Whole house surge protection is great if the surge comes from the power company mains. Otherwise, not so much. Now the natural question is: where else would a surge come from?

A lightning strike could potentially energize the wires in your home causing a surge. This happened at the first CPA firm I worked for. A lightning strike caused a surge in the coax cable running between the ceiling and roof of the one story building the firm owned. That coax cable connected two hubs that connected the computers and printers to a Novell network. This was pre-everything connected to the internet days so the network was completely isolated from the outside world. The surge took out both hubs and most of the NICs in the computers, but nothing else.

Personally, I lost a TV, Microwave, and some stereo equipment to a surge. It was one of two times I made a claim with my homeowner’s insurance. I think I had a $500 deductible and I collected about $500 against the $1,000 loss.

You should check to see what your homeowner’s policy covers and decide accordingly how much you really want to spend on surge protection.

This is the model I recommend. They have indicator lights on them to tell if they are still working. Yes the point is to layer the protection. The whole house surge protector blunts any surge that it doesn't stop. Then your point of use (POU) surge doesn't have to face as big of a surge. Additionally you gain protection for everything in your house that furnace boards that might cost $400 has some protection in front of it. The oven, the spare bedroom TV, the microwave, other inexpensive electronics that may not warrant dedicated POU protection.

As for the plug in washer surge protector the more the merrier. It won't hurt anything electrical the website says it has 15a plugs and is rated for use with 15a breaker. You probably have a 20a washer circuit, so technically the plug should be rated for 20a too, but I highly doubt your washer even draws 10a.

I’ll defer to Skins as he’s much more knowledgeable than me. I just hire electricians!

To get to the OP’s questions the one I showed is an example. Ideally yours should match the brand of your panel. It also replaces a breaker for one of your circuits so you won’t need additional space in your panel. And most if not all the ones I’ve seen have lights to let you know they are working properly and haven’t taken a sacrificial hit.

In today’s homes there are so many things are are potentially susceptible that as Skins said above it’s a great first layer of protection.

All right. Thanks guys. Researching and will get thoughts from my electrician.

I use the one Jesse recommends, two of them actually because I have a 400 amp parallel fed service so one on each of two 200 amp main panels. In addition a point of use protector on my electronics.

I don't know if they still do it but the power company here used to install them if requested, they added a rental charge for it to your monthly bill.