How To Install a Surge Protector in Main Panel - Best SPD Location & NEC Type 1, 2, 3, & 4 Explained 

Good to know. Thanks for sharing.

Great recommendation. Thanks for sharing!

Wouldn't an inductive load like a motor better handle a surge?

Yes a motor can handle a surge better. The surge protection in this application is installed more to protect the associated electronics in the hvac package. But there is another reason. Every time you start the compressor the inrush current causes a spike on your power line that can cause issues with other electronic equipment in your home.

@@williamradwanski1998 Wouldn't it be better to added another capacitor then? Its like your dam is running out of water because you didn't build the dam big enough. If it was the right size, it could handle the fluctuations in the line. I wish whole home power factor correction capacitors were common item.

@@genuismensa I know they recommend putting extra capacitor on the HVAC if you have a back up generator to make it easier on the generator when the compressor starts! The HVAC makers try to save a few pennies buy putting the minimum cap in!😪

😂🤣🤣

This is why I try to avoid landing two wires into a breaker. Home inspectors are often dummies that use basic rules-of-thumb to quickly spot violations, even if they aren't actually violations. It's not worth the headache: they already reported to their buyer that the panel 'needs to be evaluated by an electrician', which sounds scary to a typical homeowner. I also try to avoid wire nuts in a panel (if possible), even though that's perfectly ok most everywhere.

To be clear for others reading this.... SPD's won't protect from direct lightning strikes....right?

I ALWAYS change a MOV after a surge. i also had many change values after a surge

@@rty1955 How do you test value, they are open till a specific voltage?

I looked up the Square D Homeline and it's only good up to 900 joules. Do you know if installing two would make a difference? I'm putting these in a 100 amp Square D sub panel that is fed from a 200 amp Crouse-Hinds main that is outside. They don't make them for the Crouse-Hinds, but my sub is what feeds my lights, receptacles, tv's, and computer. Thanks.

. Nice Job Again!

@@im2yys4u81 Sure the more the better, i 've installed hundreds of those Square D's and they're ok, certainly more better expensive ones...They all parallel and add up.

I’m a homeowner unversed in this stuff but have an electrical engineer friend five States away who insists that whole house surge protectors are a must-have but do NOT double them up with those at-plug surge protector strips in which I have invested (currently I’m watching videos like this to try and figure out the best whole-house protector to buy, btw). Here’s what he emailed to me: Although some people have been known to double up, two surge protectors in series DOUBLES the clamping voltage. Is that bad? ABSOLUTELY. The clamping voltage is the threshold for which all voltage spikes ABOVE that value get clamped (as in current is not allowed to flow -- it's STOPPED). Hence, clamping voltage protects your devices from voltage spikes above a certain value. The closer to 120 (without being too close), the better. So, a 300V clamping voltage is better than 400V. Use two surge protectors in series with 300V clamping voltage, and you're not protecting anything until a voltage spike hits 600V. Yikes! Goodbye fried equipment. Some guys that have used surge protectors in series have probably bragged about how it works and how they've never had a problem. But in reality, they just didn't have any voltage spikes bad enough to cause damage. Them saying "it works" is just an illusion. In the example above, maybe they had a few voltage spikes come through over the years that were all above 600V, so no harm, no foul. But if a 500V voltage spike came through, their equipment would have been fried. They were flying fat, dumb, and happy all those years AND just got lucky. To summarize, two surge protectors in a series give you LESS PROTECTION, not more. And yes, just to be resolutely clear, if you get a whole house surge protector installed, you're already at ONE surge protector. I would not plug in any power strip with surge protection unless it was just an old-fashioned type with the lighted switch (they often have a reset button which a real surge protector NEVER has), essentially allowing for more plugs. MY QUESTION: Is he right? I’m too uneducated to know. SECOND QUESTION: Is it worth paying more for higher capacity, whole house protectors? It seems like the cheaper (say, 36 amp, like that shown here) protectors can more easily self-destruct when a really huge surge hits. So don’t they wind up costing more over the long run, especially if a guy like me will have to keep paying an electrician to come out and replace them? I'm looking at this, for example, though another video I watched states that it requires its own special breaker and I'm out of slots on my panel: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013WINMK6/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A2Q1LRYTXHYQ2K&psc=1 (“140,000 Amp of surge current capacity per phase”). For that matter, how come manufacturers don’t make E-Z replace modules so I can simply flck my home’s main power switch off and then quickly change out the “blown” part like I would a light bulb? Is that just corporate greed, or has the tech simply not evolved enough to avoid this having to be a g-d major project every time a nasty summer electrical storm comes along?

