quickly (nanoseconds) and return to their high impedance state once the spike has finished. The problem is, there is a finite number of times the MOV will provide this service. Eventually it becomes ineffective. Usually the product (that the MOV is mounted in) will have a nice little indicator light that shuts off telling you that the device is whipped.
The problem is - who the heck remembers to check the little light.

There are several types of whole house protection. The two main types as Thomas indicated already are external and internal.

The external variety can have a couple of advantages. They mount external to the service panel on the backboard and are wired into the loadcenter. These have the advantage of not having to match to the brand of loadcenter you own, because they are mounted externally. The other advantage of the external type is that they usually come conveniently loaded with both phone and DSS and cable protection. Kind of handy to have all this provided at one location. Home Depot sells these, I believe their brand is Cutler-Hammer.

The internal variety snaps into your loadcenter like any other breaker. They are a large device so that they span the two legs. You must of course buy the variety to match the brand of loadcenter i.e. Seimans, Square-D etc...
The kind I like (and have installed in my house) is the Seimans variety (C$150). It comes with two regular breakers in the unit providing normal circuit breaker protection along with the surge protection for the entire house. I like it because it not only provides the little light to show each leg is protected, but whenever the MOV finally becomes ineffective, that breaker trips. This "telltale" lets you know you had a spike that fired and destroyed the MOV, because whatever you had connected to that specific breaker shuts off. This forces you to go to your breaker panel and check the little indicator light when you try and reset that breaker. If the MOV is fried, the breaker won't reset. You can connect a circuit that has some commonly used lights in your house so you'd know quickly that the MOV is not providing protection. With the type of units that don't have this feature, it may be a long time before you notice that the indicator light is out.
I hooked one circuit of my two dedicated lines to my HT system, so I'll very quickly know that the MOV took a hit and I want to check its effectiveness before I use my system.

In my case since I already had standalone units taking care of my DSS and phone surge protection, so I didn't opt for a generic surge unit, but I think they're a good idea if you haven't already provided this protection elsewhere.......

brucek