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Nine Things You Need To Know About Surge Protection in the Office

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Think smart and think out of the box by getting surge protection for your business – this is especially useful if you run a small to medium enterprise. 

Before you start shopping around, there are a couple of great tips you might find useful when investing in surge protection in the workplace. Surge protectors are great for adding a couple of extra electrical outlets and for protecting the sensitive equipment that you don’t necessarily want to replace as a result of damage caused by unstable power. 

Choosing surge protection for your business can be confusing with the wide range of offerings – in other words, it is confusing what you can get for your money, what is not worth the money spend etc. 

 

  • Bear in mind that surge suppressors and power strips and surge protectors differ from one another – they are not the same devices – power strips are multi-outlet products that are cheap and assist in giving users more plug outlets for their devices and do not offer any protection whatsoever from unstable power 
  • Surge protectors are cost-effective and unlike power strips, they protect your sensitive electrical appliances against dips, hikes and surges 
  • You will soon discover that your surge protector will protect your electrics in joules. The more joules you have the better the protection (if there is a mammoth surge, your appliances will then be protected against this) 
  • When surge protection has many joules, it can also protect multiple devices against surges 
  • Your surge protection will diminish over time and therefore will lose its effectiveness in protecting your office equipment 
  • Keep an eye out for surge protectors that offer a guarantee on the devices that are connected to the surge protection device – it might be worth your while if your equipment is damaged even though it is connected to a surge protector 
  • It’s a smart move to invest in more outlets than you need – as your business grows and you hire more staff, there will in all probability be more devices to plug in. This will prevent you from having to invest in more surge protection gear 
  • Your phones can also be affected by power surges – get surge protectors that have phone cable outlets to protect your phones from lightning strikes or any other power surges that could damage your electric equipment 
  • If your surge protector has USB outlets it might be a smart move to check the output amp rating for speedy charging 

It is a wise option to invest in a surge protector for your small to medium business but how much you need will vary from one situation to the next; most surge protectors are inexpensive, therefore worth getting.