Monitoring surge protection or grounding wattseconds

[topherhansen]

Has anyone used their energy monitor with a pair of CT's around a whole house surge protector or their grounding wire to see how much energy is being pushed into their ground?

What has been your findings?

[topherhansen]

What I'm wondering is:
How much power comes into your main that you're charged for that goes to the ground (rather than your devices)?
How large/long are surges you've seen?
What percentage of your surge protection max were you using during your largest surge?

[Teken]

What I'm wondering is:
How much power comes into your main that you're charged for that goes to the ground (rather than your devices)?
How large/long are surges you've seen?
What percentage of your surge protection max were you using during your largest surge?

I just purchased the GEM module last week. Once I receive the unit I will endeavor to provide you and the rest of the members some insight as to how much power goes to ground etc.

I believe more than likely that the whole house surge protector will show up drawing a few watts. Should there be an electrical event caused by a thunderstorm. I will be really interested in seeing what the GEM captures as to the shunted power to ground.

Teken . . .

[Teken]

So I want to be clear on your initial question. You would like me to measure the ground on the whole house surge protector?

Currently mine is monitoring one side of the 120 line. Which shows 0 watts being consumed by this device.

I will move it over to the ground if you believe any *surges* can be detected upon a power event.

Teken . . .

[topherhansen]

I was thinking the actual ground wire to the big 8 foot rods either with or without a surge protector. either way. I think you would have to monitor for a while to get any real spikes if any. I would think they would be fairly uncommon or whole house surge protectors would be much more common.

[Teken]

I was thinking the actual ground wire to the big 8 foot rods either with or without a surge protector. either way. I think you would have to monitor for a while to get any real spikes if any. I would think they would be fairly uncommon or whole house surge protectors would be much more common.

I will move the CT to the ground wire coming from my Sycom 120/240 whole house surge protector. As you mentioned this may take a very long time to capture and report back to. It goes with out saying I hope not to capture any power readings on this particular circuit.

The last time I had to deal with this Sycom unit. My entire house was zapped by a two week long thunder boomer which wouldn't go away!

The saving grace was that it protected the home during the first lightning strike and surrendered itself and died. The next several strikes took out my secondary point of use surge protectors, again sacrificing themselves to protect the devices attached.

During the final last surge event during the two week episode, one of the boomers took out my $1500.00 dishwasher! So, I do wish I had this GEM prior to see what the recorded values would have been for that period.

Teken . . .