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Central IL | I've recently acquired a gas powered portable type generator (5000 watts continuous). I'm smart enough to know that I CANNOT power the entire house with this, and i'm okay with that. My question for everyone is, how do you get the power to the house? My generator has 4 110V typical plug ins, and 1 220v 20 amp twist lock socket. I don't have any cords or anything yet. I'm trying to figure out the best type to buy. The house we live in is a rental, we do not own the house, so I'm not modifying the electric system. HERE IS MY IDEA: after killing the main so power cannot travel down the line, I'm wanting to back feed through my 220V dryer outlet, and only turn on the vital breakers at the box. (sump pump,fridge, freezer, lights...) A. will this work? B. would I be better off to use the existing 220V socket, or combining 2 different 110V sources to get 220V? Thanks for your help and ideas! |
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West Central IL | Do it the right way and get a disconnect switch where you can plug in the generator and switch from line power to generator power.I have a 6000 watt unit and can keep the whole house going enough to run the furnace and keep the fridge and freezers running and the lights on.We can microwave but don't dare use the oven or range top.
Plus if you screw something up by rigging it up you probably screwed yourself out of insurance money and what if something happens and you are bleeding power back thru the lines and hurt or kill a lineman,was it worth the shortcut?
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East Prairie, MO | Yes It will work, and I'd just use the 220 plug on the generator if your going to do that. I just come out of that 220 with mine and put a 110 leg of it on each half of my breaker box by actually putting the wire on the lugs in the box, that's essentually what your going to be doing and it will work and will be easy once you get the wire made up! |
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Palestine, IL 62451 | kmk is 100% right, Install a double throw switch, at the main disconnect and power it there. The way you described will work but keep in mind that electricity can go back through a transformer and power up main line, 99% of the time you might not forget, but that 1% is'nt worth it. IMO. |
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SC North Dakota | Do it the right way. Electric coop should furnish switch and you might have buy a pigtail. Isn't worth taking a chance. IMHO |
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| Your plan will work, I would guess that several people have indeed done that, however, as pointed out, it does have several issues. Most of these have been pointed out, you also have the problem of the 110 legs. If it has to be done, it should be only in an emergency, not after you have already thought it thru and planned for it. The fact that it's a rental makes it even more questionable. There are distribution boxes made for limited gen-set usage (only the circuits needed to be powered) that can be purchased for under $100. Northern Tool sells a lot of them. You would need to check with the homeowner before doing anything. If it were my house, I would probably be agreeable to same, if it were done by a qualified person, and left (or system returned to original). If you feel that you have the possible need for the generator, then the small cost (in the big picture) for doing it the proper way should not be a stumbling point. |
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Aurora, NC | I have a pigtail that plugs into my clothes dryer outlet in the garage. Turn off the breakers not needed and the main. |
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West Michigan | First I will say I know nothing about electric. But wouldn't throwing the main breaker off while running the generator keep it from back feeding. That is what I did one time to hook up one that I borrowed from BIL. |
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Palestine, IL 62451 | Yes it will but you only have to forget one time and that 110v or 220v backfeeding through transformer just got stepped up to 3500v or more. |
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Stratford WI | that's fine unless you get in a hurry and forget to throw that main.
Having a manual or auto bus transfer will eliminate human error and be much safer all around.
If it bothers you that much talk to your landlord about getting an MBT and the proper wiring installed.
Something happens and you have this jury rigged set up your ins co may not be too happy.
Edited by sammyd 1/3/2010 17:59
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cropsey, il 61731 | If you are discipline enough to do it that way it should work fine. Probably the best thing to do is at least have a disconnect switch/generator switch on your line in. They can be pricey, but you guarantee fewer fried linemen:
Here is one on ebay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/600-volt-600-amp-Square-D-Disconnect-Switch-Gen...
