Eaton CHSPT2ULTRA Ultimate Surge Protection 3rd Edition, 2.38" Length, 5.25" Width 7.5" Height

Installed this unit after multiple appliances were affected by several surges during a couple of storms. Although there was significant lightening, I think the surges were caused by power from the utility going out and coming back on several times. It didn’t cause instant death to any of my equipment but over the next weeks, my control board went out on a sub zero fridge, then my microwave had an arc and went out, then the dishwasher control board failed, and finally a capacitor on my heat pump went out. I doubt it was coincidental so I purchased the Eaton unit to help arrest future surges that could affect the appliances since I do not have surge protectors installed at the appliance outlets. I selected this unit because the protection specs were better than the others with the exception of Siemens. Since the Eaton is half the price and only slightly less capable than the competitor unit...I decised this was a high quality unit for a great price. I had an electrician install the unit — charged $125 and took him maybe 30m. Looked pretty straightforward to do but I wasn’t comfortable working in the breaker box and learning on the job while handling live wires. Hopefully this unit helps with future surges although next time the power goes out, I will probably also switch off the main breaker until the power is restored as an extra precaution. I never fully believed that surges were a real issue but after replacing the dishwasher and microwave plus fixing the subzero and hvac....I am a believer. Although, I am still a little concerned that the VPR for whole house protectors is still >= 600V which would imply a 350V VPR on a surge protector at the outlet would give better protection for the appliances. Hopefully Eaton keeps me protected and for the electronics where the outlets are more easily accessible...I installed level 3 outlet / strip plug surge protectors.

I recommend it. This item has a history of good performance. I added it as increased protection over what the electrician installed when we built the house. I told the electrician he did a great job wiring my house (I inspected it as the house was being built), and because I was nice to him, he installed a 5K device in the outside box for free, which provides minimal protection (some, but not enough to make me comfortable). So, I got this Eaton device for extra protection at 108K and put it in the box in the garage. I didn't have room to put it inside the box, so I installed directly to the side of the box (see picture). Super easy to install. As other reviews mention, you need a 50A breaker, so read the product instructions and get exactly what the instructions say to get. And as some other reviews mention, nothing will protect from a direct lightning strike, so don't expect that kind of protection. At 108K (more than 20 times the protection of the 5K device in the outside box), this unit gives me peace of mind. Notice in the picture the two green lights are lit, which means it's functioning properly. I like how I can see it easily whenever I'm in the garage. I drive into the garage and think, "Yep, still protected." I forgot to mention...before you go buy the 50amp breaker, FIRST check your load center (i.e., panel box) to see what type it is, such as, for example, QO or Homeline. If, for example, you buy an HOM 50amp breaker, it won't fit in a QO panel, and vice versa. And, just so you know, the wires are supposed to be short. Some reviewers complain about them being too short such that the unit doesn't fit in their panel. The wires are short for a reason; if you extend the wires beyond their limited length, you risk the device not functioning properly when you need it. So, just because you might not understand the design (e.g., why the wires are so short), don't complain and bash the device as being a poor design.

I don't know what to say except it had a good price. Easy install of you know your way around a breaker box. As for working is wired in and lights are on, I guess I'll see if anything gets blown up.

I like having this installed on my electrical panel and I did it myself. Most people should not be installing these if you do not have electrical experience. I have 30 years of electrical experience so installing it was very simple. If there is anything negative about this it would be that the leads are too short. They should be long enough to reach anywhere in the electrical panel regardless of where on the panel you install it. If you do a lot of research on this first, you will find that the manufacturer requires a 50 amp breaker be used to supply power to the device. In this case you must be careful because of the brand of breaker you have. Some manufacturers do not make their breakers so it will fit this lighter gauge wire. The clamps will not tighten down, so because I happen to have one of those brands, I had to buy a 30 amp breaker so it will tighten down on the wires. I understand the reasoning why the manufacturers of some panels and breakers do this but the clamps or screw terminals should tighten all the way down. That is my opinion. After doing research I also came across That many people say you should not extend the Wires in order to make them reach the breaker or in order to make them fit the terminals on your breaker. I abided by this notion but then realized maybe I did not need to. I am a home inspector and I noticed in other homes that already have this installed by an electrician, that the electricians extend the wires by adding extra length using wire nuts. I do not know if this voids the warranty or not but in my opinion it should not, even though it may. I mean if you have an electrician install it with a jumper wire because it will not tighten down with the brand of breaker that you have then how can a manufacturer expect you to change out your panel and breakers just because they used a small gauge wire. If they are going to recommend that you use a 50 amp breaker, double pole, they should make the device with a heavier gauge wire. One other thing that I heard which could be a real downer. If you research this online you will read that Amazon is not an authorized retailer for Eaton, meaning eaten may not honor their warranty. I cannot say this is absolutely true because I did not contact eaten and you know not everything online is the truth. I have had this happen to me before with other brands and other types of equipment where I search online for a good deal and then I find out that I bought it from a retailer who the manufacturer does not honor. That happened to me with a Frigidaire dehumidifier I bought for my basement and now may happen with this device. I am not going to worry about that too much because if it does fail I will just replace it myself and not pay an electrician several hundred dollars to do it for me. Eaton is a very good brand-name and these are very good devices so I have no regrets buying it on Amazon but I think you should know as much as possible before you buy it.

