exploding surge protector

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telcoworker

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My problem is with a customer that lives up on a hill and seems to be getting very large power surges during electrical storms. Their home is not getting directly hit with lightning, but the storm surge ran in and completely blew up an external whole house surge protector attached to the side of the breaker panel and also burnt up the home alarm system. This is the second time in the 4 years. Is the nearby power pole being struck instead and bringing in the surge? It is a 4 year old home with 2 ground rods connected to the main breaker panel neutral bar inside the home. The meter can outside has a lug on the neutral bar that would accept an additional GEC. Could I drive 2 additional ground rods and attach an additional #6 grounding electrode conductor to the neutral lug in the meter and try to drain off any lightning surges BEFORE they enter the house? Would this do any good, or could it cause some sort of freak problem of its own. Thanks so much for your help.
 
You are facing bigger issues than just driving more ground electrodes. I would install HIGH quality TVSS not the typical home owner supply house TVSS, and multiple point of use TVSS, I would also contact a firm that specializes in lighting protection to get their take on this. If the lightning company installs a LPS, you would have to attach the building service to this system and you should upsize the conductors.

When you install the TVSS READ THE INSTRUCTIONS, leads as short as possible, no tight bends and bind the conductors tightly together.


If the surround area is getting hit regularly, the house has to be due for a strike. Also any trees near the house, a good hit could bring them down.
 
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If I lived in a house where it was obviously only a matter of time before the whole thing was incinerated by an act of God, I'd move. :D
 
I would expect a surge protection device at the panel to sacrifice itself. Doing its job. Add multi level protection as suggested, but something that has already jumped several miles is not likely to be stopped completely by another few milimeters of electronic gizmos.
 
ptonsparky said:
I would expect a surge protection device at the panel to sacrifice itself. Doing its job. Add multi level protection as suggested, but something that has already jumped several miles is not likely to be stopped completely by another few milimeters of electronic gizmos.
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A wise comment.

One of two things happens when a SPD sees a high voltage.

It turns on and saves the electrical system,

or

It turns on and dies in the attempt. The aftermath can be fairly impressive. It is why UL changed the rules a few years back and now require the cases of SPD to be more fire resistant.
 
brian john said:
You are facing bigger issues than just driving more ground electrodes. I would install HIGH quality TVSS not the typical home owner supply house TVSS, and multiple point of use TVSS, I would also contact a firm that specializes in lighting protection to get their take on this. If the lightning company installs a LPS, you would have to attach the building service to this system and you should upsize the conductors.

When you install the TVSS READ THE INSTRUCTIONS, leads as short as possible, no tight bends and bind the conductors tightly together.


If the surrounding area is getting hit regularly, the house has to be due for a strike. Also any trees near the house, a good hit could bring them down.
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VERY sound advice!

Some areas have a far greater risk of lightning strikes than others this sounds like one of them.
 
Does the POCO transformer have an arrestor ?

Is it in working order ? I have seen a shower of sparks come off of mine during storms, pole mounted.

Is the ground conductor on the pole intact ?
 
Make sure the other utilities are bonded to the service too, I had a customer that constantly losing their TV's and telephones everytime a storm came up. Area was bad for lightning strikes traveling down the utilities. The POCO feed came in at one end of the house, while the telephone and cable came in at the other end. Drove two ground rods at the service, laid in #4 bare copper 2' deep through the yard, drove two more rods and tied in the cable and phone grounds. Customer never had any more trouble with surges. Later on gave me a $500 bonus because they were so happy it was fixed.
 
exploding surge protector

Thanks hillbilly 1! I will be at the customers home on Friday morning to replace the surge supressor with a better type. You may have hit on something about the phone grounding connection, because besides the ss blowing up, the only other thing damaged was the home alarm system. It probably is a auto dialer tied to the phone line. And reguarding the ground running down the side of the POCO pole to earth, we are having a terrible time with theives cutting the ground wire off up as high as they can reach to steal the copper. I talked to a POCO rep the other day, he said that they used to replace it, but the shiny new copper was an automatic invite for re-theft. So I asked him what they were going to do now. He said they were not going to waste their time constantly replacing grounds, I had better have a good set of ground rods driven. So much for good, safe service.
 
Many,many years ago when the copperheads were very active and stealing the POCO grounds, they switched to aluminum as the replacement wire. Apparently it did not work too well though, because they came back thru and changed it back to copper a couple of years later. I'm doing some cell tower work now, and every tower I've been to so far, has the grounds stolen as high as they could reach.
 
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exploding surge protector

THANKS FOR TAKING YOUR BUSY TIME TO HELP. I went to the customer's home yesterday. I installed the best Eaton/Cutler Hammer residential surge suppressor, the Ultra. The incoming phone line had a #12 ground wire attached going into the ground at the outside NID, but I could not see where it went to, so I used a #8 stranded CU and tied it directly onto the homes main #4 grounding electrode conductor. #8 was the largest wire I could get under the Telco lug with the #12. The home alarm system was grounded with 2 #24 copper phone wires twisted together and split bolted to the GEC. I removed this and replaced it also with a #8 CU stranded. The burnt up surge suppressor was connected to the panel with 2 individual 20 amp single pole breakers. Because the instructions called for a 15 amp double pole breaker, I replaced both of them. The stabs on the main busbars where the surge suppressor was attached looked like they had been hot. They had that bluish tempered look, but had no pitting or burning. The customer?s home has a complete lightning rod system, but I couldn't find where anything went because it seemed to be behind the brick. I told the home owner that if this did not fix the problem, the next step would be to install the high quality $400-$500 surge suppressors, and dig up the yard where the GEC disappears into the ground and see if the GEC was intact without splices, and see if 2 ground rods were attached. The home is a large 9 year old home with a 400 amp meter panel feeding 2 200 amp 40 circuit panels side beside, just through the wall. Each individual 200 amp panel had a #4 CU tied to the neutral bar, going through the wall, and disappearing into the ground outside. The 400 amp meter box had a #4 CU attached to its neutral bar, and running inside to the neutral bar of 1 of the 200 amp breaker panels.
The really strange thing is both 200 amp breakers panels are Square D QO panels with Square D QO whole house surge suppressors built into each panel, up beside the main breaker. The green lights are still on on both of them, and they have never been damaged by surges, although the right panel has blown up two external surge suppressors and the TVs, home alarm system, and garage door opener twice in the past. Also this home has an underground service running from a pad transformer approximately 100' underground in 3" PVC to the house. The panel with the recurring problem appears to be set up exactly identical to the other panel. THANKS AGAIN FOR ALL THE HELP!
 
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