Mike, I'm sure it 'would' work. Nor have I any objection to field-made items.
I am not sure of the requirements in the testing standards. Perhaps there is required to be, as with reversing motor starters, both mechanical and electrical interlocks.
We're missing the point of my original post, though. I'm not really asking about 'how' to do this.
What I was asking was: Has the use of generators, especially little portable ones, become so common that we should instal a means of connecting them when we do a service? Should the code require us to do so?
It's easy to over-think things, to get carried away with inspired engineering. So easy, it's easy to forget what we're really trying to do: eliminate any temptation for the consumer to rig up a 'suicide cord.' It amazes me that folks don't just run extension cords to a few essential appliances, but no, they want to get fancy.
If I can tie apposing breakers together, I can easily set a power 'inlet' by the panel. Flip the breaker and you can now plug in the generator. Folks will eventually figure out that the genny stalls if they try to run too much, and will manually shut off the unnecessary loads until the genny can run smoothly.
These points were emphasized for me on Dec. 26, when I lost power for nine hours. The gas furnace needed power for the blower - and a few lights would have been nice. All well within the abilities of the smallest generator.
While ECN is not a place for 'political' discussions, we have to recognize the political forces that have let our 'grid' decay over the past few decades. The experts warned us that this would happen, and were freely ridiculed by the activists. End result? We're going to see more power outages, and they will increase in both number and severity.
So, maybe it is time that all new services have some provision for hooking up a generator.
As much as the folks at BigGenerator, Inc., would like to sell us a whole-house system for big dollars, we need to recognize that Harry Homeowner is far more likely to get a portable generator at the local home center and try to tye it in himself. I'd like to tempt him into doing it safely.
