I've never heard of a whole house surge suppressor and can't imagine why anyone would want one.Four Panels? Is this a multi family occupancy? The outlet could have a loose wire nut connection or even be miswired somewhere. It would take some troubleshooting from a qualified person with a quality multimeter. Lutron timers are wired like any others, according to inclosed instructions.

J-man, you've never heard of a surge suppressor??? For real??

rock, I feel for you that the guys in your area are so inexperienced. All I can say is keep trying and you'll find someone. Once you hook up with someone good stick with him.

Whole house surge suppressors have been discussed on this forum before, and are recommended to provide protection to all systems & equipment, some of which will also be plugged into surge strips at the outlet. Four panels is correct, and no, it's not multi-family, just a large house.

You're right about the Lutron timers, journeyman1, and Dh has installed them. That's why I was stunned that three electricians here had never seen one before. Several had also never installed Leviton decora switches. Go figure. I just don't want the same guy who mis-wired that outlet to work on any of these jobs.

Petey racer, you better believe that once I find a good electrician, we will be his customers for life. I am very loyal to good technicians and make a point to give referrals whenever I can. Is there any sort of special certification board, master electrician's guild or other group where I might check for referrals?

"I've never heard of a whole house surge suppressor and can't imagine why anyone would want one."

Jouneyman1,I see from your member page that you are a "Massachusetts Registered Journeyman Electrician. Numerical Control systems specialist. Field Service Technician. Old guy"

That means that you probably retired before whole house supression came along or you never did any residential.
I installed one in my panel for the purpose of controlling surges when the POCO restarts after an outage and for the event of a lightning strike into the feed between the POCO transformer and my service entrance.

Thanks for the enlightenment bigbird. I am an Industrial electricial groupleader. I haven't done residential work in years except for my own house. Not retired, only 57.
Now, I don't know what the acronyms POCO or DH mean.

POCO = Power company

DH = Dear Husband (this one took me a while to figure out)

Not sure if you use this term but,
AHJ = Authority having jurisdiction, or inspector for short.

I had AHJ, But all I could think of for DH was D**k Head. Thanks Petey.

I'm SURE that is another valid meaning as well.

"Thanks for the enlightenment bigbird. I am an Industrial electricial groupleader. I haven't done residential work in years except for my own house. Not retired, only 57. "

You call yourself an old guy and you're only 57? We're the same age and I don't consider myself an "old guy". I think of myself as a "mature" guy who's been around the horn a few times.

In this area, (central New York State), the POCO offers
a surge suppressor that they plug in between your meter
and the meter box. It also comes with insurance that
pays for anything that gets damaged by surges, (except
for sensitive electronics, for which they offer individual
suppressors). They add about $6 to your monthly bill.

bigbird, face it, you're an old guy. remember when your grandparents were 50 and you thought, boy are they old.?
By the way, "around the horn a few times " sounds like something I wouldn't do.

"around the horn a few times " is an old sailing expression about rounding Cape Horn, the tip of South America.
Until the digging of the Panama Canal it was a relatively common and very dangerous passage.

rockmanor, I hope you're not from Maine, 'cuz if you are, you must be living in the house I had just about half-finished before my unplanned vacation.

Before I started there were actually two outlets in series with each other, which I thought quite humorous and never nailed down a reason for.

In a house that large, especially if you're living in an area where your local "electricians" don't know about whole-house surge suppressors, you might want to look into finding an electrician with commercial/institutional experience, since panel plentitude is more common in those environments.

When I started the aforementioned house, I had never seen a residential building with a breaker box in more than one spot. By the time I was done, they had four.

Pharkus, that's a good suggestion to look for an electrician with commercial experience. Will do, since so far my hunt hasn't turned up a residential electrician who can do the job.

I'm not in Maine, but sure wish I could be there this summer. It's hot and muggy down here. Even the HVAC systems that I have turned up to 80 are humming away.

I love that the NY POCO offers a whole house surge suppressor. When I called ours, the woman on the phone told me, "I ain't never heard of such a thang..." which was, word for word, the same response I got when I called our builder's sparky.

As far as the vacuum not at capacity you possibly connected it to an outlet that has a dimmer on it (surprised it did not blow), a wiring mistake (another load possible in series) or a loose connection. If it is not the dimmer I would get a qualified electrician out ASAP, it could potently be a fire hazard.

I installed the GPP805 whole house surge suppression from Smarthome when I installed the whole house "alternator". It has a limit of 10,000 RMS amps, the same limit the breakers have. The surge suppressor has two green LEDs that will go out when it is consumed (used up) and no longer protecting my electrical system. Yes consumed is correct, they contain MOVs as the protection element which as they adsorb energy (the surge) they are used up. It belongs at the main panel electrically as close as possible to the mains.

I don't have a college degree, but "panel plentitude"? Please!

I made the mistake of calling the builder's electrician to come repair the problem outlets. Big mistake. Not only was he dishonest, he messed things up even more. He wired an outdoor light switch in series with the two problem outlets, all of which were on the same circuit as the overhead fan/light. When the outdoor lights were turned on that night, the breaker tripped and we had no light inside or out for that space. Dh did a temporary fix, but I still need to find an electrician who knows his stuff.

This electrician says he wired the whole house; that makes me very nervous. It also explains some of the nonsense I've found, such as breakers for part of the kitchen being located in the subpanel upstairs while others are in a subpanel in the basement. I've wondered if the guy was sober when he did the job, because so many of the outlets and switches were installed crooked &/or off-center. No doubt the builder went with the lowest bid.

I'm surprised that none of the electricians recommended stopping in to see your local electrical supply house. They will know all about surge suppressors and can probably recommend a good electrician to install it.