I'm ASSuming that I already know the answer to this, but I'll try anyway
- assume a usual little surge protector with three MOVs, H-N, H-G, N-G. Will it provide protection to a device connected directly by hard wires to the receptacle that it's plugged into? I'm guessing that it really doesn't care as to "upstream" or "downstream" only that the level of protection depends somewhat on the distance from the protector. Also if a surge destroys it it obviously will not disconnect a device not "downstream" of it.
Reason I ask is, due to the fun and games I've been having with repairing appliances due to a big surge about a week and a half ago, I thought that adding surge protection to my furnace and air filter would be a good idea. Problem is, now that I dig into it, the furnace is hardwired to the back of a box on the side of the furnace. There is a switch and a duplex receptacle in that box. The switch controls the furnace and one half of the recep; the other is always hot. A humidifier is plugged into the switched side, a condensate pump into the unswitched side. I figured the best I could do, without adding some kind of hardwired surge protection, was to plug it into the unswitched recep for the condensate pump and it would provide the same protection as if it were inline, with the caveat that if a surge destroyed the MOVs in the surge protector, it is possible that it might zap the furnace before the breaker tripped. Am I correct?
Are there any common, commercially available point of use surge protectors designed to be mounted in, say, a 1900 box screwed to the side of a piece of equipment? I am thinking that one at the dishwasher might be advisable as well, as its only protection appears to be one H-N MOV and we already established that that wasn't sufficient in at least one instance :(
thanks,
nate