I am by no means an electrician, just a typical do-it-yourselfer that watches way too many YouTube videos! As a precaution, if you are at all uncomfortable working inside your load center, hire an electrician. At the very least make sure to use a voltage checker and/or multimeter to make sure you are not working around hot circuits. I even used insulated electrician's tools as an added precaution. Be that as it may, I purchased a home back in April. It's 114 years old and the second floor electrical is ungrounded and the majority of it is still knob and tube. Rather than shell out thousands for dollars for a complete rewire, I have been slowly updating what my skill level allows me to. Essentially, I am replacing existing ungrounded three-prong outlets with GFCI units. All of the electrical on the first floor was updated at some point and it is all grounded, so I am able to protect my electronics and appliances with typical plug-in surge protectors. Since everything on the second floor is so old and not grounded, surge protectors won't do much for equipment protection. Enter the Eaton whole house surge protector. Installation was actually a lot faster than I anticipated. Once I turned the power off at the main breaker, I simply popped the cover off of my load center (it's a Square D QO), and moved some existing breakers around to make room for a dedicated 50 amp breaker per Eaton's recommendations. This granted me the opportunity to install the 50 amp breaker as the first breaker in the load center, enabling surge protection for all downstream circuits (including the sub panel which feeds my kitchen). With the breaker installed, I then looked for a suitable knock-out on the load center for the surge protector. Now, this is why I only rated the unit four out of five stars. Regardless of where I chose to mount and install the surge protector, there was always an issue with the included pigtail being too short to reach either the 50 amp breaker and/or the neutral and ground bars. The instructions inform the user that for maximum effectiveness of the unit, the wires need to be installed as short and as straight as possible. In my situation, this was not the case. While not ideal, what I ended up doing was mounting the surge protector on the side of load center which allowed me to wire it into the neutral and ground bars with no issue. At the same time, this particular side of the load center was "less crowded" and I didn't have a lot of existing wiring that I had to work around, which was a huge plus. Unfortunately, this left me with two hot wires, the red and the black, being too short to wire into the breaker. I hated to do it and I loathe to disclose it, but I had to buy a couple of spools of red and black wire from a big box home improvement store and splice them into the surge protector's pigtail in order for me to wire it into the circuit breaker. What made it an even harder pill to swallow was that where the dedicated circuit was installed, there was a ton of existing wiring and not a lot of space to work in. So, I had to make the splices with butt connectors which make the whole install look like excrement. As a precaution I wrapped the splices in electrical tape, too. Once I had everything wired up, I reinstalled the load center cover and flipped the breaker. Voila! I had power once again and both lights on the surge protector lit up, indicating that it is functioning correctly. I have had a few thunderstorms since the installation, and the surge protector is still going strong. At some point in time I am going to clean up the wiring in the load center and go for a more professional-looking set up for the surge protector, but for now it works and serves its purpose. Failing that, I may even bring in a professional just to look everything over and see what they recommend.

Straight forward installation. Wires about 14 inches long but wise to install as close to 50 amp breaker as possible to trim wires shorter than 12 inches, per instructions. Encased wires in gray PVC as they entered panel thru the wall. Did not buy expensive 50 amp breaker with status light as the protector already had status lights. This saves significant money. Hire an electrician if you are not comfy working safely with you your service panel!

Has to be installed in main panel to hot lines. You may need an electrician to install safely. A must for new service panels.

