Surge Protectors... why you’ll wish you had one!

It is our sincere hope that you never have need of a surge protector.

However...that is unlikely. Electricity can be unpredictable.
You can protect yourself a bit by making sure that computers and other sensitive equipment are not placed on the same power lines with equipment like copiers and air conditioners.

You can’t protect your equipment by just turning it off. Unplugging it will protect it, but that could be inconvenient.

You can protect your equipment from the not so common lightning strike or from the much more common surge, spike, sag or brownout through the power lines or telco lines by installing a surge protector that really protects.

A surge is a burst of more energy than you need that causes a sudden change in voltage. Examples of this are refrigerators, dishwashers or air conditioners going on and off, or a power station coming on or going off line. Other situations which cause these fluctuations can be storms, accidents involving power poles, falling trees, and loose connections.

You often won’t know that a voltage disturbance has occurred. There isn’t necessarily any sign. They happen quickly and quietly. You probably won’t see a flash of light or flickering bulbs. Although you don’t notice it...your equipment does. It will either burn out completely all at once or absorb the shock until one too many hits finally wears it down.

One of the biggest threats to your telephone system can come from that little office refrigerator or refrigerated water cooler. They regularly kick out more than a thousand volts when they shut off. Computer Telephony recommends that you put surge suppressors on the refrigerators.

All the little bitty pieces and parts on the miniaturized circuits in most of our electronic equipment are pretty intolerant of voltage ups and downs. Repeated surges can shorten their life by stressing them out or actually destroying them.

Surge suppression shuts down (or clamps) power to your equipment when voltage levels get too high.

How do you know which surge protection device to buy? Well, you could ask us...or check the packaging for some of the following information: