Surge protection in the meter cabinet

[CalvinHobbes]

Just been reading about damage to someones ashp through a surge (cost 1k to fix but they were lucky at that) and another person responded by saying they got surge protection in the meter cabinet for £200.  Any thoughts?

[RobLe]

I expect if your mains supply is underground it’s less of an issue than up a pole and getting hit by lightning!

[TonyT]

Fit it in the consumer unit

[Carrerahill]

  On 23/01/2024 at 23:52, RobLe said:

I expect if your mains supply is underground it’s less of an issue than up a pole and getting hit by lightning!

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Risk is still there, when doing a lightning protection system risk assessment, you review 500m either side of a buried LV cable - further away from the sub-station the bigger the risk as the collection area grows, 1000m x 1m for every meter your cable travels, so 1000m² per m travelled, a ground strike within 500m either way will probably affect the cable, worse if they are old metal cables as the strike can send a surge flying up the earth nicely too.

[Mike]

The risk is low for me but I'm fitting a Legrand 003951 in my consumer unit, to help protect my domestic electrical devices, rather than an ASHP.

 

Not something that I'd have thought of in the UK, but they're much more common here in France - and mandatory in large parts of the country if you have an overhead supply.

[Alan Ambrose]

Called an SPD 'surge protection device' in the UK and fits in the consumer unit. Having said that, it's poor design if a bit of electrical equipment (e.g. an ASHP) is (a) sensitive to surges and (b) doesn't have its own in-built protection.