A brief podcast conversation about protecting heating and air (HVAC) equipment from electrical surges. Speakers contrast consumer surge protectors (for low-voltage electronics) with lightning arrestors required for HVAC high-voltage components and the unit's low-voltage circuit boards; they recommend arrestors for indoor and outdoor units and on thermostat/low-voltage lines, noting regional lightning and power-flicker risks in the Southeast.
Chapters
Why do we need. Well, first of all, we have a lot of surge protectors 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 arrester, 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 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, 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.
Lightning arrester. Very good idea.
Yeah. So we have a low voltage, which we sell 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. And everywhere there's a connection to your main power source, your panel, you need to have a lighting arrestor. If you have two pieces, you'd put one on the outdoor unit, the 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 arrestors.
