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Old 12-17-2018, 04:18 PM   #85
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Coincidentally a link for this thing came up while surfing the net today.

It's a transfer switch that installs outside the house behind the meter.

It's a little pricey at 750 bucks but considering the 400 dollar transfer box I was considering and running wire to an outside inlet and wiring it to my current circuit breaker box the 750 seems like a bargain.

After the holidays I think I'll contact them and find out if my utility company allows it.

Transfer Switch | Global Power Products
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Old 12-17-2018, 04:21 PM   #86
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I was thinking of doing something similar so I can run some things in the house. now I think I will just stay in the motorhome and run a cord to the fridge or freezer. seems so much easier and cheaper.
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Old 12-17-2018, 05:52 PM   #87
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Originally Posted by Solo_RV_Guy View Post
Again, illegal, dangerous and almost certain to negate your insurance policy. That's the reason your utility worker buddy said "you didn't hear this from me." He'd be fired and open himself up to a lawsuit when something bad happens. Note I didn't say "if."
With all due respect, in an emergency "legal" is meaningless. Code make fine backup TP in an emergency. And for the record, I take umbrage at you denigrating the utility engineer as a "buddy". Get my drift, chum? The procedure I described is a well known/used emergency procedure in at least, this part of rural America. The utility engineer was extending a helping hand at no cost. Must make the contractor side of you boil. As a matter of fact, the utility engineer in a fellow brother at our church. As he is a professional and Christian I find no credibility in your assertion he is giving "dangerous" advice. And "opening himself up to a lawsuit....", I believe is a sad way to live one's life. It is not a way honest men behave.
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Old 12-17-2018, 06:56 PM   #88
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Originally Posted by keithg View Post
Be very carefull following some suggestions posted on how to provide 240 V power from 120 generator.
You cannot just power your house by powering both L1 & L2 main in you panel even with a transfer switch.
Power coming in to panel from power company has each leg out of phase with each other. From a MH generator the legs would be in phase any house circuits that have a common neutral would double the current in the neutral.

Do not do!!!!!
X2, in total agreement with keithg. The current in Line 1 & Line 2 will add on the common neutral, overloading the neutral and creating a fire hazard. The circuit breakers will not protect against the neutral overload.
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Old 12-17-2018, 08:30 PM   #89
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Originally Posted by keithg View Post
Be very carefull following some suggestions posted on how to provide 240 V power from 120 generator.
You cannot just power your house by powering both L1 & L2 main in you panel even with a transfer switch.
Power coming in to panel from power company has each leg out of phase with each other. From a MH generator the legs would be in phase any house circuits that have a common neutral would double the current in the neutral.

Do not do!!!!!
how are you going to send more than the breaker that controls the circuit with more than it will blow at. Now the neutral back to the coach has to handle the full current load, but the 120 at the panel is just shunted from one side of the incoming breaker to the other. It brings in no more than the wire carrying it in. It's one load wire and one nuetral from the gen.
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Old 12-18-2018, 05:44 AM   #90
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how are you going to send more than the breaker that controls the circuit with more than it will blow at. Now the neutral back to the coach has to handle the full current load, but the 120 at the panel is just shunted from one side of the incoming breaker to the other. It brings in no more than the wire carrying it in. It's one load wire and one nuetral from the gen.
He's referring to multiwire branch circuits (MWBC; NEC Art. 210.4), which use either two full-sized breakers next to each other (one on each hot bus, and may be handle-tied), or a 2-pole breaker (again, one pole on each hot lug).* Just like the 120/240V service conductors to your house, or a 120/240V feeder to another panel, the neutral carries the difference in current between the two hots, but if you power both hots from the same bus, the current in the neutral is additive. You could potentially put 30A on a 14 gauge neutral conductor, for instance, if both hots are powered from a 120V only generator.

That's if you have any MWBC's in the house, and if you power the whole panel with a single 120V hot lead from a generator.

Your electric oven, clothes dryer, and/or range are each on a 3- (old) or 4-wire (recent) MWBC by the way, though the 240V parts won't work on a 120V only generator as they'd be getting 0V. But it's not unusual to see MWBCs in a house, especially in places like garbage disposals and dishwashers, each taking one side of the circuit, and both sharing the single neutral. And subpanels, of course, as those are technically feeders, not branch circuits, but they work the same way.


*Or the closest two poles on opposite buses of a group of half-height breakers, or the inner or outer pair of a quad breaker, and they even make quads with handle ties to the outer two poles.
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Old 12-18-2018, 07:55 AM   #91
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Please elaborate on this statement. My best reading of my city's electric code is that each house must have at least 2 ground rods. The service electrical panel must connect to one ground, which must then be connected to the second ground rod. Yet in my city the vast majority of home electric systems have no ground rod whatsoever and are simply grounded to the home's water supply pipe. Apparently these are old systems "grandfathered-in" as the term goes.
Your second ground is in series usually 6 to 10 feet from the first and only wired to the first. It does not have other devices grounded to it. It strickly adds more surface area the ground. One is enough in most cases, but electricians more often than not, cut them off when they can't pound down through a piece of rock or concrete. I think this newer code gives them a second chance. Checking the impedance is still a much better way. Ground rods can and do erode away over time. And water pipes used to be iron and steel. The were a great ground do to the tremendous surface area. Plastic pipes today, not so useful. And you still could wind up being the ground in a water pipe ground system. Rare but possible.
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Old 12-18-2018, 08:14 AM   #92
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He's referring to multiwire branch circuits (MWBC; NEC Art. 210.4), which use either two full-sized breakers next to each other (one on each hot bus, and may be handle-tied), or a 2-pole breaker (again, one pole on each hot lug).* Just like the 120/240V service conductors to your house, or a 120/240V feeder to another panel, the neutral carries the difference in current between the two hots, but if you power both hots from the same bus, the current in the neutral is additive. You could potentially put 30A on a 14 gauge neutral conductor, for instance, if both hots are powered from a 120V only generator.

