The minimum surge protection needed?

[Jontona]

Most would agree, surge protection is needed. However, for class B owners, ...

1. What is the minimum level of surge protection required....since the answer dramatically affects how much you have to spend to get that "acceptable level of protection".

2. Anyone have links to reviews or articles that describe the minimal levels needed to protect against the most likely power surge issues for RVers?

[avanti]

If you really mean "surge protection", then the Leviton R000-51110-SRG whole-house surge suppressor is hard to beat:

surge.jpg

It has better specs than the RV-specific ones and is far cheaper. Plus, it is designed to protect both legs of a residential feed, so you have a built-in spare.

If you also want other protection, such as checks for polarity, ground, frequency, and/or voltage, then you should first check to see what your inverter/charger does. Many of them have such checks built-in, in which case a surge-suppressor is all you need. If not, then one of the expensive RV units might be justified. Depends on where you camp.

In my case, our Outback inverter/charger does sophisticated testing, so I went with just the Leviton unit plus a Bluesea 8077 circuit breaker (which also checks polarity):

control panel 2.JPG

[mlts22]

I was looking at a Progressive Industries EMS between shore power and everything else. This not just protects against wiring faults, but undervoltage and those 240 volt "dryer outlets", which are out there. This also protects against low voltage so that, if voltage goes below a certain spec, things like A/C compressors don't burn out.

[wincrasher]

In my travels, I've found low voltage to be the most common problem. The Progressive Industries EMS has saved my bacon on more than a few occasions.