I installed this in a brand new construction single family home - we had an Eaton panel but that wasn't the only reason I went with the product, it has some good flexibility for the installation and is rated extremely well. Note that this product is NOT Cutler-Hammer - it is EATON - if you are trying to find more info elsewhere, go to the Eaton website and review the information they have there on their surge protection products. Eaton bought cutler-hammer ages ago and all cutler-hammer products are made by them anyway, but if you are looking for info you won't find it under the cutler-hammer name. I knocked out a bottom hole because the panel was mounted with two studs flush on each side of the box. Requires a new two-pole breaker - note that while the smaller ones use a smaller breaker, this box requires a 50 AMP two pole breaker. They are available at your local Lowe's if you have an Eaton box - you don't need an Eaton panel for this product but you need the right breakers for your panel whatever brand and type that is, and it needs to be 50 AMP two-pole (essentially two breakers hooked together). I was installing in my main panel and so on the sides both buses were wired to each other - this is normal for modern service panels and in such case you can wire the ground and neutral into the same side of the panel/same bus. I chose to put it on the side of the box where the utility ground was hooked up. Since I had to come in from the bottom I was able to just put the breaker at the bottom of the box and wire the hots in before seating the breaker in the box. There are some recommendations out there to install these breakers at the top of the panel - there's some validity to this, but if you are installing in an existing panel the benefit you get from moving everything around to do that isn't worth it - and you definitely don't want to do it at the expense of longer wires - the shorter the wires are the better, they are your weak point in the connection. You'll want to cut these down some if you can (though don't go too short - I almost did, whoops!) It is also recommended to have the hots twisted - this is described in the instructions. All in all it was a snap to install - make sure you have the main breaker off while doing this unless you really know what you are doing, and use a voltage tester to make sure things are safe before you get started. Don't forget to consider surge protection for coax or phone lines coming into the house. Eaton sells products for the phone lines I think if you have the traditional ones. For coax like cable TV/internet I recommend the tii 212 device - was a snap to install. You still also need good surge protectors for high end electronics like your entertainment system at the plug - this device won't be able to protect your devices from surges that occur along the same circuit as other devices and there are various other factors within the home. For my computers I use a variety of surge strips/protectors and I have a belkin device for my entertainment system setup. For my wall mounted TV I have a recessed outlet with a leviton surge protector/outlet combo so I don't have to have a strip up there somewhere. Keep in mind that the warranty for this device will only apply if you surge protect other wires coming into you house - such as the coaxial cable line.

Update Aug 2023: Well we had a lightning strike hit a tree 20ft from our house. Caused an attic electrical fire in our neighbour's house, but I'm confident the whole house surge protector saved most of our devices. Other than a few items nearest to the lightning strike, everything else in our house is working. Can't say enough good things about this product. Now to replace it with a fresh one since it's ability to protect us has been diminished (even though it's still working). ---------------- I've been wanting to install a whole house protector for awhile. Looking through all the reviews online, this model comes as the best overall deal, and it's universal since it connects to any 50A breaker. The install is very simple. 2 wires into a dual pole breaker, 1 wire to ground, 1 wire to neutral. The breaker, while others recommend placing as close to the main in line, can go anywhere in the panel. Surges will always look for the shortest way to ground, so it's unlikely you have anything closer than the surge protector. It's more important to keep the wires from the protector as short and kink free as possible. The 2 green LEDs ensure it's easy to check if the protector needs to be replaced. Only time will tell how effective it is, but with the 108kA rating, it gives some peace of mind.

Compre dos protectores los cuales instale en centros de carga separados, me ha funcionado muy bien, realmente lo recomiendo por su propia y sencilla instalación, la calidad precio funcionalidad, sin duda alguna lo recomiendo; en el sector donde vivo, se han presentado problemas en el suministro eléctrico domestico, a un vecino se le dañaron unos equipos mientras que en mi domicilio, no paso nada.

I'm an electrician, I bought this CHSPT2ULTRA surge protector a little over a year ago. Installation was very simple. It's recommended that you use a 2 pole 50A breaker to connect inside your panel, so make sure you have space available. The wires are intentionally short, as it is important for it's effectiveness in the event of a surge. It needs to be as close to the man lines as possible. If you have to extend the wires, then do it, but ideally, they need to be as short as possible. We had a tree come down on a teired hydro line in the area, and the higher voltage lines touched the lower voltage lines blowing up a lot of TV's and equipment on the street. My house had no issues. It's hard to say that this little piece of protection is working because all you see is a couple green LED lights on it, but I'm pretty glad I installed it when I did.

Received promptly and complete. I'd done my research, so knew what to expect and wasn't disappointed. Installation was quick and easy. Now we have some satisfaction that our sensitive home appliances and electronics are protected from nasty surges! I've layered them with both protection at the panel (type 2) and at the plug (type 3) - its the most I can do. Fingers Crossed!

Installation was easy, the specs are good. I have to just assume it's going to do the job if it ever gets put to the test.