Originally Posted by QultingaddictUK
I completely agree, I have been an IT consultant, besides being a Chef for many years and Surge protectors work to a point. Simply they "iron/level out" the power that comes in your home, which is not stable because it is "AC" meaning Alternating current.
Surge Protectors WILL NOT protect any of your equipment against lightening strikes and the like and just turning off an electrical item does not protect you either.
Well as an electrical engineer who even designed this stuff, any protector that does not even protect from lightning is scam. We routinely earth direct lightning strikes without damage. Your telco CO (that computer inside the switching center) suffers typically 100 surges with each thunderstorm. How often is your entire town without phone service for four days? Never? Because less expensive protector are used everywhere in the world. Use technology that was even well understood 100 years ago.
Too many myths have been posted to reply. Some have already been address in
"I didn't realize I was not totally protecting my machine" and
"here" and
"here" and
"here".
Protection is always about where energy dissipates. Surge protectors are sold like Listerine, cold remedies, Dannon Yogurt, and miracle health foods. They do nothing. Hype subjective solutions that so many automatically believe.
Those posts ask damning questions. For example, how does that magic box stop what three kilometers of sky could not? It doesn't. Read its specs. It does not even claim protection from each type of surge. It is called a surge protector. Its specs claim no protection. But those more easily deceived will automatically assume it does surge protection. Instead view those scary pictures.
Meanwhile, an informed homeowner earths one 'whole house' protector from other more responsible companies. Surge protection means lightning strikes incoming wires. And nobody knows a surge even existed. Even the protector is unharmed. All surges, major and trivial, are made irrelevant IF energy dissipates harmlessly outside the building.
A bottom line is simple because it also identifies ineffective protectors. A protector is only as effective as its earth ground.