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The $400 'premium' surge protector I bought was a total scam and I feel stupid for falling for it
I dropped $400 on one of those fancy whole-house surge protectors from a company that sponsors a bunch of conspiracy podcasts. They claimed it would protect every outlet from EMPs and grid spikes, which sounded perfect for my home office setup. Installed it myself after watching their tutorial video, took about 3 hours. Then a regular thunderstorm rolled through last month and fried my TV, router, and a monitor. The unit didn't even trip or show any sign it did anything. When I called their support line they blamed improper grounding and said the warranty didn't cover 'user error.' Has anyone else had bad luck with these high-end power protection setups, or did I just buy from the wrong brand?
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the_patricia21d ago
Oh man, this EXACT same thing happened to my buddy Dave last year. He bought one of those EMP proof surge protectors for his whole house after some prepper podcast scared him into it. Cost him like $350 and he spent a whole Saturday wiring it up in his basement. First big storm we had, it fried his brand new gaming PC and his surround sound system. When he called the company, they said the ground wire wasn't twisted the right way and told him to read the manual again. He ended up just buying a plain old $40 strip from Home Depot and it's been fine through two summers now.
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the_pat21d ago
Hold on, hold on. I gotta push back on this a little because I think Dave just bought the wrong kind of thing for the wrong reasons, not that fancy surge protectors are a total scam. I mean, a $350 EMP-proof protector is a very specific product, and if you're not dealing with a nuclear blast, it's probably overkill and weird to install. But a good whole-house surge protector, like the kind an electrician hooks up at your breaker box? Those can absolutely save your expensive electronics from a lightning strike that comes through the power lines, way better than a $40 strip can. The strip's job is to handle little spikes, but a big surge can just skip right past it and fry everything. Dave's real problem was probably that he didn't follow the weird instructions for a specialty item, not that the whole concept is a hoax. Most people would be better off getting a proper Leviton or Siemens unit installed correctly for around $100-$150, and then not messing with a weird prepper gadget.
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