Last updated on July 30th, 2023.
There’s no point dropping over $1000 on a refrigerator just to have it blow up after your first electrical surge.
Getting the right surge protector is crucial to protecting your refrigerator.
A high-quality refrigerator surge protector has a high voltage protection rating, multi-lines of surge protection and RFI/EMI noise filtering.
On the other hand, a faulty surge protector is a dangerous and expensive waste of money. It doesn’t make much sense to buy a refrigerator surge protector that doesn’t actually protect your refrigerator.
To help you separate the best from the worst – we reviewed the Top 6 Surge Protectors For Refrigerators of 2023.
Buy with the confidence that you’re buying one of the top refrigerator surge protectors on the market.
Let’s dive into the reviews.
Top 6 Best Surge Protectors For Refrigerator
Preview | Product | Key Features | |
---|---|---|---|
Best Overall ![]() | Tripp Lite Isobar Surge Protector Power Strip, Lifetime Limited Warranty Black |
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Premium Choice ![]() | Tripp Lite IBAR2-6D Isobar 2 Outlet Surge Protector Power Strip, 6ft Cord, Right-Angle Plug,... |
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Excellent Value ![]() | Tripp Lite 4 Rotatable Outlet Surge Protector Power Strip, Wall Tap, 2 USB Charging Ports, Black,... |
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![]() | Tripp Lite 6 Outlet Surge Protector Power Strip, Direct Plug In, Black, Lifetime Limited Warranty... |
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![]() | Tripp Lite 2 Outlet Portable Surge Protector Power Strip, Direct Plug In, Tel/Ethernet... |
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![]() | Tripp Lite 1 Outlet Portable Surge Protector Power Strip, Direct Plug in, Timer, & $5,000... |
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What to Look For in a Refrigerator Surge Protector
There are a couple of things to keep an eye on when looking for the best surge protector for your refrigerator. We’ve summarized these key features below:
Number of Sockets
If you’ve got two refrigerators side by side, you’re probably going to need two sockets. Getting a surge protector with a single socket could still work with a multi-plug extension lead, but that’s going to cost more and take up more space, which isn’t ideal. So make sure you map out the number of sockets required before you buy your refrigerator surge protector.
Joule Rating
The joule rating refers to how much energy your refrigerator surge protector can absorb. A higher joule rating equals better protection.
So how many joules of surge protection do you need? The answer depends on what you’re protecting – are you protecting a PC, refrigerator, or even a whole home?
Here are some rough joule rating guidelines:
- A unit with up to 1000 joules of surge protection is enough for small electronics.
- A surge protector with 1000 to 2000 joules will provide sufficient protection for refrigerators, washing machines & dryers, office equipment, and power tools.
- Consider the highest joule rating (2000+) for expensive gaming consoles, home theater systems, and any computer that stores important data. Anything that is very expensive or irreplaceable.
So for your refrigerator surge protector, look for a joule rating between 1000 to 2000.
Safety Rating
There are a bunch of different safety standards by a bunch of different companies and organizations – so which of these is applicable to refrigerator surge protectors?. For the most part, you want to look at UL – formerly Underwriters Laboratories.
UL is one of several companies approved to perform safety testing by the U.S. federal agency Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). OSHA has a list of approved testing laboratories, which are recognized as Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratories.
Even within UL though, there are a bunch of safety standards that could apply. For proper refrigerator surge protection, you’re mainly want to be looking at the UL 1449 safety standard.
UL 1449 is the Underwriters Laboratories Safety Standard for Surge Protective Devices (SPD) – i.e. perfect for refrigerator surge protection.
So make sure your refrigerator surge protector confirms to UL 1449.
Clamping Voltage
Clamping voltage refers to the maximum amount of voltage that can pass a surge protector before it restricts further voltage from passing to the device it is trying to protect.
For example, a refrigerator surge protector might limit a 6,000V surge so that only 600V is ‘visible’ to the load. Hence here the clamping voltage for this refrigerator surge protector is 600V.
If the clamping voltage is too high, then the surge protector will allow too much voltage to pass to your refrigerator (which will break it).
CHECK the maximum rated voltage of your refrigerator before buying a surge protector, so make sure that the clamping voltage of your refrigerator surge protection device is LOWER than the maximum operating voltage of your refrigerator.
In general, though, the clamping voltage should be LESS than 700V for a refrigerator surge protector.
Warranty
This one’s much easier to explain – the bigger the warranty, the better.
Not just for the obvious reason that if something goes wrong, you’ll be able to make a claim, but for the signal that a long warranty implies about the quality of the refrigerator surge protector (or rather, the confidence the supplier has for the refrigerator surge protector).
If suppliers gave out generously long warranties for refrigerator surge protectors that went bust after 2 weeks, they wouldn’t be around for very long.
So you want to long for longer warranties and high insurance payouts on your refrigerator surge protector (from companies that have been around for more than five years).
EMI/RFI Noise Filtering
EMI = Electromagnetic Interference, while RFI = Radio Frequency Interference. Although these terms are used interchangeably, they’re technically not the same thing. For the purposes of refrigerator surge protection though, we can treat them alike.
Many filters – e.g. low pass filters, high pass filters, or band pass filters – only allow certain types of frequencies through, meaning a set range of EMI/RFI emissions will be transmitted to the device being protected.
This is because certain EMI/RFI emissions will not interfere with the performance frequencies of different electric and electronic devices.
So the goal of EMI/RFI is noise filtering is to remove electromagnetic and radio frequency interference that will interfere with the refrigerator surge protection.
So look for refrigerator surge protectors that have EMI/RFI emissions.
Diagnostic LEDs
It would be best if you had a way to verify that your refrigerator surge protector is working – and that’s what diagnostic LEDs are for.
Look for refrigerator surge protection that includes diagnostic LED lights that confirm power, protection and line fault status at a glance.