There is a kind of person who knows how to do that safely, but that kind of person has already installed an actual load transfer switch to do it the right way.
I still do it, I have a lot of blackouts here, I have to close the breaker, turn on the generator and then every 15 min go downstairs to unplug the gen, and turn on the breaker to know if the electricity came back, I’m cheap but I’m also getting tired of the whole process.
You have two bus bars in your breaker panel. It is designed to be fed from one main breaker. But, electricity can flow backwards through a circuit.
An interlock kit is a simple device that allows either your main breaker to be turned on, or a different breaker to be turned on. Not both at the same time. With such an interlock in place, you wire the auxiliary breaker to a generator inlet box, so you can plug your house into your generator.
A non-contact voltage detector is the rest of your answer. The detector is locked on, and placed where it can pick up voltage on the main feed into your house: tape it to the main feed into the breaker panel. When power is restored, it starts beeping, and you know you can transfer back.
Do it the right way, because you aren’t the only person who might be doing it, and the people who learn from you might not fully grasp the concepts involved. They might get lazy, skip steps, and set their home and/or generator on fire.
This is what automatic generators are for. They come on after sensing the power drop out and when it comes back on, it shuts down automatically. I have such a system because I live in the middle of a forest and trees fall over sometimes. And for bonus points, it can happen when the outside temps are at -30F/-29C and be off for a few hours or days.
My house has totally fucked-up electrical. For some reason, there’s a secondary breaker box in the basement which switches some of the outlets and lights in the house over to running off the generator outside. So when the line power comes back on, the lights that aren’t switched to the gen come back on (if I happened to have them on when the power went off, at least).
I’ve lived in this house for 15 years now and I’ve been without power here for a total of seven weeks during that time. I like how many trees we have here but that’s the price we pay.
Thats a transfer switch, and that’s exactly what you want here. You want only a few essential loads on the generator, not your entire home. The furnace should be on it, modem and networking equipment, a few outlets for charging phones, refrigerator and deep freeze. Sump pumps.
The electric hot water tank doesn’t need to be on the generator. The welder in the garage. Electric range. Dishwasher, Christmas lights, EV charger, pool heater, spa, or other big appliances that can be done without in an emergency.
I’m baffled by people going without power being a somewhat regular thing. I’ve never in my life been without power. I grew up on an old farm, and not once did we lose power. Sometimes lightning would flip the breaker, but never more than that. I realise this is because of the difference in size and infrastructure between my country and USA, but it’s still wild to me, that some people in a rich country actually need a generator. I’ve only ever seen a generator once in my life. It was used at a beach party to power the music.
There are still great areas that have very low populations. I live in such a place in the middle of a huge forest. Think 10,000+ acres of trees everywhere. They tend to fall over in bad weather. Living in an open farmland area where a wood fence post can considered a tree, power outages are rare.
I always heard they were for powering a house off a generator
There is a kind of person who knows how to do that safely, but that kind of person has already installed an actual load transfer switch to do it the right way.
I still do it, I have a lot of blackouts here, I have to close the breaker, turn on the generator and then every 15 min go downstairs to unplug the gen, and turn on the breaker to know if the electricity came back, I’m cheap but I’m also getting tired of the whole process.
https://interlockkit.com/
You have two bus bars in your breaker panel. It is designed to be fed from one main breaker. But, electricity can flow backwards through a circuit.
An interlock kit is a simple device that allows either your main breaker to be turned on, or a different breaker to be turned on. Not both at the same time. With such an interlock in place, you wire the auxiliary breaker to a generator inlet box, so you can plug your house into your generator.
A non-contact voltage detector is the rest of your answer. The detector is locked on, and placed where it can pick up voltage on the main feed into your house: tape it to the main feed into the breaker panel. When power is restored, it starts beeping, and you know you can transfer back.
Do it the right way, because you aren’t the only person who might be doing it, and the people who learn from you might not fully grasp the concepts involved. They might get lazy, skip steps, and set their home and/or generator on fire.
This is what automatic generators are for. They come on after sensing the power drop out and when it comes back on, it shuts down automatically. I have such a system because I live in the middle of a forest and trees fall over sometimes. And for bonus points, it can happen when the outside temps are at -30F/-29C and be off for a few hours or days.
It is expensive, but worth every penny.
I’m going to have solar with island mode soon so I will not invest in a new gen
Yeah that should work or you. Not so good in the cloudy winters in forest for me.
My house has totally fucked-up electrical. For some reason, there’s a secondary breaker box in the basement which switches some of the outlets and lights in the house over to running off the generator outside. So when the line power comes back on, the lights that aren’t switched to the gen come back on (if I happened to have them on when the power went off, at least).
I’ve lived in this house for 15 years now and I’ve been without power here for a total of seven weeks during that time. I like how many trees we have here but that’s the price we pay.
Thats a transfer switch, and that’s exactly what you want here. You want only a few essential loads on the generator, not your entire home. The furnace should be on it, modem and networking equipment, a few outlets for charging phones, refrigerator and deep freeze. Sump pumps.
The electric hot water tank doesn’t need to be on the generator. The welder in the garage. Electric range. Dishwasher, Christmas lights, EV charger, pool heater, spa, or other big appliances that can be done without in an emergency.
That ain’t bad at all.
I’m baffled by people going without power being a somewhat regular thing. I’ve never in my life been without power. I grew up on an old farm, and not once did we lose power. Sometimes lightning would flip the breaker, but never more than that. I realise this is because of the difference in size and infrastructure between my country and USA, but it’s still wild to me, that some people in a rich country actually need a generator. I’ve only ever seen a generator once in my life. It was used at a beach party to power the music.
There are still great areas that have very low populations. I live in such a place in the middle of a huge forest. Think 10,000+ acres of trees everywhere. They tend to fall over in bad weather. Living in an open farmland area where a wood fence post can considered a tree, power outages are rare.