quick poco response

[junkhound]

Sent poco (PSE) an e-mail Thursday about the big surge last month that took out induction cooktop at son's house and took out a neighbors TV and cooktop (same type) - neighbor is on different dist xfmr. Then some anomalies again last week.

POCO came out next morning to son's house to install a data logger for a week.

Told poco that son's inverter drive minisplit had reset twice in the last week at his office (separate building and service, same address) and that the run cap on his house A/C had blown, plus the garage door opener also blew motor start cap!

Wonder what poco will find, or if some Tesla wannbe moved into the neighborhood, or if poco substation had a mishap again (last month's surge) ?

Going to put 16ea 20 mm MOVs into son's panels to be on the safe side. Very few lightning strikes around here, and no lightning recently.

 

[junkhound]

PS: am still wondering about the co-incidence of 2 different caps failing on different circuits onbasically the same day. The 4T unit was a run cap, but he garage door opener was start cap - overvoltage transient would only be seen during short time period when door was first operated.

 

[mgookin]

You might want to put your own data logger on there too.
"Just to keep them honest."
I don't know anything about your POCO. Ours is outstanding.
But in some areas some POCO's tend to cover up their mistakes from what I've heard.

 

[ghostbuster]

Caps always offer the lowest impedance to a voltage transient (whether generated by the utility or by nature) and will be the first thing to fail.

Installing a datalogger after the event is usually a typical utility PR response-similar to closing the barn door after the animals have escaped.

Invest in a high quality voltage surge unit ($400 to$500) at main service entrance.

 

[tx2step]

Invest in a high quality voltage surge unit ($400 to$500) at main service entrance.

Which surge units do you recommend?

 

[ghostbuster]

PM -me if you want info