Did You Know: A Power Strip Is Not a Surge Protector
They look identical and cost about the same. Only one of them is protecting anything.
Most people discover their surge protector was a power strip on the day it mattered.
Summary
- A power strip only adds outlets; it offers no surge protection.
- Surge protectors wear out, often silently, after absorbing surges.
- Whole-home surge protection and point-of-use devices do different jobs.
Key Takeaways
- Check for a joules rating; a plain strip will not have one.
- Surge protectors are consumable and should be replaced periodically.
- A protected indicator light that has gone out means it is finished.
They sit next to each other on the shelf, look the same, and often cost within a few dollars of each other. One of them gives you more places to plug things in. The other actually intervenes when the voltage spikes.
Telling them apart
A surge protector will advertise a joules rating, which is roughly how much surge energy it can absorb over its life. A plain power strip has no such rating because it has no protective components. It is a length of cord ending in several outlets, usually with a breaker or overload switch that protects against drawing too much, which is not at all the same as protecting against a spike coming the other way.
They wear out
This is the part that catches people. The components inside a surge protector degrade as they absorb surges. Each spike uses some of that capacity, and when it is gone the device keeps supplying power exactly as before, with nothing left to protect anything.
Better units have an indicator light labelled "protected". If that light is out while the unit still works, the protection is finished. Many cheaper ones do not tell you at all.
Surge protectors are consumables. Treat an old one, or one that has been through a serious storm season, as suspect.
Where the surges actually come from
Lightning gets the attention, but most surges are small and routine, coming from large equipment inside your own home cycling on and off. These do not destroy anything at once; they wear electronics down over time.
In North Texas, storm season adds the larger kind, which is a good reason to take this seriously here.
Whole-home versus point-of-use
A whole-home surge protective device is installed at the panel and takes the first hit on everything entering the house, including hard-wired equipment that has no plug to protect: HVAC, ovens, the garage door opener.
Point-of-use protectors at a computer or TV handle what gets past it and what originates inside the house.
They are layers, not alternatives. Whole-home for the big events and anything hard-wired, point-of-use for sensitive electronics. Whole-home installation is panel work, so it is an electrician's job rather than something you buy and plug in.
Need this done right?
Jarrett Page has 30 years in the trade and works Dallas-Fort Worth personally.
