questions about surge protection and batteries

[ZippyDan]

I'm looking to buy a whole house surge protector...

(trying to decide between http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...uct/B002FYIHAO which is another problem because I don't know how to determine which is better and they are both the same price)

I've learned many times before that I should not daisy-chain surge protectors and UPSs (or even surge protectors and surge protectors). I have many UPSs and surge protectors in my house, so how does this fit into that rule? Isn't the whole house surge protector then in a daisy chain with everything else in the house?

On a related note, how do you know when a MOV has gone bad? Is there any reliable way to test them without desoldering them? These whole house surge protection devices come with a light to indicate if the protection is working, but many other devices do not. My real question is how will I know when my UPS surge protection goes bad? If it does, I still want to use it as a battery, so then is it ok to daisy chain with a surge protector?

 

[bryanl]

It's not a good idea to daisy chain plug-in surge protectors since each connection increases the impedance of the ground connection, but there's no harm in daisy chaining a plug-in surge protector when the breaker box contains a whole house surge protector.

Surge protectors that include line filters or are Zero Surge brand should not be daisy chained because their filters are tuned and may interact to resonate at the frequency of the surge, making it worse.