Protecting your stuff from power problems.

We are so used to plugging things into the wall, whether an electrical outlet, a cable connection, or telephone jack, that we do not really think about the electrical dangers present in each one of these. Every day in homes and businesses delicate electronic devices are damaged by random electrical events that come in not only from electrical outlets but also from cable and telephone connections.

Many folks are aware that a computer "must" (well, should,) be plugged into a device that protects from electical surges and spikes on the electric lines. It makes sense after all since electrical outlets are inherently dangerous and potentially deadly. They're designed to protect us during normal use, but we are aware of the danger to ourselves and, by extension, vaguely aware of the danger to the very stuff we plug into those same outlets.

What I want to teach you here is awareness of other risks, namely from telephone lines and cable connections, and risks to all electronic devices, from plug-in calculators and ten-keys, telephones and answering machines, to stereos and televisions and cable and satellite equipment. Even digital alarm clocks.

Now, before you start adding the costs for high-quality $10-$30 power strips for all your outlets, rest easy. The solutions I'll discuss will cost some money, but it will involve some things you may not know about, devices and good habits that comprise a compound defense.

Let's start with an awareness issue. Electricity is used not only in electrical outlets. It's used on phone lines and on cable-tv and cable-data lines. In addition, just as an electrical outlet can deliver a power surge or power spike, so can a telephone line or cable line.

What is a "surge" or "spike"? These are two different types of events.

A surge is a steady increase in voltage, often caused by turning on or turning off various things, especially with motors, whether in the same house or building or in a nearby building. Damaging surges can push the voltage on a line well beyond the intended voltage, and equipment on that line may not be designed to take such a surge. Think of it like a surge in pressure in your water lines; at some point the pressure will blow spigot valves in your kitchen or bath or laundry room and cause leaks in your pipes. It can happen quickly and recede quickly, but it can happen and it can damage stuff along the way.

A spike is a sudden increase in voltage, usually from some immediate event like a lightening strike or shorted power lines or a suddenly failed electrical transformer. Spikes can run into several thousand volts and beyond, and they can come from events far away, like lightening strikes in next state and even the sun.

The sun? Yes, indeed, the sun. You see, the sun sometimes sends out massive waves of charged particles in what are called "coronal mass ejections". If a wave of those particals hit the earth they may just ride over our planet's magnetic field and move on. Then again, they can wreak havoc. Since the masses have a magnetic polarity and the allignment of that polarity varies with each mass of particles, there is a risk. The risk can happen when the mass' poles are opposite the earth's, so our north pole meets the mass' south pole, and our south pole meets the mass' north pole. The result is a strong compression of the earth's magnetic field, bringing the charged particles closer to the planet surface. The proximity of that charged mass can induce massive voltages in the planet, running into the teravolts range (lots and lots of zeros), and running along the surface of the planet. We don't feel these events ourselves, but the induced voltage can and has flowed through power lines for thousands of miles, and some of that flow can come through the wires into your house, delivering a spike that burns out tiny electronic circuits and turning your computer or TV or alarm clock into a chunk of dead metal and plastic. More often they knock out power, plunging whole regions into power failures.

You cannot protect against all such things. Lightening strikes, for example, deliver spikes that have blown telephones out of people's hands and ruined cable boxes and reduced TV's and computers to smoldering lumps. The protections I describe here will defend against these things, but they will not guarantee protection against everythng.

Your protection plan will depend on where you live and what you have plugged in to electrical, telephone/data and cable outlets, as well as how much lightening occurs in your area, and your proximity to things like factories or powerplants.

Your power protection plan will start where your responsibility for these pathways start for your house or business. For electrical circuits, it starts as your main breaker panel. For phone connections, it could start at the "demarc". ("Demarcation" for where the phone company runs phone lines, these days often a gray or beige box on the side of the house or building, usually mared "network interface" or something like that.) For cable connections is can start where the cable enters your house if there is a connector there, or, more likely, where your cable comes out of the wall.

First, electrical service protection.

You can start at your main panel with a device called a "transient voltage surge suppressor" (TVSS), which can usually be plugged into an open breaker slot on the panel, or, for bigger applications or for three-phase (commercial) power, as a separate box mounted next to and connected to the panel. The TVSS will probably have an alarm to indicate it has been blown (Big Spikes). Most often though, it will protect against surges and spikes from the electrical service into the structure, and you will never know anything happened.

TVSS' are available from electrical supply outlets and often as a special order item from home centers. They run from $50 (internal to panel) up to $2000 (external from panel) and up. Considering the average home has at least $10,000 worth of electronic equipment (computers, phones that need power, radios and TV's, even microwave ovens and any other device that has an electronic display (newer ovens and refrigerators, for example)), these devices are cheap insurance. They will require professional installation, but that's a one-time charge.