Your idea to just turn off breakers will work fine. Besides the number of times your generator will get used most years is minimal. We had enough ice storms that forced us into a generator, but I bought a hobart 10K generator/welder for $1700 and it's been great on the farm and is a good generator. It gets far far more use as a welder and to provide power in the middle of a field. We also are on interruptable service to get a break on electricity costs, so the generator gets a little more use.
HTH,
Pat |
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East Central Illinois | I've always heard that while unlikely, it is possible that your main breaker could fail. ie, not actually being disconnected when you flip the main off, resulting in power being back fed, as previously said.
A double throw, double pole transfer switch is the way to go. |
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Central Il Morton | Since it is a rental house just run with extension cords. You will need to put a male and female plug in your furnace so it can be run on extension cord. That way your not back feeding breaker box.
good luck
pointrow |
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| Its double dangerous, DEADLY dangerous.
First you have the exposed male plug ends when the cable is only connected at one end. 240 volts will kill as easily as 110, ventricular fibrillation is not a situation you want in, because the only way out is with a defibrillator or death. And you don't have the defibrillator at hand and you can't use it on yourself. 3 to 4 minutes from shock to gone.
Then there's that chance of forgetting to pull the main breaker and feeding back to the power line. Then a lineman expecting a dead line gets fried, or you try to feed the whole neighborhood and your generator gets fried.
Yes it works, but its deadly dangerous if you forget or someone close to you doesn't know those details and tries it when you are gone and there's any problem or mistake.
DON'T DO IT YOUR WAY. IT MAKES LIVES TOO SHORT.
Gerald J, electrical engineer |
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West Union, Illinois | pointrow - Since it is a rental house just run with extension cords. You will need to put a male and female plug in your furnace so it can be run on extension cord. That way your not back feeding breaker box. Something we did for 3 different houses is run a permanent wire from outside the back porch to the furnace. We put a 110 outlet at the furnace and a 110 plug outside with enough extra wire to be able to pull it out a few feet to plug into a generator. We then wired the furnace to a 110 plug and outlet (which technically may not be 100% electrical code) so if there is an outage we wheel the generator up, plug it in, then go to the furnace and unplug from house wiring to emergency. It's 100% effective at isolating the generator.If you have a furnace with a condensation pump make sure there are provisions for it as well. I would echo the other folks sentiment: NEVER NEVER connect a generator to the wiring without a disconnect.
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Cecilia, KY ©® | Warning only use this info if you are capable of performing electrical work and or willing to put you or someone else at risk of death.
When we had an ice storm last Jan -Feb I bought and hooked up several generators for the 2 weeks we were out of electric, I have a disconnect at my house but most don't . I went to the breaker box and turned off the main breaker, if your not competent enough to do this leave the gen to someone else . Yes if you forget to do it it will back feed the line , but with 20 amp it won't power much down the line, if you have plenty of neighbors it won't keep the breaker on the gen from throwing . If you have a PTO gen pulling 200 amps then you could do some real damage far from home, ( not that the small portable gen can't kill anyone ) but in an emergency you do what it takes to get by . If you have made it this far and after you have your main turned off you are disconnected from the power company , run a cord to a 220 breaker you won't use and is big enough to handle your generators amps and wire it up , this will serve as your main breaker for the generator and home , make sure you have a plug for the 220v outlet on the generator and plug it in, turn your new main off along with all other breakers ( the one you wired your cord to ) and fire up your gen , let it warm up some and then turn your new main on and begin turning on what you need in the home . With 20 amps it won't take much to pull the gen down and trip it's breaker you will then find out what you can pull. This will get you by till you can find a system that will meet your electric code and can have ready when needed. I would also check with your landlord to see if he approves of you doing this . This will get you by in an emergency , but the best is to check your electric codes and see what is needed to meet them before you have to do a quickie job in an emergency .
