Keeping your gear alive through the outages.

Most of the dead laptops and chargers that reach our repair bench were not dropped or soaked. They were plugged in when the power came back. The spike as mains returns is short, invisible, and cumulative — devices often survive several before failing on one that looks no different from the rest.

Surge protection is not the same as an extension block

A standard multi-socket splits current and nothing more. A surge-protected block contains components that clamp voltage spikes and divert them to earth. They look nearly identical on a shelf and cost very differently, which is exactly why the cheap ones sell. Check for a stated joule rating and a status indicator; if neither is printed on the unit, it almost certainly has no protection inside.

Unplug during an outage, not just during a storm

The most effective protection costs nothing. If power goes and you are not using the equipment, unplug it at the wall. Surge protectors degrade every time they absorb a spike — they are consumable, not permanent — so removing the device from the circuit entirely is always safer than trusting the block.

Charge devices from a battery, not the wall

A good power bank is a buffer as well as a backup. Charging a laptop from a battery means the laptop is never directly exposed to mains, and modern high-wattage banks will run one for most of a working day. For a desk that needs to stay up — router, laptop, a light — a portable power station does the same job for the whole setup and runs silently.

• Look for a joule rating above 1,000 on any surge-protected block you buy.
• Replace surge protectors every few years, sooner if the indicator light has gone out.
• Keep a power bank charged rather than charged-and-forgotten; lithium cells self-discharge.
• Avoid charging phones from a generator directly at start-up, when output is least stable.