Can house wiring carry a large surge?

The hoffed: Can house wiring carry a large surge?
Our house has standard house wiring that has 6A breakers. Can the house wiring carry more voltage than its designed too? Like I have a Belkin Surbe protector that has 300V MOV’s but I think the clamping voltage is over 700V. What if the house wiring is designed to carry 600V max… will this mean the surge will hit the devices without clamping the MOV?

Also is it possible that a surge can melt the house wiring and cause fire because the surge protector conducted a surge?

Answers and Views:

Answer by buttcolet
a surge protector is designed to cut power in cases of wires shorting out on each other and or lightning strikes. also your breakers in your box should also cut the power if too much electricity is drawn at one time. thus your wiring should be fine for everyday appliances.

Answer by Gerald
Unless there is a master electriicial on yahoo to answer the questions… Or have a person come out to the house… Better check the home owners policy — If there is mod made to the wiring and the house burns down— might find your self homeless…

Answer by Gunner
No such thing as a “Standard 6 amp breaker”, as house wiring is usually 15 amp lighting and 20 amp outlets. If you in fact have 6 amp breakers, they will trip or blow long before any wiring is fried. This is assuming you are in the US?

Answer by Whoda thunkit?
It’s common to confuse over voltage with over current.

Your house wiring’s spec’s are set up to handle a certain amount of current (also known as amperage).

Example: When a device, let’s say a dryer, is running fine it draws 15 amps. The wiring going from your breaker to the dryer itself will be designed to handle at least 45 amps so the breaker is a 30 amp breaker.
The only way the dryer will draw more than 15 amps is if there is a short or a low voltage situation. Let’s say there is a short in the dryer and the current ramps up to 30 amps. The breaker will trip and protect the wires from catching fire.
Notice I said “if there is a short or low voltage situation”. When voltage drops, current rises. A 220 volt dryer will draw 15 amps when it’s getting 220 volts. If the voltage was to drop to 120, it would then draw 30 amps (just an example, I don’t have any dryer specs but the formula for calculating the example is proven).

The electric company does send voltage ‘spikes’ but they only last a couple of milliseconds and will generally be only a few hundred volts. Your MOV’s are mainly to suppress high voltage (many thousands of volts) lightning strikes and should be replaced when you know you’ve had a strike.

In a nutshell, your house wiring will be ok because they are protected by the circuit breakers. The wires can fail if they take a direct lightning hit. The electric co. won’t be able to send a surge that will put your wiring in danger of catching fire, and your surge protector will protect your devices from a spike.

Answer by luka
all new wires are rated to carry up to 600 volts,the amperege is diffrent there is no such thing as a 6 amp breker for a house,the the surge prtectors are rated up to 135,000 volts for lighting strikes they are called surge arresters.