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North Central Illinois | Talk to your landlord and ask him is he is willing to share in the cost of a transfer switch and installation by an electrician. Perhaps he would even be willing to let you pay your share by paying extra rent every month. If not, start saving your pennies and do it right. You have lives and property at stake here. Its not worth taking the chance. If I were your landlord and caught you running it like that I would run you down the road so quick it would make your head spin. He has a lot of liability in this situation. If you fry some lineman because you forgot to throw a switch he has liabilty. |
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West Central IL | If I pulled up to my rental house and saw that they had a generator rigged up like that they would be looking for a new place to live.If they want to run a generator and have been good paying tenants taking good care of the place and want to stay long term I would be more than happy to put the proper switch in for them if they are going to supply the generator.
Being the property owner who do you think they are going to come after if the tenant fries a lineman down the road somewhere? |
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West Central IL | Looks like you type faster than I do since we basically said the same thing. |
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North Central Illinois | Wow! Thats almost scary! Great minds think alike I guess! |
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North Central Illinois | Wow! Thats almost scary! Great minds think alike I guess! |
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Columbia Falls, Maine ( Downeast Maine) | I had a double throw breaker installed, works great and no chance of hurting the line crew. |
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| Check out http://www.interlockkit.com/ for a generator interlock kit for almost any main panel made. If you have a Square D panel they make their own kits for less money. Basically you back feed your main panel through a dedicated breaker which can only be on when the main breaker is off and vice versa. Not quite as cheap as back feeding through the dryer plug but cheaper than a double throw transfer switch and should be legal. |
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NW Indiana | I do not post here much but my father was a lineman and was killed while working on the line so this hits close to home. I have one of these www.generlink.com and is what my electric cooperative suggested. Have been very happy with it and when you move out of the home you can take it with you. Just a thought............. |
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Piedmont, NC | Thats the way I do it. Works good. You can't run water heater unless its gas. |
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Statesville, NC | For a small generator, the panel interlock kit is the best way. The problem is, even if you have only a 5000 watt generator, you still have to have a 200 amp switch if you use a double throw switch. With the interlock kit you only need an extra double pole breaker to match your generator size, and an outside connector plug. Simple, easy, and safe. |
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SE MT | I hired my local lineman on a Saturday to wire a mechanical transfer switch(idiot proof) w/a pigtail total cost w/labor was a little shy of 500. Switch was 350 and about 2.5hrs labor. He tied in right below the meter and my main disconnect at the pole, that way it runs my well, shop, house and livestock waterers,etc.. Although we don't bake and run the dryer at the same time, I run all this with a 10K Miller Bobcat welder/generator that I already owned. This way nobody gets hurt and the family stays warm and can take a hot shower,warm food etc.. during an outage. If these things are important to you I think anybody posting on this board can muster up 500. Your renter should go half therefore, about 250$ and your done for good and even the wife can kick it on in an emergency! |
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Ripley, Ontario Canada | I run a 4000 watt generator, it does the furnace and the water pump and a light or 2. Toaster or frying pan if you unplug something else. How I do it is the same way Mike does. In the line to the furnace and the pump I put a plug. I then plug my furnace or my pump into either hydro or my genset. I had this done before I put an addition on my house, and had to get the hydro inspected. The hydro inspector approved my plug in system. There is no way to backfeed the genset into the main hydro because you completely disconnect when you pull the plug. I ran wire from each of my disconnects to a good place outside to set the genset, and put plugs outside so I don't have to string a lot of cords out through the house when I need the genset. What ever you do, don't backfeed through the pannel, the results of doing it wrong could be real bad. |
