My buddy the electrician told me I fried my new fridge with a surge

I was bragging about my new $2,000 smart fridge to my friend Mike who works at an electrical supply shop in Austin, and he goes "you didn't put a surge protector on that did you?" I shrugged it off, but then he showed me photos of compressor boards that got zapped from small power spikes. Now I'm wondering if everyone around here actually uses a whole-home surge protector or just the cheap power strip kind?

2 comments

2 Comments

ruby45015d ago

Huh, I actually see it a little different from your buddy. I mean, yeah, a whole home surge protector is great if you can drop a few hundred bucks on it, but it's not the only way to go. Most fridges have pretty basic compressor boards that can take a decent little hit, and a good quality power strip type surge protector with a high joule rating works fine for most people. I've had the same $40 surge protector on my fridge for like 5 years now and it's never given me trouble, even through some brownouts here. Your friend might be seeing the worst case stuff from cheap contractors who skip all protection, not the normal folks using a basic strip. Also, a lot of newer smart fridges have built in surge protection on their boards these days, so it's not as doom and gloom as he makes it sound.

paigep2015d ago

My uncle runs an appliance repair shop in Houston and he says half his calls are fried control boards from people who thought "it's just a fridge." It's the same mindset as people who skip changing their furnace filters because it's an extra $15 every few months. Everybody thinks the cheap route will hold up until it doesn't, and then they're out way more than a surge protector would have cost.