In article 126754f9-9985-4a17-b39a-
,
says...

Looking to clarify some points installing a Leviton 51110 whole
house surge protector from Home Depot.

The surge protector has four leads - two black, one green, one white.

1. From what I understand the blacks need to go to adjacent 20 amp
breakers, doesn't matter which goes to which. There aren't two
adjacent 20's on my board so I gather 2 more need to be installed?

1b. - If 2 more breakers need to be installed, the available spots are
below the already installed breakers. Shouldn't they be as close as
possible to the top of the stack of breakers so any surge hits the
protector before hitting the rest of the breakers or not necessarily?

2. The instructions specify the white line going to the neutral bus,
the green going to the ground bus. However, the schematic seems to
show the green and white going to a common ground.

On my box, I've id'd "A" as the neutral bus - the one with the white
wires going to it, "B" as the ground bus. Is this correct?

Anyone have experience with this particular unit?

Thanks for all input.


- My breaker box:

http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/3/...reaker_Box.jpg

- Installation schematic:

http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/3/.../schematic.JPG

- Link to info on this protector at the Leviton site.

http://www.leviton.com/OA_HTML/Produ...minisite=10251

A surge protector works by "shorting" the two hots, shorting each hot to
neutral, and each of those to ground. It does this in a split second.

Anyway you have two hots coming in at the top of the panel. Note there
is NO MAIN CUT OFF SWITCH! Power will ALWAYS BE LIVE to this panel!!!!

It appears to be a "subpanel" and there should be another panel
elsewhere where you can cut off the power to that panel.

If you can't do that and do not understand this, then call an
electrician!

Other than that, the two breakers on the upper right are adjacent
breakers (each goes to a separate hot). Those are "regular size
breakers". The smaller breakers are "space saving breakers". The breaker
on the lower left is a regular size breaker. (Space saving... 2 go to
one hot, then the next two go to the other hot.)

You can NOT place two wires in one breaker connection, so you need to
buy a new "full size" double breaker for that specific brand/model
panel. And that double breaker will need to be a certain amperage - like
20 amps or 50 amps or whatever. If this is not specified in the surge
protector instructions, call the manufacturer and ask what size breaker.

That new double breaker can be located anywhere in the panel.

Then connect one black wire to each connection on the double breaker,
white to the neutral bar, and green to the ground bar.

If you do not fully understand how your electric panel works, what the
two hots are above, how those connect to various breakers, why it is
always live, and why you can't connect two wires to one breaker, call an
electrician!