One of the many issues with loadshedding is that the constant on-and-off nature of the power supply means that power surges in our wiring are far more frequent. When that happens, it can have dire consequences for our electrical appliances.
For our purposes, think of a power surge as a flood of electricity coming through your power lines when a loadshedding session ends and it’s just too much electricity for some or all of your appliances to handle.
A surge is typically very brief, just a fraction of a second, but when it happens it can literally burn out your appliances rendering them inoperable. This is an inconvenience if it happens to your toaster, but more of a calamity when it’s your box-freezer packed with meat.
No one want’s that, so here are three things you can do to protect yourself.
1. Unplug everything when loadshedding begins
This is the cheapest, but most labour intense thing you can do.
When the power goes off, go to all the plugs in your house, turn them off and unplug your appliances. It’s a schlep, but it’s 100% effective.
The downside of course is that you have to remember to plug everything back in when the power comes turns back on. Forgetting to do that might leave you with a box-freezer full of bad meat.
2. Get surge protection plugs
In a nutshell, these are plugs that have been hardened, against power surges. They are relatively inexpensive ranging from R100 to R300 and come in two types.
- The adaptor style one, which as the name suggests, takes the form of those multi-plug adaptors. You’ll plug your appliance into that and then plug that into your wall socket.
- The other surge protector plug will require a bit of DIY knowledge as it replaces the plug of your appliance completely. So you will need to cut the plugs off of your device and then connect the surge protection plug. If you have little DIY knowledge we suggest you get an electrician to do this.
3. Get an electrician to secure your DB board
This is the most expensive option and also the most intrusive.
Get an electrician into your home and have them install surge protection directly onto your DB board. What this costs is dependent on the specifics of your home, but it is a single solution that automatically secures all the sockets in your home.
Source: CapeTalk