Voltage Spikes

[Deanscroft]

I have just been taught an expensive lesson and hope that knowledge of my experience might help others avoid the same. Last week my 18 month old Samsung fridge-freezer departed this life taking all its contents with it. No problem thought I - it is under guarantee. When the engineer eventually arrived I was told that no it wasn´t under guarantee because the fault was that the electronic control system had been destroyed by a voltage spike during the recent thunder storms. The engineer explained that this is a common occurrance in the Pollenca / Alcudia areas. Now I have no way of knowing if this was or was not the cause of my fridge-freezers demise as claimed but the engineer did pass on the following two pieces of advise which may be of use to others. The first was - when buying a new fridge-freezer avoid the ones with electronic displays, push buttons, flashing lights etc and go for the good old fashioned type with the single dial to set the temperature. The second was to connect all electronic equipment via extension leads fitted with `surge suppression´. I have followed both. The best value extension lead with surge suppression I have found was at Brica in Inca at just under 12 euros.

 

[smg]

good point

in the uk, last year my mum's pc was cooked by a power surge, all pcs should always be plugged into a surge protector

 

[Belladonna]

Very good advice there Deanscroft, although sorry you had to suffer to pass it on! A neighbour in our block had similar experience the other week with their boiler after the storms. Will definately sort out the surge protector leads.