Eaton AMA @10am (est)
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@BRRABill said:
I've been out for over a week TWICE in the past 4 years, both at home and work.
We eventually broke down and bought a portable generator for the house. We don't have a transfer switch. We just run everything with cords. But I'd like to get a transfer switch so that we can power the furnace. (We have gas.) It's a pain to wheel the thing out and set up the cords, but it's better than the alternative. And keeps the beer cold and the Keurig working. And the TV. (Somehow our FiOS works even when the power is out.)
My mom lives with us and is in a hospital bed or power wheelchair basically 24/7.
We looked into a whole house generator, but it's just so pricey even at $3-4K. At least for us.
The last time it happened, it wasn't freezing yet, but it was cold. The whole thing just sucked.
Another way to do this is, turn off the main house breakers, then plug lines from the generator into a power socket on each leg of power in the house.
For example, I ran a 220 (both legs of 110) 60 Amp circuit to my garage. I can either run two 110 cables, one to each side, or a single 220 to the 220 connection I installed. This will electrify the entire house.
Definitely make sure you kill the main house breakers first, other really bad things happen
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@Dashrender said:
Another way to do this is, turn off the main house breakers, then plug lines from the generator into a power socket on each leg of power in the house.
For example, I ran a 220 (both legs of 110) 60 Amp circuit to my garage. I can either run two 110 cables, one to each side, or a single 220 to the 220 connection I installed. This will electrify the entire house.
Definitely make sure you kill the main house breakers first, other really bad things happen
I was told by so many people not to do that, I didn't even attempt it.
That's the real world equivalent of running a RAID5 array with 15 1TB drives.
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@BRRABill said:
@Dashrender said:
Another way to do this is, turn off the main house breakers, then plug lines from the generator into a power socket on each leg of power in the house.
For example, I ran a 220 (both legs of 110) 60 Amp circuit to my garage. I can either run two 110 cables, one to each side, or a single 220 to the 220 connection I installed. This will electrify the entire house.
Definitely make sure you kill the main house breakers first, other really bad things happen
I was told by so many people not to do that, I didn't even attempt it.
That's the real world equivalent of running a RAID5 array with 15 1TB drives.
Really? How so?
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@Dashrender said:
Really? How so?
Multiple reasons.
I was just under the impression that it's something you should never do.
This is something I am curious as to the opinion of @scottalanmiller on. He's very black and white with these sorts of things.
Best practice would be to not do that, but lots of people do to make the outlets work.
I'm going to guess and see what he says.
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@BRRABill said:
I was told by so many people not to do that, I didn't even attempt it.
That's the real world equivalent of running a RAID5 array with 15 1TB drives.
Not really. There are lots of PDUs that take 240v and give you two sections. 240v 50amp will give you 120v 100amps.
It's not quite the same as having fully to seperate lines (we run dual 240v to each rack, each is supplied from a different 3 phase data center system ups.
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@BRRABill said:
@Dashrender said:
Really? How so?
Multiple reasons.
I was just under the impression that it's something you should never do.
This is something I am curious as to the opinion of @scottalanmiller on. He's very black and white with these sorts of things.
Best practice would be to not do that, but lots of people do to make the outlets work.
I'm going to guess and see what he says.
It's generally safe as long as you make dang sure your mains are off!
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I'm trying to think of reasons not to do this.
- person forgets to turn off main, when the power comes back on, it causes the generator to blow, and possible everything else plugged in - yeah that's bad!
2)can't support the load of the house over a standard electrical outlet. Most outlets are 15 amps. If, for example, you plug in the generator to an outlet in the garage (which today has to be GFI enabled) the most you can provide is 15 amps before those lines will overheat and possibly burn your house down - OK that's bad!
So this leads me to a question - will a breaker trip if power is flowing in the reverse direction than normal?
- Most areas of a home don't have access to both legs of power. This means if you plug your 110 generator into a standard outlet, at best, you're powering half your house, maybe not the half you need (like the refrigerator, furnace), again still limited by the 15 amp line as stated above.
I'm starting to see why this is a bad idea, but mostly it's around people being stupid... thinking they can just live life like normal and overload lines while in an outage situation.
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@Dashrender said:
I'm trying to think of reasons not to do this.
- person forgets to turn off main, when the power comes back on, it causes the generator to blow, and possible everything else plugged in - yeah that's bad!
2)can't support the load of the house over a standard electrical outlet. Most outlets are 15 amps. If, for example, you plug in the generator to an outlet in the garage (which today has to be GFI enabled) the most you can provide is 15 amps before those lines will overheat and possibly burn your house down - OK that's bad!
So this leads me to a question - will a breaker trip if power is flowing in the reverse direction than normal?
- Most areas of a home don't have access to both legs of power. This means if you plug your 110 generator into a standard outlet, at best, you're powering half your house, maybe not the half you need (like the refrigerator, furnace), again still limited by the 15 amp line as stated above.
I'm starting to see why this is a bad idea, but mostly it's around people being stupid... thinking they can just live life like normal and overload lines while in an outage situation.
It's also a question of what happens if you aren't there 24/7. Like YOU know what to do, but does the wife/neighbor/kid whatever.
There is also the danger of like you were alluding to having more power than normal in the outlets. Or having cords people are used to seeing (Like the dryer cord used for such a thing) that has a TON of wattage behind it.
If you forget and put the breaker back on, it can also backfeed to neighbors, and more dangerously to the poles were the electrical people are working. From what I researched this is VERY dangerous to them,.
