Surge protected sockets

[pixelated]

Yesterday a large number of people in the village where I live, had their electrical appliances destroyed because two phases were somehow connected to their homes instead of the usual live and neutral. Luckily I am on a different phase and was not affected by this, but I was wondering if this ever happened in the future, would a surge protected socket be any good? Info elsewhere on the internet suggests these sockets are designed for power surges of one second or less but I can't find find any info on what would happen in the event of over-voltage for any length of time. I am a little concerned about this as in one case it caused a fire. Any information would be appreciated.

 

[Lazarus]

Two different issues. A surge protector is for suppressing transient out of tolerance spikes.

The network problem experienced by the village amounted to an enduring overvoltage of 1.732 times the normal L/N voltage.

Domestic supply systems are generally locally protected only against overcurrent (and, sometimes, earth leakage), not overvoltage.


Not much you can do but sue!

But this is a truly rare cock-up on the Supply side and doesn't merit any individual preventive action in homes.

 

[hexah]

Tivù is right.

In this house I have surge protectors with RFI filters on every socket as the electricity supply is rather variable and noisy here in the sticks. It goes off at least once a year in winter, when that happens I unplug the tv and computer gear until it has been restored.

Brownouts can also be a problem, you can get a UPS that will prevent it affecting your computer and if there is a blackout it will power your computer for long enough to shut it down. In both cases the UPS can save the life of your computer.

 

[Chris76]

Only in a new home or a newly rewired home would you get the protection needed to prevent damage. This is protected by a main fuse rcd this will protect the entire installation from short circuit over current and earth leakage although it really sounds like somebody needs sacked or retrained pronto. The scenario you had there is the same setup as a boat would use and thus all phases are heavily protected by bs88 fuses. The likely hood of this happening again are remote but an rcd to protect the home is always a good idea.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[DishDick]

Not too uncommon in Spain. We must have had the same guy here two years ago. Lots of damage. At a friends bar he lost about 2.5K Euro of electrical goods.

 

[hexah]

. . . although it really sounds like somebody needs sacked or retrained pronto.

It's Spain.

He will have been promoted by now.

 

[Topper]

This happened in the house I live in in the sixties, from what my neighbours have remembered it seems to have affected every alternate house and was caused by over voltage from the sub-station, the Electric Board of those days replaced or repaired everyone's household appliances so I am told

 

[Channel Hopper]

Shocking...