Lightning arrestors protect HVAC systems from power surges. You need separate arrestors for low-voltage controls and high-voltage compressors, installed at both indoor and outdoor units. Whole-house surge protection in your electrical panel adds another layer.
Questions this episode answers
Separate arrestors for the low-voltage (control/thermostat) portion and the high-voltage (compressor/motor) portion.
One on the outdoor unit, one on the indoor unit, and a low-voltage arrestor tied to the thermostat wire between them.
Yes — whole-house surge detectors installed in the electrical panel are mentioned as an option.
About once a week over the course of a summer (per the speaker's report).
Chapters
Foreign. Hey, this is Derek Cole. Welcome to the Derek Cole Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And the majority of this podcast come from clips of videos with Q and A sessions. Sometimes I put the clip, sometimes the whole show. But usually the clips are kind of bite sized pieces, so you don't, you know, have to listen to me all the time for, you know, seven, 10 minutes. But these are helpful clips and I hope you enjoy it. Again, let's get right into it.
Why do we need. Well, first of all, we have a lot of surge pretenders on computers and TVs and stuff like that, but we don't see many on heating air units. And that's really one of the most expensive appliances.
Yeah, absolutely. And there's no good method for surge protectors on heat and air units. So what you generally see when you do want to protect your unit is a lightning arrestor, something that protects large surges. Because your general surge protectors that you're using on your computers and all that are detecting very small amounts of surges to protect items that run on very low voltage. Whereas your unit has items that are high voltage, but also has circuit boards that are low voltage. And so there are different levels of lightning arrestors. There's one for your low voltage portion of the unit. There's one for your high voltage portion of the unit. Definitely a good idea. Especially in the southeast, where lightning storms are very common in the summertime. And over the course of a summer we'll have lightning issues with compressors at least once a week that we go out and address and have to sign an affidavit that lightning has struck the unit.
And two, we have a lot of. You said a lot of storms, but we have, I mean, it's 95 degrees one minute and then five minutes later it's 75 degrees. I imagine that's a problem with power.
Yeah. Or you know, issues where the power's out and, you know, when the power first comes back on, we get a surge of power. When the power abruptly ends and has those flickers that we all experience, the voltage can change over that time period and cause high voltage spikes and do some damage.
Yeah. So lightning arrester, Good idea.
Lighting arrestor. Very good idea. Yeah.
So we have a low voltage, which we install a lot on the zone systems, things like that. And then we have a standard one that we install for the units. If you have two pieces, should one be on each outdoor and indoor piece?
Absolutely. Everywhere there's a, there's a connection to your main power source, your panel you need to have a lighting arrestor, you would, you know, if you have two pieces, you'd put one on the outdoor unit, indoor unit, and then there's a low voltage, your thermostat wire that goes between the two units. You would tie your low voltage lightning arrestor to that portion of it. And if you wanted something, they do make whole house surf detectors that go in your panel that are more suited for handling surges. But for your unit itself, you're generally dealing with lightning arresters.
Hey guys, Hope you enjoyed this episode of the Derek Cole Podcast. Did you like it? Did you love it? Share with somebody and pass on the word. If you want to see more of this, you can always go to Simmons One Hour Comm. That will lead you to all of our social links and our YouTube page. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you next time.
