Older house - include surge protection for electronics in lease??

Question

So I have this older house, bought as a student rental for my own son and his buddy/roommates, all of whom have lots of electronic devices (computers, laptops, xBoxes, projectors, phone chargers, etc etc).  Hardly any of the outlets are grounded, and there's no "whole house" surge protection.  I have renter's insurance awareness in my lease, and am thinking of putting in an additional clause that each roommate should bring his own surge protection power strip as additional insurance for the electronics.  Have you included any kind of "awareness" clause in your leases for this kind of situation?

Steve S · Answer

Ungrounded outlets are not a problem per se if they were installed according to code when built.    However using three prong outlets on an ungrounded circuit without gfci protection is an issue.  You have two code compliant options in this situation 1.  install the correct two prong  outlets your system was designed for or 2. add gfci protection and label the outlets as such.

Surge protection is primarily designed to protect from utility issues that originate outside the home and will do nothing to alleviate this issue.

If you do in fact have the grounded outlets installed ( you most likely do) by advising anyone to install a surge protector you are admitting in writhing that you have a defective electrical system.

If you have a correctly installed electrical system you are advising your customer of a defect that does not exist.  I don't think it is a good idea to promote the idea that your property is somehow substandard or improperly maintained if this is the case.

In short determine if you have a compliant system.  If you do you have no further obligation to disclose a defect that does not exist.

Kim Meredith Hampton · Answer

@Anna Watkins I require All Renters to have renters insurance, and name me as an additional interest. This way I will know if it gets cancelled.

On the other hand, I would have the electric checked out and take care if the issue. Sounds like you need to have GFCI installed in the property

Charlie MacPherson · Answer

Grounding is a safety issue, but isn't related to surge protection.

In the event that an internal wire fails in a device and energizes the chassis with 110V, the ground wire will dump the current to ground, hopefully tripping the circuit breaker.

Surges are an over voltage condition that is normally triggered by lighting strikes or other utility-related events.  Surges damage the internal electronic elements, but that won't be helped by ground connections.

So there's no harm in an "awareness clause", but it isn't really related to the ungrounded outlets.