Monk
Active Member
I am in step with your thinking, Lou - in that the < 200.00 expense isn't that great for the potential protection / piece of mind. I can install one of these on my own, and might just do that. The Leviton, along with existing in-house surge protectors could save me one day.
In truth, I don't fully understand how these things work.
My best understanding is that they divert surplus power to ground. My understanding of electricity would indicate that since this is wired in parallel with the house, that the diversion of juice would be proportional to the resistance and therefore essentially impossible to divert all of it to ground. To me that means that these only protect you in the event of a relatively modest voltage spike. In the event that the unit shunts those massive joule numbers they spec to ground that you would still get a bunch going to the house, just not as much, meaning that your stuff would just softly fry instead of exploding.
I guess most voltage spikes are modest and very transient so perhaps this setup eliminates 99% of the problem.
The Leviton model wires to two 20 amp breakers so any shunt to ground in excess of 20 amps would pop the fuse and take the Leviton out of the loop. Again, I guess it goes to the fact that spikes are over faster than a breaker can pop.
I do understand that they are self sacrificing, so it only protects you one time. Hence the need for the led to tell you it is dead.
In short, I am not 100% convinced that these things really work. But, for $180 I figured I would go ahead and take it on faith.