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Ripley, Ontario Canada | I run a 4000 watt generator, it does the furnace and the water pump and a light or 2. Toaster or frying pan if you unplug something else. How I do it is the same way Mike does. In the line to the furnace and the pump I put a plug. I then plug my furnace or my pump into either hydro or my genset. I had this done before I put an addition on my house, and had to get the hydro inspected. The hydro inspector approved my plug in system. There is no way to backfeed the genset into the main hydro because you completely disconnect when you pull the plug. I ran wire from each of my disconnects to a good place outside to set the genset, and put plugs outside so I don't have to string a lot of cords out through the house when I need the genset. What ever you do, don't backfeed through the pannel, the results of doing it wrong could be real bad. |
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Southeast Iowa | When we rewired our farmhouse eight years ago, I collected all of our "critical loads" into a separate panel. There are about eight circuits, and THAT PANEL is fed by a 50A, 240V, 4-pole cord like a kitchen stove uses. THAT CORD plugs into a receptacle that is fed from a 50A, 240V breaker in my main panel. When a power outage occurs, I unplug that cord and plug it into a red-painted 50A, 4-pole receptacle that is attached to a red-painted 60A, fusible disconnect which has a 40' of #8, 4-leg cable rolled up and hanging below it. We pull that cable through the cat door and up the stairs from the basement to the garage, and out through a second cat door to the back steps where we spot the gen set. Once everything is plugged in and the gen set is running, I throw the red-painted fusible disconnect and we are in business. We leave our regular service breakers in the "on" position so we will know right away that the normal power is back on. Oh... and one more thing..... BE SURE to use one of those computer power protectors on the feed to the furnace. These modern furnaces with the complicated circuit boards are sensitive to generator power. Buy the best one that you can find; they are thirty bucks and a new computer card is about two-hundred. |
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Burlington, KS | Our local electric COOP requires a visible break (disconnect) (a breaker does not meet this requirement), between them and a generator, this can be achieved by a disconnect or by pulling the meter. The lineman agent told me that if I needed to power up with a generator that I should pull the meter before hooking up, and let him know, he would come by and put on a new lock tab. He knows me, and that I have been a power plant operator and maintenance electrician and am well versed in alignments of power and generators, so he was very comfortable with telling me to do this. I installed everything from the meter can to the house and shop in my three phase installation as well, so he was familiar with my competence. You should never remove a meter without approval, and never work with this equipment if you are not comfortable with and knowledgeable of the dangers. Never try to reinstall a meter without testing, and always have the main breaker open. You have heard of Rail Guns? Installing a meter on a fault essentially builds an electric launch pad! Use your weak hand and stand to the side, even if you are sure there are no problems. If you know of problems, you will not try to reinstall a meter. If you are not comfortable leave it to the linemen, they will likely be glad to help knowing that you were looking out for them. |
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Central IL | If all the stars line up wrong, you can still back feed from a shut off main breaker when you back feed. How? Main breaker does not disconnect the neutral wire. If the polarity of your generator cord is reversed and the ground rod connection on your house has been broken (ie. lawnmower damage) then you can back feed voltage to your transformer and kill a lineman. |
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| Depends the way the house is wired and what plug he has. If the neutral is separate from ground and the dryer was a old style with just 3 lugs, no it will not work, you will not have neutral going back to box..If old style plug and old style of wiring, yes (ground and neutral together) and if new style (ground and neutral separate) and new style dryer plug (4 pin plug) will work. but safest way is a disconnect from main power.. |
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Top middle of MO. land of green hills and grass | I use one of these on the outside: http://cgi.ebay.com/GENERATOR-POWER-INLET-30AMP-L14-30-Twist-Lock_W...
With one of these for a Square D QO box that I also found on the shelf at Lowes for $50: http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=32112...
I plug in the generator with a standard twist lock extension cord, ground the frame to a 6' rod and we're done. I've had this inspected by the REC engineer here, and he was quite pleased with the arrangement, visible break or not...
A comment RE: Ranges...you wire them with heavy service for using all elements. I wouldn't be afraid of using a single element on generator power, I'm not sure what that would pull, but I wouldn't expect much. |
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| I have same set up as Dave only my generator wire hangs in garage. When needed I plug into generator and change plugs at breaker boxes. We just have the most needed circuits in the second box. |
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How do you hook your generator to your house?
