need electrical advice

[Redfish Hunter]

Yes, as usual FredW is 100% correct. (Like I would really know?) His method is the correct one, and mine is very similar, but still I admit, undergoing a little refinement. I still have mine where I am the only one who can connect it. If I am not here, the wife will have to wait for auxiliary power. I am that concerned over the safety aspect. Of course when we lose power, it is not cold, it's hot summertime. This puts a different spin on things.

I am feeling more comfortable with this issue now that I feel Inewlf knows what he is doing and that he will not be feeding his house, just running a water pump. Of course, wait until his family discovers he has electricity in the shed. He will be fixing that thing up nicer in no time.

One of the better setups belongs to my Dad. After a storm creates a power loss, he and Mom sleep in his 5th wheel camper. He uses his generator to power the fridge, freezer and water pump at the house during the day, then moves the generator to the camper in the evening. This way he has Air Conditioning!!! He actually lives better than the majority by doing this and he has ZERO chance of backfeeding the grid.

I will mention that before my Dad went to Vietnam in the Marine Corps he was a transmission lineman. Those are the guys climbing the really big power poles. He worked to restore power in this area after Hurricane Betsy as well as some other storms. He has adamantly refused to let me do any kind of backfeed to his house. He would rather trip over extension cords than risk backfeeding the power grid.

 

[Redfish Hunter]

Another and hopefully final thought: Can you just install a receptacle and a plug for your water pump? Then you can run a conventional cord from the generator to the pump and not power up any of your residential wiring. We did this at Dad's for just this reason. During normal operation the pump is plugged into the receptacle. When there is a power loss, he simply unplugs the pump from the receptacle and plugs it into a cord leading to his generator.

 

[Auburn]

Another and hopefully final thought: Can you just install a receptacle and a plug for your water pump? Then you can run a conventional cord from the generator to the pump and not power up any of your residential wiring. We did this at Dad's for just this reason. During normal operation the pump is plugged into the receptacle. When there is a power loss, he simply unplugs the pump from the receptacle and plugs it into a cord leading to his generator.

By doing it the cord and plug method you meet code as well because the plug serves as the disconnect. The downside, is you only power that unless you make a splitter for the generator so you can plug other things in on the cord.

 

[Bugman]

Backfeeding your house via a generator is completely against electrical code and strictly illegal.

Why not do the job correctly and put in a manual transfer switch at the sub-panel? It won't be all that much more expensive and you won't fry any electrical workers if/when you have a brain fart.

Inewlf,

Its a garage, Put in a manual transfer switch at the subpanel. Its inexpensive and meets code. Not meeting code may void your insurance.

 

[lnewlf]

Backfeeding your house via a generator is completely against electrical code and strictly illegal.

Why not do the job correctly and put in a manual transfer switch at the sub-panel? It won't be all that much more expensive and you won't fry any electrical workers if/when you have a brain fart.

Inewlf,

Its a garage, Put in a manual transfer switch at the subpanel. Its inexpensive and meets code. Not meeting code may void your insurance.

Good point-kinda like putting a CT out back..

 

[Bustanut joker]

Backfeeding your house via a generator is completely against electrical code and strictly illegal.

Why not do the job correctly and put in a manual transfer switch at the sub-panel? It won't be all that much more expensive and you won't fry any electrical workers if/when you have a brain fart.

Inewlf,

Its a garage, Put in a manual transfer switch at the subpanel. Its inexpensive and meets code. Not meeting code may void your insurance.

Good point-kinda like putting a CT out back..

LOL Same end result?

Fear the Darkside unbelievers.

 

[radiummadman]

Where were you when they had the big blackout in the northeast 20 to 30 years ago ??? Were you playing with electric **** ??

IF you want to do it WITHOUT putting a transfer switch AND generator panel at the main service as should be done then

I suggest. Purchase a L14-30P, ie. a MALE cord cap that will fit the L14-30R on your generator. Get a few feet of 10/4 SO cord, attach it

to the cordcap so you can plug it into your generator, which by the way L14-30 tells me it is a 30 amp rated output on the generator.

