@immatthewj What does switching off the breakers do. Don't you want them on so they offer protection by tripping?
If you switch them off, don't you lose their protection and allow current to flow through without impediment?
@vinylshadow , I just re-read the entire thread to make sure that I was going to order the correct product and in the course of that re-reading I went through this post by you again, and when I said I turn the breaker off I meant that I manually trip it and this does the opposite of "allow current to flow through without impediment" as it actually completely impedes current from flowing through the circuit under normal circumstances.
However, Jea informs me that a massive voltage spike/surge could jump across a tripped breaker and this does not offer the level of protection that I thought it did. I think, however, it may have been sufficient to protect against the type of surge that the OP of this thread experienced. I hope I cleared up what I meant on that.