West Palm Beach gets some of the most frequent lightning in the country. A strike does not need to hit your house — a strike blocks away can send a surge through the grid and into your panel, and from there into your AC control board, your refrigerator, your garage door opener, and everything plugged in.
Whole-home surge protection mounts at the panel and clamps those surges before they reach your circuits. It is the single most cost-effective electrical upgrade in a lightning-heavy city.
How Surges Reach Your Home
Lightning is the dramatic source, but not the only one. Utility switching, downed lines, and large equipment cycling on the grid all create surges — smaller, more frequent, and cumulatively damaging to electronics.
Your AC system is especially exposed: the outdoor unit sits wired directly to the panel, and its control board is sensitive electronics. A surge that you never notice can take out a compressor control board worth hundreds of dollars.
Whole-Home vs. Power Strips
Power strips with surge protection help, but they only protect what is plugged into them — and cheap ones wear out silently after absorbing surges. They do nothing for hardwired equipment: the AC, the oven, the pool pump, the garage door opener.
A whole-home surge protector mounts at the panel and guards every circuit in the house, including the hardwired equipment that power strips cannot reach. Layered with point-of-use protection on sensitive electronics, it is complete coverage.
What We Install
We install panel-mounted surge protective devices sized to your service — typically a Type 1 or Type 2 device wired directly into the panel. The install is quick, usually under an hour, and we verify your grounding at the same time, because surge protection is only as good as the ground it dumps to.
Near the water, we pay attention to the grounding electrode and bonding, since salt air corrodes ground connections over time. A surge protector on a bad ground is a false sense of security.
Protect New Equipment From Day One
A new AC system is thousands of dollars of sensitive electronics. We recommend whole-home surge protection with every system replacement and new installation — it is inexpensive insurance for the investment.
The same applies to EV chargers and standby generators: both tie directly into the panel, and both benefit from surge protection at the source.
Common questions
Will a whole-home surge protector stop lightning damage?
It dramatically reduces the risk. It clamps surges entering through the panel — the path most surges take. A direct strike to the house can still overwhelm any protection, but those are rare compared to grid-transmitted surges.
Do I still need power strips if I have whole-home protection?
For sensitive electronics like computers and home theater, layered protection is best: whole-home at the panel plus quality point-of-use protection at the device.
How long does installation take?
Usually under an hour. We mount the device at the panel, verify grounding, and test it before we leave.
Does surge protection wear out?
Surge devices absorb energy over time and eventually need replacement. We check the status indicator on maintenance and inspection visits.
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(561) 786-1337