Then attach a 4 square deep j box on the wall where the open end of the 10/4 SO will reach, get a 3/4" romex connector and run the

cable into the box. THEN you can from there run TWO, yes TWO 120v circuits to other locations in your garage, running one hot,neutral & ground

to each, you may have more than one outlet for each circuit but you should try to balance the load of each circuit. You can ALSO run a

240v circuit to any location you wish, just take both hots & a ground & you will be safe, no neutral needed. DO NOT, DO NOT tie any of

this **** into your house circuits, PERIOD. You will have to unplug whatever units you want from house circuits and plug them into the

generator circuit when the need arises. DO NOT in any way shape or form create a situation(as a previous response said) that will result

in your generator backfeeding the electrical grid. Many linemen/women have been seriously injured or killed by improperly wired generators

backfeeding the power grid, ie. you are sending 240v back to the transformer that feeds your house and creating some where around

7000 to 14,000 volts on the line side of the utility transformer, sorta like farting and having a jet engine blow out your ***. If you do not

have an electrical friend who can help, give up and call a real electrician.

 

[lnewlf]

well that's nice but it would prolly be easier to just plug into the gen or buy a cord that splits the L14-30 into four 120 outlets. Oh yeah- the big blackout that I remember in NY was in the '60s and I actually was playing with electrical **** then-working for a building contractor learning how to wire houses. At the risk of repeating myself multiple times there is no way in hell that I am going to backfeed the GD grid..

 

[odot]

We figure this out then we should be able to figure out how to build a dirty bomb......or an exploding vest.

 

[Makuna]

I have been investigating doing this at my house. I decided that a manual transfer switch is the way to go.

BUT, there is one detail that is often missed even going the way I am going. Is your generator Nuetral Bonded? Nuetral bonding is where the ground and nuetral on the generator are connected together. If they are, then you may run into problems with GFI outlets in the house not working correctly (not good). Either you need to modifiy the generator to have a floating Nuetral (disconnect internally the nuetral from the chassis ground if at all possible), or you have to install a Nuetral Switching relay (about $100) into your transfer switch.

For safety, on a job site the Nuetral Bonding is considered safer so that the ground wire out of the generator is THE GROUND. But when tied to a house, it already has a ground, and having this second one causes problems with the GFI detection circuits.

Be warned.

 

[Auburn]

I have been investigating doing this at my house. I decided that a manual transfer switch is the way to go.

BUT, there is one detail that is often missed even going the way I am going. Is your generator Nuetral Bonded? Nuetral bonding is where the ground and nuetral on the generator are connected together. If they are, then you may run into problems with GFI outlets in the house not working correctly (not good). Either you need to modifiy the generator to have a floating Nuetral (disconnect internally the nuetral from the chassis ground if at all possible), or you have to install a Nuetral Switching relay (about $100) into your transfer switch.

For safety, on a job site the Nuetral Bonding is considered safer so that the ground wire out of the generator is THE GROUND. But when tied to a house, it already has a ground, and having this second one causes problems with the GFI detection circuits.

Be warned.

If you plug the generator in and the power goes through your main house panel, then it will be bonded to the ground through the bonding jumper. But you need to isolate the panel from the electrical grid.

That's why the retrofit kit for the cover that adds a manual interlock to the generator breaker and the service disconnect (or main breaker depending on where the disconnect is) might be the best solution. It keeps all the bonding and grounding in effect and prevents from back feeding the electrical grid.

(retrofit kit links in post #23 https://www.fjrforum.com/forum//index.php/topic/149806-need-electrical-advice/?p=1025006) Best of all you don't have to make any major modifications to your electric panel or move a bunch of circuits around (unless you try to power with a 120 volt generator)

 

[lnewlf]

Oh man, taking electrical advice from the Forum? Hope you have home owners insurance. Even if 'Bust comes along and tells you that you have two power feeds, a ground and neutral wire would you take his advice and wire your electrical system that way?

"What a long strange trip it's been"

In my quest for understanding I have mined many precious nuggets of knowledge, but none as useful as the very first reply, quoted above. The resident guru of electricity, known by one and all as Ionbeam, is also savvy about this forum. His presentiment of the shitstorm I had unleashed is amazing.

I asked [what I thought was] a simple question.

