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The first line of defense is the hard-wired protector. The Surgebreaker Plus from Square D, a brand of Schneider Electric, is one example. Tonya Sherrill, staff product specialist for Schneider, says the equipment, which must be installed by a qualified electrician, protects the AC power line, four telephone lines, and two coaxial cables by diverting surges to a ground. Hard wired next to the load center, this one-size-fits-all device can protect against power surges from utility disturbances and nearby lightning strikes. It cannot, however, protect a home from any direct lightning hit. In homes where the telephone and coaxial cable TV lines cannot be routed to the load center, a hard-wired secondary surge arrester is recommended to protect them.
Attacks on office equipment don't end there, but continue inside the house. Any time appliances—hair dryers, power tools, vacuum cleaners—are switched on and off, they generate power spikes. Those spikes then travel through the in-house electrical system like shock waves and stress all connected equipment.
Bill Grande, director of safety and power quality products for Leviton, a leading North American producer of electrical and electronic products, says protection must cover all conductors. Surge protection is needed not only for the receptacles into which your equipment is plugged but also for high-speed data lines, whether they are cable or telephone. Those with a structured wiring module also should consider a network approach to protect both the electrical and low-voltage (cable/satellite/TV and phone/networking) system and electronics.
When choosing surge protectors, read the specifications to make sure that they are rated for an effective level. The National Lightning Safety Institute, for one, offers suggestions on its Web site for finding devices that will perform satisfactorily under abnormal power-quality conditions. There have been reports of devices that deteriorate over time or fail because of excess demand, according to a University of Washington report.
Backup Power during a Blackout
Backup power is also a key part of home office protection, says Vlad Konopelko, product manager for American Power Conversion (APC), a global leader in power availability solutions. When a blackout occurs, an important phone call may be dropped, an open document lost, hard drive data ruined. UPS backup can guard against these unacceptable consequences by providing you with enough time to close down work-in-progress and the computer.
Because a home office often involves communicating over the Internet, it's important to have UPS backup for a modem and/or router to be able to send email or place VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) calls, says Konopelko. It's also a good idea to back up a phone system that requires AC power to run, such as a phone with a loud speaker, as it may be critical or at least very important for your home office to be able to place or receive calls despite a blackout.
Leviton's Grande says a UPS should be used for critical items such as a modem, router, and computer, not for devices with heavy electric demands, such as printers. UPS devices are available at almost any computer center with an entry-level price of about $50. Some devices even come with software to shut down your system in an orderly fashion if you aren't there to do so.
Those with mission-critical work will want to look into larger UPS devices and may even want generators as backups. Larger UPS devices, which can range up to $500, will provide more power or a longer time period of coverage, depending on how much power is drawn. Determine your need for backup power by looking at the specification paperwork for your office equipment.
Regulated Brownouts
The best solution for the ongoing equipment insults of brownouts is a UPS with a trim-and-boost automatic voltage regulator (AVR), says Konopelko. The AVR is a transformer that will trim the power if it is higher than 120 volts and boost the power if it is less than 120 volts.
"Transformers can boost or trim only so much so, when the power fluctuations are not within the transformer's margins, the AVR-featured UPS will switch to the battery thus ensuring that devices connected to the UPS do not suffer from the power fluctuation. This combination of AVR and battery provides the best solution for poor power environments because they ensure that battery power is used only when needed, prolonging the battery life and ensuring that the battery stays charged."
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Text by Maureen Blaney Flietner
© 2005 BobVila.com
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