Summertime in Southern California means every home and office is blasting their AC, trying to keep cool in the excruciatingly warm temperatures. This creates a large demand on the power grid, which is why there are often power outages, or even threats of blackouts and brown outs from your local utility company in order to try to conserve energy. While these outages aren’t directly harmful, they could pose serious threats to your electronic devices. Every time the power switches back on, you’ll notice that it flickers a bit, and this creates a power surge that can easily damage any unprotected appliances. The easiest way to prevent this from happening is to install a whole home surge protector, and our Torrance electricians at Carter Services are more than happy to help!

What Is a Power Surge?

Electricity operates very similarly to water. Just like water flows through your pipes, electricity flows through the wires in your home and electronic devices. We measure electricity in terms of its voltage, or its electric charge. A power surge is any time voltage exceeds a normal level for more than three nanoseconds. Any time the voltage is too high, it can burn a wire as it travels through it and render the wire completely useless.

Many different things can cause power surges, including overloaded power grids, lightening and other inclement weather, and faulty wiring.

I Use Power Strips—Shouldn’t That Be Enough?

It’s common for people to utilize power strips to plug in multiple electronic devices. These strips usually contain built in surge protectors that can withstand up to 6,000 volts of electricity. And while this is a good start to protecting your appliances and devices, it, unfortunately, isn’t quite enough. This is because the main goal of a power strip is to provide you with additional outlets for your electronics rather than protection for them.

How Whole Home Surge Protectors Work

When you invest in a whole home surge protector, our experienced electricians will install it directly into your electrical panel. From this location, your surge protector will work to directly regulate all electricity that is transferred into your property from the power lines. Any time a power surge occurs, either externally or internally, the excess electricity is automatically diverted away from your property.

We recommend whole home surge protectors if you rely heavily on any of the following electronic devices:

• HVAC equipment
• Kitchen appliances
• A computer or laptop and all associated accessories
• A television and any stereo equipment or video game systems
• Cell phones
• A washing machine and dryer

Take Advantage of Our Gift to You!

For the month of July, we are currently offering $65 off the installation of a whole home surge protector.

Just give us a call at (310) 872-1898 or contact us online to schedule service with our Torrance whole home surge protection specialists.