UK Is an SPD required for a loft conversion?

[ionionascu]

Hi. We live in an older house and we are doing a loft conversion. We do not have an SPD on the connection to the grid and the builder's electricians insist that we must have one, otherwise he can't sign the certificate, but he doesn't want to give me a reason. We have a few consumer units under the stairs, next to the meter and I do not think there is enough space for him to do any changes now. I want to have an SPD installed, but not right now as we plan to do some other changes in the house soon and I do not think it is worth paying for something now just to have it changed in a few months. Can someone please tell me whether there is a legal requirement to install an SPD when doing a loft conversion? (the house is a semi-detached with a looped connection and the electrician didn't even have to connect a new loop to the consumer unit as this had alreay been done a few years ago when we had some other electrical work done in the house). Thank you

 

[davesparks]

I’ve never seen one activated. After some sites I’ve seen recently that have suffered from lighting strikes I’m starting to wonder how useful some of them are.

Very useful if, like most things, the correct devices are installed properly. They are far less useful if not.

SPDs dont protect against direct lightning strikes, but should be installed as part of a properly designed lightning protection system.

 

[nicebutdim]

I’ve never seen one activated. After some sites I’ve seen recently that have suffered from lighting strikes I’m starting to wonder how useful some of them are.

Only happened to notice in passing and figured I should bring it to the attention of someone from the company. For the life of me I can't remember where this was as it wasn't somewhere I work regularly. I do remember thinking it had probably been like that for some time and remember it mostly as only two phases had taken the hit.

 

[oscar21]

There was a real-world need for them 10 years ago, and even longer ago than that. The need for them has been increasing as the amount of sensitive electronics in the world increases.

But we did have them though, I remember sockets even in the 90's that had big removeable cartridges that needed changing when they showed red. I occasionally saw them where things like cash registers were plugged in in shops.

I always thought they were a snake oil product sold by the shop fitting firm frightening the owners into thinking they would loose all their money if the till broke, despite it being full of notes.

 

[Mike Johnson]

The only thing the lightning strike took out was the Orange Router, replaced by Orange free, so far cheaper than replacing the SPD cartridges.

 

[Risteard]

Doesn't most of the electronic stuff have surge protection built in anyway, a lot of the stuff Big Clive takes to bits has those blue MOV inside already. and of course stuff has a built in expiry time, even the original humble light bulb

Surge protection needs to be cascaded to be effective. Simply having a Type 3 surge arrester in the equipment may not provide any real-world protection as the magnitude of the surge may simply be too great for it.

 

[Markyd]

Say I have an SPD fitted at a cost of £250, then there is a thunderstorm nearby and then my £500 2 year and 1 day TV goes faulty, whats the procedure for getting a working TV again?

Buy One

 

[Mike Johnson]

Buy One

And while your at it a new SPD as well.

 

[pc1966]

I'm guessing someone pokes their head in that room on a regular basis.

In our case yes, one of the reasons I like the Hager boards with the transparent door!

Imagine high value processes being protected by an SPD which remains locked away in a switch room where no one might check its status for weeks on end. Power won't ever be interrupted, but SPD could be taken out today and equipment by a later surge and no one would understand what went wrong. Everything in buildings monitored to within an inch of its existence, yet this fairly critical piece of kit gets overlooked. The odds of two surges are probably remote, but linking surge protection back to BMS would be a relatively trivial cost.

It should be a more common thing to do.

Even in our case we do have a monitoring system based on Nagios software that emails us on issues, even sending a SMS if it gets really worries about some things, but so far I have not got round to putting in a safely isolated route from the DB's mains operated LED to the computer network to allow automation.

 

[mainline]

Buy One

Tell them it went wrong 3 days before it did

 

[Mike Johnson]

Tell them it went wrong 3 days before it did

Tut Tut, that's dishonest.