In essence, with all suppositions excised, It was "How does one connect the newer style 240 volt 4 conductor cable to the old style 240 volt 3 conductor system?"

another valuable nugget came from Redfish , i.e. use a search engine, which I did and found the following answer many times over.

black conductor [hot] to hot blade

red conductor [hot] to the other hot blade

green conductor [ground] to ground prong

white conductor [neutral] to ground prong

viola

this works

I'm still alive

Thank you and good night

JHC on a crutch !

 

[Redfish Hunter]

Inewlf, I already sent you a PM but I will repeat some of it here. At first I was not sure about giving someone advice that could get them hurt. Judging by your responses I have full confidence that you have a handle on this and that you are not a danger to yourself or anyone else. You obviously already know that Ionbeam is the man, there are others who responded on this thread that know what they are talking about. Your thread got beaten to death, but at least you got some good information.

I'll bet that if you ever hear anyone say, "Be careful, don't backfeed the grid!", you are going to start shaking with anger.

Good luck, I know you have this under control, I hope I was at least some help.

 

[odot]

Inewlf, I already sent you a PM but I will repeat some of it here. At first I was not sure about giving someone advice that could get them hurt.(Like something Odot would do). Judging by your responses I have full confidence that you have a handle on this and that you are not a danger to yourself or anyone else(Like that one dude, Bustanutjoker). Your thread got beaten to death, but at least you got some good information.

I'll bet that if you ever hear anyone say, "Be careful, don't backfeed the grid!", you are going to start shaking with anger.

Good luck, I know you have this under control, I hope I was at least some help.

Just to clarify some things here.....................

 

[HotRodZilla]

You guys could make a trip to the toilet sound difficult. Sheesh.

 

[odot]

jes' sayin'....

bite me......

 

[weekend rider]

Yes you did get some off the wall advice about wiring a generator. Some is correct and most is incorrect. Now I will try to give you the correct information about wiring it. All the information that you are going to read is from the National Electrical code which is used through the United States, if you follow the informatiopn from the code book you will have a safe electrical job done correctly.

First you have two sources of electricty one from your power company and the other from your generator, which is a seperately derived power source. Yes all the new codes require a four wire connection and it can be done with what you have. You can not wire a generator to your house unless you have a transfer switch, whether manual or automatic . If you do not use one you will have have one house that will go up in smoke after the explosion. The next thing that you need to check is your insurance company and see if they require a licensed eletrician to intall and wire up correctly,which I am sure they do. Remember most electrical fires start during the evening when you are asleep.

Just for information sake about the ground wire Green or Green with yellow stripe is your earth ground and your neutral is the White wire it is not your ground wire. Yes both the white and green are needed for a safe operation of your system and to help insure that there is a potential difference so the breaker will trip or the fuse will blow. In my opinion is would be wise to have a qualified electrician do this for you it will be money well spent. Some of the problem that you are going to run into is wiring sizing issues , ground wire sizing. correct grounding procedures,hot wire sizingissues, breaker sizing as well as gettting it inspected and your permit sign off. If I lived in your area I would be more than glad to sixe it all for you and install it for you at no charge. Now you probably ask what qualification do I have I am a licensed commercial electrcian and I have done a few of them. I know everyone will say it is simple and it is only hooking up wires, but there is more than that and a lot lot of safety issues.. Good luck and please get it done correctly weekend rider

 

[BikerGeek99]

You guys could make a trip to the toilet sound difficult. Sheesh.

This led me down a weird thought path, AJ. It's pretty mind-blowing. Follow along here:

So, my initial response was gonna be, "Well, no, it's not that difficult, as long as there are enough Peteytrons around to light the way."

Which made me say to myself, "SELF! What would happen if there weren't enough Peteytrons around to light the way."

Which next made me wonder, "Hmm... I wonder what happens to electrical devices in general if there aren't enough Peteytrons in 'em." You know - kinda like what happens when the factory-installed smoke gets outta certain electrical devices.

My only conclusion is that the devices would exhibit unpredictable behavior.

Which led me to a stunning revelation: The reason why Bungie's GPS kept getting us lost in Ottawa during CFR 2010 was because .... here it is - this is huge ... his GPS didn't have enough Peteytrons.

Whoa.

Man am I glad it's Friday - it's gonna take all weekend for me to fully absorb this. Sometimes I amaze myself...

 

[ionbeam]

Say, did you ever hear about the airplane and the conveyer?

(ducking and running for cover)

 

[Fred W]

That'll never fly!