Since we are approaching the rainy season, and last weekend was a good reminder what that feels like, I think it’s always a good time to talk about surge protection. You may or may not be surprised by this, but the number one cause of downtime for your central cooling system is not refrigerant related. The most common cause is actually electrical with the average home experiencing over 300 surges per year.
For those of us who live on Sanibel, we know that it’s a constant battle for our power company to keep the grid in good working order. Many major home appliances, including our air conditioners, rely more on solid state electronics to operate than ever before. While the luxury of it all might be very convenient, it still comes with a price. These controls are also more susceptible to power fluctuations than ever before. So to reference the title, the way to protect your expensive investment is to use surge protection.
Surge protection can be achieved through many different ways. You can buy those little surge protection strips for your pluggable appliances and most stores. However, for the larger stuff such as your air conditioner, you are would need to have an electrician install an inline surge protection on the electrical feed. If you really like the idea, you can even take this one step further and have a surge protection system installed for your entire house. That will cover all the circuits in your home.
As you may already know, I like talking about saving money. Surge protection is an additional cost of course, but spending some money now can definitely save you from spending significantly more and the hassle later. Consider that an investment.
As always, thanks for reading,
Bryan
Bryan Hayes, along with his brother Todd, is a co-owner of a Sanibel Air Conditioning company on Sanibel, FL. They also own and operate an island-based electrical service company Sanctuary Island Electric, Inc. Bryan can be reached at Bryan@Sanibelair.com
