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Surge Protectors & Power Outage

SURVEY

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Posted September 22, 2011 at 10:44AM

We live in a rural community with power supplied via overhead lines. Occasionally there are power cuts and sometimes when power is restored all is OK; at other times when power is restored, our consumer unit switch remains OFF. Have just had an electrician check our circuits and he found that the only circuit with a problem to cause this is that with a Belkin surge protector plugged in; removing the surge protector plug made the circuit read as it should. When questioned further the electrician volunteered to me that in several instances of consumer unit shut-offs he and his colleagues have found the fault caused by surge protectors. His advice is whenever we are away from the house, to unplug the surge protector. Has anyone else experienced this problem. Have tried to contact Belkin but their customer technical advice is hopeless.

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Woolwell

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Posted September 22, 2011 at 11:30AM

I would consider having a UPS which includes surge protection.

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wee eddie

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Posted September 22, 2011 at 1:31PM

I bought a simple APC UPS after a couple of Surges apparently caused by Road Works in the locality. To my mind £90.00, well spent to protect my equipment, both old and new. I have had no problem since.

There is a potential problem of a Surge when your Power Supply is restored. This Surge is small and most electrical equipment is far too crude to be affected but, almost all PCs have delicate parts that can be damaged by such a surge.

The old Anti Surge Bar now protects my extremely HiFi, which would be almost impossible to replace!

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SURVEY

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Posted September 22, 2011 at 2:38PM

wee eddie - what I still cannot get my head around is why the mains switch on the consumer unit went off rather than just the trip on one circuit, always assuming the belkin surgemaster unit was the problem.

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SURVEY

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Posted September 22, 2011 at 11:32AM

I have just spoken to belkin and they say that when mains power is restored there will be a surge and their surge protector is doing its job. When I mentioned that not only is the circuit that the surge protector is on trips but the mains switch to the whole property, he had no explanation. It may be that the Belkin protector is no good but difficult to ascertain this. I think my course of action will be to leave it in circuit unless leavintg the property for a few days and in that case to unplug the protector and averything plugged into it - another lost freezer contents is not desirable!

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SURVEY

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Posted September 22, 2011 at 11:33AM

Hi Woolwell - you may well be correct!

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spuds

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Posted September 22, 2011 at 11:22AM

I use a combination of different make surge protectors (not Belkin) with various equipment, and have never had this problem. Have you thought about trying another type of surge protector to see if the problem remains?.

I know this is not the answer to your problem, but I know of incidents of 'consumer panel shut-off', and this was eventually traced back to electric kettles. That was the first thing the electrician tried on testing the circuit, because he had 'experienced this problem many times before'.

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