South Africa's storm season runs October to March. A practical pre-season SPD inspection checklist for electrical contractors, board by board and site by site.
title: "Storm-season (Oct–Mar) checklist for contractors" description: "South Africa's storm season runs October to March. A practical pre-season SPD inspection checklist for electrical contractors, board by board and site by site." date: "2026-06-11" author: "EBB South Africa" tags: ["surge protection", "contractors", "storm season", "SANS 10142-1", "SPD inspection"] draft: false
South Africa's thunderstorm season runs roughly from October to March, and the Highveld carries one of the highest lightning ground-flash densities on the planet. Add summer afternoon storms over Gauteng, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal to the daily switching transients from an unstable grid, and the months before October are exactly when surge protective devices (SPDs) earn their keep — or quietly fail and leave your client exposed.
For an electrical contractor, the pre-storm-season window is a commercial opportunity as much as a safety one. A short, structured inspection round across the boards you maintain turns "the SPD light is red" into a planned module swap, a documented compliance check, and a conversation about the boards that have no protection at all. This is a practical, board-by-board checklist you can run before the first big storm rolls in.
Why pre-season, not post-failure
An SPD is a sacrificial component. Every surge it clamps degrades the metal-oxide varistor (MOV) inside it a little further, until the internal thermal disconnector trips and the device reaches end-of-life. The problem is that a tripped SPD looks exactly like a working one to a homeowner or facilities manager: the board still has power, the lights still come on. The protection is simply gone.
That is why the inspection has to be proactive. If you wait for the call after a strike has already taken out a client's inverter, gate motor or POS system, the SPD has done its job (or failed silently weeks earlier) and the damage is done. A walk-round in September, before the season starts, lets you find the spent devices, the missing devices and the wrongly specified devices while there is still time (and quiet weather) to fix them.
The board-by-board inspection checklist
Work through every distribution board you are responsible for, from the main entry DB down to the sub-boards. For each one:
1. Confirm an SPD is actually present. On older installations and budget new-builds it is common to find no surge protection at all. Note every unprotected board. Each one is a quote.
2. Read the status indicator. Base EBB units carry a visual end-of-life flag; a tripped or discoloured window means the module is spent and must be replaced before the season. On units with the remote-signalling variant, check that the dry contact is still wired through to the BMS or alarm panel and that nobody has muted the alert. (See the SPD number decoder for what the R suffix and the other codes on the unit actually mean.)
3. Check the device is the right type for its position. Type 2 (Class II) arresters belong on distribution boards downstream of the main entry, where they clamp induced surges and switching transients. The workhorse here is the PZ-C 275/40 — a single-module 18 mm DIN Type 2 device, Uc 275 V, In 20 kA, Imax 40 kA, holding the let-through voltage to ≤1.2 kV. It suits standard SA 230 V single-phase boards: residential, commercial and the AC side of solar-inverter boards. A site under a lightning protection system needs a combined Type 1+2 device at the entry as well. But only specify what the LOA and your design actually support; do not assume.
4. Verify per-phase coverage. On a three-phase board, every live phase needs its own arrester, and a TT-earthed system also needs the neutral-to-earth path covered. A single SPD clipped onto one phase of a three-phase board is a common and dangerous shortcut. Count the phases, count the devices.
5. Inspect the connecting leads. SPD performance depends on short, fat, straight connecting conductors. Long looping leads add inductance and push up the voltage the protected equipment actually sees during a surge, undoing the device's low Up rating. Trim and tidy where you can.
6. Confirm upstream overcurrent protection. An SPD must sit behind the disconnector or fuse specified in its installation instructions so that an end-of-life device fails safely rather than becoming a fault. Check the backup protection is present and correctly rated.
7. Photograph and log. Record the model, the board location and the status of each device. A dated photo log is the backbone of the compliance file your client will want — and your evidence that the board was protected and inspected on a given date.
The maintenance advantage of a modular range
End-of-life does not have to mean a full rewire. Where a board uses the modular EBB devices, only the spent plug-in cartridge is swapped: the base stays wired in place. The PZ-C 275/40 MODULE is the replaceable cartridge for an installed PZ-C 275/40 base: pull the old module, click in the new one, and the board is protected again in seconds with no disturbance to the existing wiring.
For storm-season planning that is a real advantage. You can carry a small stock of replacement modules, do the swaps on the same visit you inspect, and keep the labour and the disruption to a minimum. Stock the modules alongside the base units and you turn a reactive emergency call-out into a scheduled, billable maintenance round.
Don't forget compliance
In South Africa every SPD you install on a board must be legal to sell here. The EBB PZ-C 275/40 family is covered by NRCS Letter of Authority ZAF-RCC-0029482, issued under compulsory specification VC 8055 — the mandatory regulatory approval for SPDs in this market. The family is type-tested to SANS 61643-11 (the SA adoption of IEC 61643-11), and SANS 10142-1, the wiring code, governs where and how the devices are installed on the board.
When you specify and fit a device, make sure the LOA covers the exact model you are installing. Stamped copies of the LOA and the SANS test reports belong in your client's QA file, especially on commercial and tender work where an inspector will ask for them. You can download the current documents from the compliance page, and request a stamped pack matched to your SKU list if you need it for a QA submission.
Turn the inspection into client value
The checklist above protects your client. It also sets up a straightforward, honest upsell — the kind that builds trust rather than burning it.
- Replace what is spent. Every red flag is a module or a device that has already done its job and now leaves the board exposed. Frame it plainly: the protection is used up, here is the swap, here is what it guards.
- Protect the boards that have nothing. The unprotected boards on your list are the clearest value of all. Walk the client through what a single induced surge does to an inverter, a heat pump, a gate motor or a server, and the cost of a per-phase Type 2 device is easy to justify.
- Offer remote signalling where it pays. On sites with a BMS, SCADA or a facilities team, the remote-alarm variant means a tripped SPD raises a flag automatically instead of being discovered after the next strike. For a client who cannot afford silent failures, that is worth specifying.
- Sell the maintenance round, not just the part. A dated inspection log and a scheduled pre-season check is a service. Price it as one.
A pre-storm-season SPD round is fast, it protects equipment that costs far more than the devices guarding it, and it produces a clean compliance trail. Run it before October across every board you maintain, and you go into the storm season with protected sites, documented work and a clear set of quotes.
Want to put a quote together while you walk the boards? Add the certified PZ-C 275/40 line to a request for quote, or read more on the dedicated contractors page for how EBB supports installers through the season. To browse the certified range, head to the product catalogue.