@@jamesdesmond1301 Interesting, Unfortunately to the detriment of your buddies advice many devices already have a surge protector built into them anyway. This would be thumbing the nose of the device engineers themselves as the regular homeowner like myself has no power over the implementation of said equipment in devices. That said the addition of an additional power strip between a whole house suppressor and a built-in wouldn't matter since there are already surge protectors running in series by higher design. I've done what I've done based on mountains of advice including local power companies recommendations and while it technically might not make any difference it certainly isn't going to hurt in a measurable way at this point. I mean the thing that was frying my computers was simply due to the power being cut and it corrupting my OS. That said the UPS's is hat stopped that, not the surge protectors. They never trip, for all I know they are expensive LED's designed to part me from my money, LOL. I really don't think there is anyone bragging about anything like this on the internet, that would be like bragging about foot hair, it just doesn't happen. Simply put, passive aggressive, 3rd party internet expert advice in the contrary to my strategy is not going to make me lose sleep at night. I may be doing something overly redundant but that is the point. Ben asked what our own situation is and our strategy for it, I wrote down. It's that simple.

That’s pretty common.

@@suspicionofdeceit yes it may be a common practice, but a “by-the-book” electrical inspection may fail the installation.

This is not my understanding. As they are "Varistor"s, they begin to shunt voltage at approximately 10% above rating, with resistance decreasing until the clamping voltage, at which point the overage is completely shunted to neutral/ground.

No problem!

@@BenjaminSahlstrom See my note above. The Homeline dual function breakers are on National back order until at least March of 2023. Schneider won't honor a warranty on breakers bought on eBay or Amazon, and it's a crap shoot as to whether you're getting the real deal, or a flawed breaker.

Nice!

This is my question too. I can't come up with a reason why the amp trip rating of a breaker would relate to a voltage surge.

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You are wrong. These can take many shots. How many depends on how big the surge is.

@@brussels13207 You are wrong, because That's exactly what I said. Oh, and those "many shots" need to be very small. Anything real surge and it will fry. It's simply the nature of the science and the device.

@@rustusandroid not the ones we sold. I don’t remember exact specs but as I remember them, a 20mm MOV would take 1 50,000 amps shot, maybe 50 10,000 shots. I direct hit just outside your house would give maybe 10,000 amps. We also made big ones for direct strikes, up to 100,000 amps. Very impressive to see them tested. We had test rig that could give 250,000 amp shots. Whole building would shake.

@@brussels13207 Give me the model or part number to this elusive device.

The L1-L2-N lines are protected using MOV's that provide a clamp to the surge. The N-G is protected with a gas discharge tube that essentially provides a 0 volt clamp between neutral and ground when fired. This is because the nominal N-G voltage IS zero.

@@SoundzRite I wonder if I installed my type 2 Eaton CHSPT2ULTRA correctly in my 52 year old GE split bus panel. The instructions state to install through a dedicated 50 A breaker. The top portion with the 2-pole breakers was full so I installed the surge protector through a 50 A 2-pole compact breaker in the lower section where all the 1-pole breakers are placed. The lower section is fed by a 60 A 2-pole breaker in the upper section. Maybe I should just put the L1 and L2 in the 50 A 2-pole breaker for the electric range in the upper section. Alternatively, I could install three compact breakers (30 A, 40 A, 50 A) in the left side upper. The sticker indicates that those would fit in place of the two full sized breakers there now (30 A for ele dryer, 40 A for A/C condensing unit).