Underwriters Laboratories 500 N. Orleans, Dept. It's a typical weekend evening. Your son is blow-drying his hair before a date and your spouse is making popcorn in the microwave. You decide to check your e-mail, but just as you get online, the monitor flickers, the cursor freezes and your hard drive crashes. You know you're facing a pricey repair, but what you might not realize is that you're the hapless victim of a voltage surge.
Surges are an especially nasty example of the power interference that occurs in homes every day.
They can damage or destroy everything from PCs to VCRs, even if you use a fuse-protected multioutlet strip. There are three main forms of power interference. A voltage dip happens when motors in high-draw devices such as dishwashers and refrigerators come on and greatly reduce the suck energy available for other devices. Flickering lights are a common sign. Electromagnetic interference is generated by everyday electrical activity.