That's if you have any MWBC's in the house, and if you power the whole panel with a single 120V hot lead from a generator.

Your electric oven, clothes dryer, and/or range are each on a 3- (old) or 4-wire (recent) MWBC by the way, though the 240V parts won't work on a 120V only generator as they'd be getting 0V. But it's not unusual to see MWBCs in a house, especially in places like garbage disposals and dishwashers, each taking one side of the circuit, and both sharing the single neutral. And subpanels, of course, as those are technically feeders, not branch circuits, but they work the same way.


*Or the closest two poles on opposite buses of a group of half-height breakers, or the inner or outer pair of a quad breaker, and they even make quads with handle ties to the outer two poles.
You are talking breakers, not nuetrals back to the bus bar. The neutral by code should have to carry the breaker rated load on any 120 circuit. On a 240 circuit it carrys the difference between l1 and l2 loads. Since there is no load on a 240 circuit in our theoretical gen. hookup it doesn't come into play. I do wire 240 male inset plugs at the wall so a 120 gen could be wired to it through two legs and overload the neutral if it was some unusually large 120 gen set. But all I have seen are 60 amp max on two 30 amp plugs. And doing your own electrical is not going to nullify your insurance unless it is not done to code. There are legitimate reasons for electrical codes, but the fact they are different from city to city, let alone state to state tells everyone the best of the best don't really have it all nailed down.
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Old 12-18-2018, 08:26 AM   #93
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1 other point worth mentioning. 6000 watts x 24 hours x 30 days is 4300 kilowatt hours, over 4 times the average home usage per month. So a small gen will supply more than enough, you just don't turn things all on at the same time. Like using your power inverter in the motorhome. Anyone is more than capable of doing it if they have a class a to begin with. And resetting a breaker is not the end of civilization.
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Old 12-18-2018, 09:26 AM   #94
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Originally Posted by SR-71 View Post
"... and no, as someone posted, this does not cut the wattage of the generator in half."


Yes, the generator will still be producing 8000 watts into a 120v to 240v transformer, but your output current (after the transformer) will be cut in half, hence the wattage will be cut in half. 8000 watts is 8000 watts, no matter how you slice it; 120v x ~66amp or 240v x ~33 amps.



Just a note the Quite Cool doesn't make 240, it makes 2 120v on two legs. So you can not run anything that is 220!
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Old 12-19-2018, 02:40 AM   #95
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If your neutrals are shared, as some have said, you should rewire your house. Never seen it allowed anywhere I've lived. Someone goes to rebalance the breaker box after adding a few circuits and the whole house goes up? Each circuit has it's own neutral.
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Old 12-19-2018, 04:09 AM   #96
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Exclamation

I am beginning to think it would be easier and certainly much cheaper to install a dedicated service panel just for a generator. Call it #2. It is never to be connected to a public electric power line. From #2 would be run a few key outlets around the house: forced air furnace, fridge, microwave, a couple of lights & charging points. These key outlets would be color coded and be next to ones normally supplying power from outside. These outlets would share no connection to normal house power. During a power failure, start the generator & connect it to #2 panel. Then the power plugs of the key items would simply be pulled from the outside source & plugged into the generator power. Breakers in #2 would be flipped on to power the system from the generator supply. Only extension cord necessary might be from the generator to #2 service panel. The only possible violation of electric code I see would be breaking open the supply line to the forced air furnace so that it could be quickly unplugged & plugged into the #2 system.
My house is designed such that creating new wall outlets is quite easy.
Comments anyone?
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Old 12-19-2018, 07:44 AM   #97
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If you’re going to that much trouble you might as well install a manual transfer switch and do it right. Use the breakers on the main panel to turn off circuits you will not be using.

I’ve run my whole house on a 5,000 watt generator. I just didn’t run high draw appliances. I need (and have) 220 volts for the well pump.

Since I like my tech, I also have a UPS for the computer, cable modem, and cable box so that they can ride out short outages and generator re-fueling.

The motorhome is an escape pod if my house generator isn’t working or I need air conditioning.

Where I live no one complains about the noise from a job site generator. We all have one - when our power goes out it takes several days to a week until it’s back on.
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Old 12-19-2018, 07:59 AM   #98
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With all due respect, in an emergency "legal" is meaningless. Code make fine backup TP in an emergency. And for the record, I take umbrage at you denigrating the utility engineer as a "buddy". Get my drift, chum? The procedure I described is a well known/used emergency procedure in at least, this part of rural America. The utility engineer was extending a helping hand at no cost. Must make the contractor side of you boil. As a matter of fact, the utility engineer in a fellow brother at our church. As he is a professional and Christian I find no credibility in your assertion he is giving "dangerous" advice. And "opening himself up to a lawsuit....", I believe is a sad way to live one's life. It is not a way honest men behave.
Great dissertation but the advice you received is poor and reckless; you have an emergency because of lack of proper planning.

Rural America, professional accreditation and ones faith has nothing to do with anything when bad advice is presented.

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