Lightning strikes in Florida

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IMO AFCIs will do nothing to mitigate lightning damage and are likely to be damaged themselves when a conventional breaker would not be.
 
Whether AFCI's do what is promised of them or not, their function is not specific equipment protection it is branch circuit conductor protection, and the AFCI component goes a little further into protection regarding prevention of fires. They would be intended to cut the power to an appliance that may have potential fire starting conditions in progress, but are not there to prevent voltage surges to that appliance from happening.
 
Actually AFCIs are electronic devices themselves and just one more thing that can be damaged by lightning.
 
Best measures

Best measures

moroso321 said:
If I install afci's throughout my home, are my tv's and electronics be protected?
Thank you.
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Defense in depth. Install a whole-house surge protector connected to the service panel. Use surge protectors at each electronic device. Make sure the grounding of the service is good.
This will reduce the likelyhood of surge damages to electronic devices. You can also unplug power and signal from the devices during storms.

You can also try to buy stuff rated for use in Australia, they have severe lightning surge problems.

Remember, though, Lightning is Lightning.

A nearby strike is very hard to protect from, even if you have the Defense Department's Budget for lots of fancy devices and installation techniques.
Google "C4ISR" or "C5ISR" or "command control computers intellligence surveillance reconnaissance" to see the measures they use.

I'll ignore the afci carping/opinions, but they wiill not help in surge conditions.
 
nearby strike is very hard to protect from, even if you have the Defense Department's Budget


FWIW, a survivable, multiple strike protector for 45 KVA system protection Lightning, EMI/EMP arrestors and protection box for minuteman missile sites cost about $8000 in mid 1970s (pre inflation $$).
 
kwired said:
The question was whether AFCI's would protect his electronics from surges.
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Noted. Others addressed his question. Since power strips with surge protection is a likely choice (and better than AFCI), I mentioned what I did. Perhaps I should have written "No, AFCI breakers will not help protect against power surges/lightning strikes; plug in surge protectors would be much better at that. Note tho that if you have 2 wire receptacles, many plug in/power strip surge arresters will not work with them [2-wire (ungrounded) receptacles]
 
Whole House surge protection thru Duke

Whole House surge protection thru Duke

I realize that the post that this follow-up question has closed. My question is do those whole-house (at the meter) surge protectors Duke Energy installs and we pay $7.99/month for ever burn out? Ours is 7 years old and Duke's response today was, "As long as that red light is on, it's working fine" when I asked them to come out and replace it.

We have had outages every 3 weeks and now the appliances are acting up (ice maker is shooting ice across the kitchen) as the power to the residence is being turned on, often after 3 or 4 attempts at the transformer. Duke's response, "you know appliances wear out, right? That is not an issue associated with a power surge."

Am considering having Duke remove it and having our electrician install a new one.
 
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