Gfci Vs Surge Protector

Surge protectors are optional but highly recommended in florida due to high number of lightning strikes in the area per year.

Gfci vs surge protector. If a surge occurs on your supply line the fuse will blow in the surge protector before the surge hits your equipment. You understand that both surge protectors and circuit breakers protect electrical stuff in your home. Regulations governing the installation of gfci or gfi protection differs form one local authority to the next. Since i will be having lots of equipment attached to this thing that sounds like something i should have.

This is used to prevent an external electrical current and electrical noise from coming down the wires to your electronic devices. Further your inexpensive strip type surge protectors will do nothing in the event of a lightning strike. A gfci will do nothing in the event of a lightning strike. The primary purpose of a ground fault circuit interrupter gfci is to prevent electrocution when we make contact with an electric current.

For a lightning strike you need a good quality surge protector and a properly grounded receptacle. Like power strips most surge protectors plug into a wall outlet and offer outlets for multiple devices. A gfci basically protects you from pulling too much current out of the outlet. Good quality surge protectors cost more than a few bucks.

This prevents damage to sensitive appliances such as computers. Now let s compare this with a surge protector. So i left feeling disappointed that this outlet thing didn t have surge protection. A gfci will turn off power to that socket until you reset it the surge protector will only stop a power surge from rushing into your system but will leave the socket open.

You can buy a surge protector with built in gfci protection. In fact all of my surge protectors have built in gfci and a test and reset button. Both will protect you the only problem with the gfci is that it will not leave you time to backup save etc it will just shut down with the surge protector you will never know anything happend. But surge protectors also have electronics built in that help prevent power surges from damaging connected devices.

Gfi is just a localized version of the same thing. A surge protector is designed to prevent a surge in voltage normal voltage in a residence is btwn 115v and 125v with most at 121v.