Power Surge would they tell you ?

[tellboy]

On the same day I noticed that 3 electrical items that were plugged in and powered up had failed. I contacted the Electicity Company and was put through to their technical department. They said there was no "power surge" reported for my postcode.

It got me thinking, Would they ever say there was and offer compensation ? Anyone ever had this happen.?

[Loosehead]

If there was a power surge the fuses would blow in the plug to protect the appliances.

[bob57]

check with neighbours if they had same problems at the same time then possible link between the two

[tellboy]

Two of the items were the mains adapters for two External Hard Disk Drives (Western Digital) they had moulded sockets with a 3 amp fuse in. Different Sockets. The Fuses are intact but both the items failed. The Disk Drives are OK luckily. The mains adapters are marked 240AC to 12vDC 2A so you could be right about the fuses. I will check but I thought 3 AMP were the lowest rating in fuses.

[BillyNoMates]

A power surge will not necessarily blow fuses - depends on the nature of the surge.

If you can open up the two power supplies there may be an internal fuse of a lower rating.

[spacechimp]

You should invest in a power surge protection plug.

[Mattk]

fuses in plugs will not protect against a power surge.i speak from experience as i lost 2 tv's to a surge caused by lightning just last year.

needles to say i now have power surge protectors.

[spacechimp]

The surge protectors also protect against the small spikes which, at least the retailers claim, can shorten the lifespan of electricals.

[tomd]

The 2A rating probably be at 12V, not 230V.

You can get domestic fuses for 13A plugs down to 1A, but if you go smaller (for inside appliances etc) you can get pretty much any rated fuse you like.

[tellboy]

Thanks Everyone.

Do these Surge Protectors need to be reset ? In other words do you know it has happened. Also what is this Spike thing Spacechimp ?

[spacechimp]

There are little fluctuations in the amount of power being supplied all the time, caused by increased usage; in advert breaks, for example, lots of people turn their kettles on. These fluctuations can damage electrical items (apparently).

[theprof]

You've been given an ambiguous and deceptive answer by your electricity supplier tellboy.

It's important to understand that "Power" in terms of electricity is the product (multiplication) of the supplied volts by the supplied current (measured in Amps). Electrical power is measured in Watts.

On the type of electricity supply we have in the UK, you cannot have a "Power Surge" as this would mean that both the volts and the amps would have to rise at exactly the same moment in time and continue together at the increased rate. They would also have to drop together to the norm. This never happens.

What we do get is voltage surges and these will not blow fuses as BillyNoMates states as the fusewire in plugtop fuses and suchlike will normally only melt at increased current.

Lightning consists of extremely high voltage and this alone is sufficient to blow up TV's as Mattk found.

You can usually disregard the small fluctuations in voltage supplied to domestic premises as far as damaging the equipment is concerned. Most domestic equipment is quite happy with small fluctuations and equipment such as computers, etc have devices called voltage regulators in their circuitry, which absorb and adjust the incoming voltage to the voltage demanded - some of these devices are capable of correcting around plus or minus 30 volts of the required voltage. These small fluctuations do not shorten the life of the appliance and you can consider this a marketing ploy by the store sales staff. If you were using very specialised scientific equipment, it would be a different story!

I suggest you buy surge protectors of the Belkin brand which automatically insure all your equipment for around one millon pounds in the event that the surge protector fails.