I think it's the kind of thing that if you asked any electrician, they would say "no way" but people do it anyway because it works. Much like many of the IT discussions we have. Except instead of a database getting torched, it's ... YOU! (Or someone you love.)
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Systems like this are built for only the really involved to be messing with it.
If I'm unavailable, the wife would rather leave than deal with hooking up the generator, etc... so that's just not a worry, but definitely something to add to the against list.
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@Dashrender said:
If I'm unavailable, the wife would rather leave than deal with hooking up the generator, etc... so that's just not a worry, but definitely something to add to the against list.
That's yours. (And mine.)
Not all.
You know how things go.
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@BRRABill said:
@Dashrender said:
If I'm unavailable, the wife would rather leave than deal with hooking up the generator, etc... so that's just not a worry, but definitely something to add to the against list.
That's yours. (And mine.)
Not all.
You know how things go.
Just cause it's on my list doesn't mean I won't do it. Installing a cutover box along would probably cost me $1000+, just not worth it to me.
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@BRRABill said:
I've been out for over a week TWICE in the past 4 years, both at home and work.
We eventually broke down and bought a portable generator for the house. We don't have a transfer switch. We just run everything with cords. But I'd like to get a transfer switch so that we can power the furnace. (We have gas.) It's a pain to wheel the thing out and set up the cords, but it's better than the alternative. And keeps the beer cold and the Keurig working. And the TV. (Somehow our FiOS works even when the power is out.)
My mom lives with us and is in a hospital bed or power wheelchair basically 24/7.
We looked into a whole house generator, but it's just so pricey even at $3-4K. At least for us.
The last time it happened, it wasn't freezing yet, but it was cold. The whole thing just sucked.
Whenever I get power turned on at a new place I have to tell them that I am medically dependent on power so that we are a priority for getting power restored.
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I don't think it's that expensive to install a transfer switch. I seem to remember getting a quote for a couple hundred bucks.
But it might be region to region, and of course relational to your electrical setup.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Whenever I get power turned on at a new place I have to tell them that I am medically dependent on power so that we are a priority for getting power restored.
I should try that for my mom.
It got to be very stressful for her.
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Whenever I get power turned on at a new place I have to tell them that I am medically dependent on power so that we are a priority for getting power restored.
I should try that for my mom.
It got to be very stressful for her.
Assuming it's something like an O2 tank or a CPAP, why not get a small UPS for the bedroom? Eaton 5s1500 for $200 shipped from Amazon. Should last at least 30 mins if not hours.
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@Dashrender said:
I'm trying to think of reasons not to do this.
- person forgets to turn off main, when the power comes back on, it causes the generator to blow, and possible everything else plugged in - yeah that's bad!
Automatic transfer switch? If the power goes out on your mains, the ATS will flip over to your generator's line. If your generator line isn't plugged up, or the generator ain't on, then the power goes out. I would also recommend tying the Generator into the fuse box and not back feeding voltage through a wall outlet.
2)can't support the load of the house over a standard electrical outlet. Most outlets are 15 amps. If, for example, you plug in the generator to an outlet in the garage (which today has to be GFI enabled) the most you can provide is 15 amps before those lines will overheat and possibly burn your house down - OK that's bad!
So this leads me to a question - will a breaker trip if power is flowing in the reverse direction than normal?
Don't use the wall outlets, unless you're only powering a single breaker circuit. Again... ATS to the fuse box.
- Most areas of a home don't have access to both legs of power. This means if you plug your 110 generator into a standard outlet, at best, you're powering half your house, maybe not the half you need (like the refrigerator, furnace), again still limited by the 15 amp line as stated above.
I'm starting to see why this is a bad idea, but mostly it's around people being stupid... thinking they can just live life like normal and overload lines while in an outage situation.
Generally yes it is a bad idea to do it -- especially to the uninitiated. My Pops and I did it a few times, but only because he's a licensed electrician and knows what he's talking about (he taught me how as well). AND he knew exactly what we were powering. No guess work involved.
If you are at the point where you need a generator to power your house due to outages, I would recommend getting a real home generator hooked up with an ATS.
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@Dashrender said:
@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Whenever I get power turned on at a new place I have to tell them that I am medically dependent on power so that we are a priority for getting power restored.
I should try that for my mom.
It got to be very stressful for her.
Assuming it's something like an O2 tank or a CPAP, why not get a small UPS for the bedroom? Eaton 5s1500 for $200 shipped from Amazon. Should last at least 30 mins if not hours.
Even just to protect the gear and lengthen its service life.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Even just to protect the gear and lengthen its service life.
If I just used it to power her bed and recharge the wheelchair, that would probably work well. Then just unplug it and hope the battery stays charged.
The last time, it was the cold that really got us. We ended up buying a space heater to keep her warm. We just huddled under a million blankets.
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Even just to protect the gear and lengthen its service life.
If I just used it to power her bed and recharge the wheelchair, that would probably work well. Then just unplug it and hope the battery stays charged.
I certainly would not recharge a wheelchair or power a bed through a cheap UPS, you'll probably burn that thing out. The batteries in a wheelchair are probably 5x+ than the 1500 UPS would be.
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@Dashrender said:
I certainly would recharge a wheelchair or power a bed through a cheap UPS, you'll probably burn that thing out. The batteries in a wheelchair are probably 5x+ than the 1500 UPS would be.
True.
Assuming you mean WOULDN'T.
