Customer Reviews

SURGE PROTECTOR WHOLE HOUSE

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Intermatic Whole House Surge Protector

On September 30, 2006, the Washington Post reported the following:

"Catherine Jamieson had costly surge protectors safeguarding her most precious electronics. So, she said, she was one of the "lucky ones" when a power surge heaved through her East Falls Church neighborhood this week, frying computers and damaging appliances in hundreds of homes. Still, Jamieson said her home suffered a stunning amount of trouble, starting with a $1,500 alarm system that was still smoking when the security company arrived, a fried phone line and a busted furnace. Her neighbor discovered her refrigerator aflame, Jamieson said, noting that her own situation could be worse. It makes me want to cry, Jamieson, 57, said. Her home was one of more than 200 affected in the Arlington County neighborhood when Pike Electric, a contractor for Dominion Virginia Power, was doing repairs Tuesday and allowed two power lines to touch, Dominion officials said. The contact sent a rush of power into as many as 600 homes, some of them on Sycamore Street, Washington Street and Lee Highway."

Subsequent reports noted that the few homes with whole house surge protectors suffered no damage. We owned a home in that Arlington neighborhood at the time, and it had the previous model of this Intermatic Whole House Surge protector installed on the main panel (load center). We didn't know anything happened until reading about it in the papers, as there was no damage to anything, including the Intermatic unit.

Needless to say, we have an Intermatic surge protector in our current home. We bought a more expensive Intermatic unit, even though the old one did its job. The Amazon ad doesn't mention it, but I believe this protector comes with a 5-year product and damage warranty; save your receipt. Check out their products on intermatic dot com.

To install a whole house surge protector, you will need two empty circuit breaker slots (one over the other) in your main power panel/load center. Install two 20 amp circuit breakers, to protect each power phase; 15 amp breakers will also work, but will provide somewhat less protection. (DO NOT use a tandem/piggyback breaker, as they draw power from one only one of the two phases, and will therefore protect only half of your circuits.) Alternatively, install a 220 volt 20 amp breaker. It's not advisable to connect the surge protector's hot leads to circuit breakers with other loads, as that may reduce the unit's effectiveness. If you are handy, you can install it yourself. If electricity frightens you, hire an electrician. Installation instructions are included.

Many power companies offer whole house surge protection, although in the long run, it's much cheaper to do it yourself. For example, Dominion Virginia Power sells "complete protection for all of your appliances, heating and cooling equipment and other motor driven equipment, for a one-time installation fee of $89.00 and a monthly service charge of just $4.95".

Whether you buy an Intermatic, Leviton, or another brand of whole house surge protector, get one with indicator lights to let you know it's working. The unit could sustain a major hit and burn out, but without indicator lights, you wouldn't know you've lost protection on one or both power phases.

You can also spend a lot more than this on a whole house surge protector. The more expensive units typically provide more complete protection.

I had installed an Intermatic whole-house surge protector in my home. A storm toppled trees in the area, and one tree landed on the powerlines. The high-voltage lines were pushed down onto the residential voltage lines, causing a power surge. My neighbor's electronic equipment (television, furnace, dishwasher, water softener, etc. worth about $10,000) was not protected and damaged, but my electronics were spared. This event blew out one channel of the two-channel surge protector, so I really need to get a replacement unit. My neighbor spent about $1,200 to get his equipment repaired, and all I will spend is $80.

The instructions were accurate and straight forward. I had to mount the unit upside down in order to mount the unit to the left of my panel. According to the instructions the goal was to minimize bends in the wire. Therefore I had to mount to the left of my circuit panel. The unit as it comes is set up to be mounted on the right side of a panel.

Unfortunately, I cannot judge how effective the unit is until there is a power surge. I would just as soon not have that happen. I do have peace of mind now that it is installed. The idea came from losing the control panel on my energy saver water heater. When searching for information on the internet a commenter recommended a surge protector for it since power surges were blowing a lot of them. Whole house protection made more sense since everything we buy today has solid state electronics.

Take it from an Electrical contractor, This one is fairly easy to install. I used 1/2" liquatite.
I think 1/2" flex would be easier. You need a 1/2" (thread size) by 1" rigid, threaded connector
and 2 1/2" connectors. I replaced 2 15 amp. single breakers with 2 15 amp. twin breakers to keep
the protector dedicated or isolated. It's well worth the money. We had problems in the past and
some appliances fried. Keep the wires short. It's sacrificial(used for 1 jolt then replaced).
Easy to read and understand instructions. An electrician installs it in 1 hour(highly recommended).

My Intermatic PanelGuard looks different (see picture).

The one annoyance is that it was a bit of a pain in the butt to install. The last unit I bought (nearly 10 years ago) took 15 minutes to hook up.

This one's threaded nipple does not line up with any knock-out on any panel (I have 3, by two different manufacturers). The PG connector was too far forward for the rear-most KOs, and too far back for the front-most KOs. The result was that I had to either
(1) drill a new 1/2" hole in panel (not recommended for alive panel - and shutting off the panel's power adds another 30-minute chore: resetting a dozen clocks),
(2) plane-down some section of 2x4 to serve as a ~ 1" shim to mount PG on, or
(3) make a trip to Home Depot to find an array of parts that would allow me to mate the PanelGuard to my panel.

I chose option 3 - my car needed the exercise - thus making this a more than 2-hour install. (The extra HW needed was a ½" offset and a ½" threaded connector)

Other than that, unit seems okay.

It arrived very quickly and was well-packaged.

This product is very well made as compaired to others in the same price range. It feels gutsy and has weight to it an indicator that it can do the job well. We have had many lightning storms in our area this year ( 2008) and have lost various pieces of electronic equipment caused by voltage surges or voltage spikes related to lightning strikes close to our home. Time will tell as to how effective the product will be, but feel it will do what it was designed to do!

Instead of buying power strips with serge protectors, this will protect the whole house for under a hundred bucks. Took almost 20 minutes to install.
I first used one 20 years ago in a computer lab at Northwestern University. Dose the job.

Living in an area with a lot of thunder and lightening, having a whole house surge protector is a must. This product, at a very reasonable price, does the job very well! Have recommended to friends and neighbors. It's nice to have protection for home theater, PC's and numerous other electronics. Easy to install too!

Easy to install and relatively inexpensive means of providing protection for your entire electrical system, particularly in storms. I highly recommend.

I purchased this item for someone that does not live here. I haven't seen it but they are satisfied with it.