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The original was posted on /r/electricians by /u/Major_Tom_01010 on 2024-01-21 17:29:50+00:00.
Hi there you may recognize me from asking questions like "why are you guys putting gfi on everything and are we (cec) next"? Today asking about whole house surge protectors.
OK so I was tought as an apprentice that surge protectors were a scam because they wouldn't survive anything serious anyway. They seemed to be something sold by companies that employed sales bonuses. This bias may come from the days of the boxes with a tiny capacitor in it that were sold to elderly as a scam. I have installed them on well pumps but that's it.
I noticed from people posting quotes on askelectrician that they were being marked as required by code for NEC. I have also been seeing Mike homes devices being sold at my suppliers.
So got me thinking, is this something that has actually become useful? I just had a call where a power surge took out a furnace transformer and left them with no heat overnight. Would this have protected them?
I have a policy of never recommending anything that's not needed, but have no problem making money off selling things that are useful- and could even get ahead of the trend and start recommending them to my clients - but only if doing so is effective. It's not yet code here in the north lands.