Forum Discussion
Power failures
I've been reading here about a some peoples problems with power failures, so I thought I'd post the method I used during the many power failures I had before I got a whole house generator. I ...
One thing to do this on the hush but to publicly post it is not something I would do. I'm pretty certain doing it can get you in a LOT of trouble in many places if ever caught or especially if something serious results.
I'm sure you'll want to tell me I'm wrong now.
BirdDog wrote:One thing to do this on the hush but to publicly post it is not something I would do. I'm pretty certain doing it can get you in a LOT of trouble in many places if ever caught or especially if something serious results.
I'm sure you'll want to tell me I'm wrong now.
Well, I hope you're wrong. I haven't heard of anyone being sued for posting instructions on how to do something on the internet, but I've been wrong before. I hope not anyway, otherwise we are all in danger of a law suit by giving any sort of advice here.
BTW I took great pains to make the instructions as safe as possible, and I actually didn't think of this idea first, I got most of it from an old retired Navy diving instructor. Is he liable also? Until recently he was still teaching scuba diving. Would he be liable if one of his students was killed scuba diving later after completing his course? I'll probably see him later today and ask him.
Well, I'll think about some more. What a sorry world we live in, if one can so easily get in trouble for trying to help,
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."
William ShakespeareTo clarify, I wasn't referring to "doing it" as posting it here getting into trouble, I was meaning actually connecting a portable generator in such a way. Kinda doubt posting the steps here will bring civil action by the power company. Again, just something I personally wouldn't share as backfeeding is already widely addressed on the Internet and so are the laws.
BirdDog wrote:To clarify, I wasn't referring to "doing it" as posting it here getting into trouble, I was meaning actually connecting a portable generator in such a way. Kinda doubt posting the steps here will bring civil action by the power company. Again, just something I personally wouldn't share as backfeeding is already widely addressed on the Internet and so are the laws.
Sorry, I misunderstood the whole point of your reply. Just about everyone here in Florida has a generator of some kind, many of them are hardwired to their house wiring by some method during an outage. The utility companies are well aware of this situation.
Some years ago when I lived in south Florida, my service entrance was severed by a falling tree limb. When the utility company came to hook it back up I noticed that the guy doing the work was wearing hot gloves even though the line was dead, and he was working out of a bucket truck. When I asked him about this, he said that with all of the generators around possibly backfeeding from every which way, wearing hot gloves was SOP.
The only caveat I would add is that, if someone is going to do this, they install, or have installed, an interlock switch. Though remembering to turn off the main is something that has to be done, people forget things, and accidentally powering the generator while the main is still on could cause considerably injury to a linesman or someone else working on the mains.
A nifty trick, though. I've known people who have connected their portable generators with a cord like this in order to keep their refrigerators/freezers powered, as well as a few other things.
GabeU wrote:The only caveat I would add is that, if someone is going to do this, they install, or have installed, an interlock switch. Though remembering to turn off the main is something that has to be done, people forget things, and accidentally powering the generator while the main is still on could cause considerably injury to a linesman or someone else working on the mains.
Like I said to birdog, the utility companies are well aware of all the generators around, and take precautions.
I think the most likely occurrence would be that your running generator would try to pick up all the loads between you and the fault on the line. If the generator was down and the power came back on with the main and dryer breakers closed, the utility power would try to motorise your generator. Neither situation would be good for the generator even though a breaker would probably trip somewhere.
My dryer receptacle was actually located in a detached pole barn about 70 feet from the house with a hundred amp service feeding a separate panel from the main house. Installing any sort of interlock would have been tricky to say the least.
Well like I said, I don't have to worry about it any more.
My nieghbor, who's a retired electrician has an extension cord hooked up to a sub panel in his garage looks a little hokey but I guess it works. Me and another nieghbor went over and dug his car out, helped him start his generator, i had to wade through waist deep snow from the street to the side of his house to shut off his main. He's disabled and on oxygen. he left for warmer climates until this latest storm blows over.
alfresco wrote:My nieghbor, who's a retired electrician has an extension cord hooked up to a sub panel in his garage looks a little hokey but I guess it works.
I did the same thing, until a friend of mine suggested that I hook a dryer receptacle to the subpanel out in the pole barn where the generator was located. I didn't have enough spare breakers to leave the generator hooked up all of the time, and I didn't like the idea of the generator being connected with the flick of a switch anyway, IMO the dryer receptacle made everything a lot easier and safer.
Waist deep snow? Our problem has been the heat. We just had over a week of near or over 90 degree temperatures. In the middle of February!
