Check All American Power Conversion Surge Protectors
APC is recalling pretty much all of their personal and even professional grade surge protectors from 2002 and before. I have bought a LOT of APC surge protectors over the years for myself and all of my clients. American Power Conversion (now owned by Schneider Electric) was always the Gold standard to me for power products.
At times I would try another brand or 0ne of my associates would swear by another brand – for a time – and we would ALWAYS come back to APC, even though we had our gripes over the years with them too.
It turns out the there have been quite a few incidents of the surge protectors overheating, melting and even causing a fire.
The recall is dated October 3, 2013 and despite all of the mailings I get from time to time from APC wanting to sell me more products, and despite the fact that many of these products are registered with them, as of the weekend I have received no communication from Schneider Electric/APC alerting me to the recall.
Advantage To Buying From Amazon.com
The reason I know about this APC recall is that I have recently bought some APC NET8N’s from Amazon.com. Obviously, these are NOT subject to recall because all of the recalled products are over 10 years old – predating most of my Amazon.com buying other than for maybe some books.
Nevertheless, Amazon contacted me with this email:
This is an advantage to dealing with a company like Amazon.com, and normally, you get the best price with them anyway.
What To Do About The APC Recall
If you have ANY APC surge protectors, head to the CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION recall page on APC and see the list of models affected.
Check ALL APC surge protectors, turn them over and look at the model/serial number tag. If affected, take a photo of the tag (required for claim submission but also is easiest way to note serial number) and then click the claim submission link under “Consumer Contact” on that CPSC page linked above. Alternately you can call APC.
You are encouraged to IMMEDIATELY take any recalled surge protector out of service.
They say to allow 12 weeks for processing and they will send you a replacement (possibly lower priced, they are replacing “NET” products with “PRO” products) at no cost.
Unfortunately, what are you supposed to use for 12 weeks?
[Update] About 4 hours after submitting my claim online I received this email (4 for 4 thankfully):
I highly recommend surge protectors and UPS’s (uninterruptible power supply) for all electronics. And I still recommend APC over every other brand. Keep in mind that these recalled APC surge protectors are between 11 and 20 years old!
Surge protectors actually do “wear out” from absorbing surges and should be replace more frequently than that (5 – 7 years probably at most). The recalled ones I have in service are pretty much just being used as outlet strips because they are plugged into UPS’s which already protect against power surges.
So if you need new surge protectors or UPS’s, I suggest you shop Amazon for APC products.
[Update 11/19/2013] – We just received the first replacement, well ahead of the 12 week time we were “warned” of. More on the way according to emails we have received. Actually, we received the last one we submitted first, probably in around 3 weeks time.
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