...just go look at it!

A Wiki-How is like Wikipedia; anyone can edit it. But where do you start? By deleting everything after step 2?

OK, I couldn't wait for y'all to reply. I just went ahead and edited it.

So what did it used to say?

Oh my.

This was even worse than 'plug with two male ends'. The previous advise has the victim opening their panel to make the connection to the dryer breaker.

One thing about 'wiki' type boards is that you can always view the history of a page. See: http://www.wikihow.com/index.php?title=Generate-Power-in-an-Emergency&oldid=455559

-Jon

WOW - so simple - even a caveman could do it!

But for the purpose, and the uninitiated, it should be edited to read - Purchase several 12ga extention cords and run them out the window to your undersized generator - when it bogs down or shuts off - unplug a few.

One of the guys out in usenetland has a tagline that essentually says "wikipedia is like McDonalds. You can get quick information at the expense of quality"

At the expense of your house or your life apparently on some subjects

I view this thread with rather mixed feelings. Reality is that during an extended emergency, people are going to get their hands on generators, and they are going to find ways to jury-rig connections into their electrical systems. Is it better to blow them off by telling them, "Too late--you should have hired a pro to put in a transfer switch long before the emergency came," and thus leaving them to their own devices, or is it better to try to improve the situation by telling them where the risks are, and how to make an emergency hookup in a reasonably safe manner?

On the other hand, there really is no "reasonably safe" way to do this without at least one of those sliding interlocks that interlock the main breaker and the upper-right-hand breaker in the panel, because it is otherwise just too easy to cross-connect the generator with the grid. So all you can really do is bring them from "extraordinarily dangerous" down to "extremely dangerous."

This is rather like being caught between Scylla and Charybdis.



[This message has been edited by SolarPowered (edited 12-30-2006).]

If they can get online to look at Wikipedia for advice, things must not be all that bad at the moment....

I agree though for the most part Solar, and I hate to admit I have done one of these tie in's before for a girlfriends mom back in the day when they were without power for about 4 days..
But I actually pulled the meter out of the socket and set a blank, along with disconnecting the main C/B. I had 2 air-breaks from the utility. Would I ever do it again? Likely not...

But people who aren't electricians or at least from an electrical background will attempt crazy things in periods of desperation... But things like this wikipedia page just plant dangerous ideas in peoples heads from the start... I'd much rather tell people to run a generator with a couple extension cords and maybe a power strip for TV or radio and keeping the fridge going, than trying to show a DIY how to goof up his panel...

That is really not true. There are plenty of people with laptops and the phone is usually the last utility to go. I have never been totally offline after a hurricane but the cable is always out for weeks.
Last time I just ran an orange cord to the inverters in my cars and we had TV and the computer.
I usually get power back in a day but I have a major substation at the end of my street and the FPL guy for our area lives across the street.

You must have a better designed phone system in FLA.. Not to mention the new hype of "internet phone service". The phone co (SBC) has had capacity problems here keeping up with all the new construction, but the cable co was on the ready with internet phone and is plucking off SBC business bigtime.
As I remember as well, when the power was out, the local ISP phone numbers didn't pick up (assuming the UPS batteries had exhausted themselves someplace)... Not that you couldn't connect to one out of the area though...
I see your point though Greg... I just can't picture losing power and half my yard being blown 4 blocks away.. then thinking, "Hey I'm gonna google a way to get a gennie going on the house.." It just seems more like someone looking for a weekend "preparedness" project kinda thing..

All of the telephone "remotes" (small slave switches connected via fiber to the master CO downtown--they are in single-story buildings about 20 feet by 20 feet) here are backed up with a diesel generator. They of course also have battery backup.

Several years ago, many smaller ISPs did not have diesel generators or sometimes even adequate UPS capacity. They were too busy spending the money on wall-mount plasma displays, conference room interior decorating, and Aeron office chairs to be concerned about such mundane things.

Now most ISPs outsource their dialup access to companies that specialize in this. They do a much better job of it.

Honestly, I feel chances are if someone has to go online to figure out how to connect a generator to the house wiring, they don't know enough to do it to code. The new article should just read "Call an electrician."

A lot of people turn to the net with good intentions to learn how to do stuff, but electricity isn't for the weekend warrior. They don't have enough knowledge of code, and more importantly, they don't have the experience to know what could go wrong and plan around it.

When I put a generator in my old house, I made sure to do stuff like torque the lugs properly, deal with box and conduit fill, and bending EMT. Most people who read the article probably wouldn't know the difference between the black wire and white wire.

Although the new version does look tons better than the old version. Kudos to yaktx!

AOL has actually done very well in the hurricanes here. I have always been able to get one of the dial in lines to work. In the 22 years I have been here I don't think my phone has ever really been out. Power has gone a few times and the cable is out once a month. That is one reason why I will never get cable based phone service. After Charlie we even lost NexTel fort a day but I still had dial tone on my landline.
I got online, just to tell folks I was OK but since the cable was out I ended up doing my regular online stuff to keep amused. We really only get one snowy channel over the air and they were "all storm all of the time". You can only watch so much of twisted up pan roof and flooded streets you have no intention of driving on.

I usually get a laugh out of the DIY shows on cable TV; since they always take illegal short cuts and then show a disclaimer when coming back from the commercials to "consult your local Codes".
Yesterday one of them was showing how to finish a basement using furring strips glued to the basement cement block wall.
They notched the 'studs' and festooned the Romex from one to another (no fasteners) saying that "It doesn't look too nice, but no one will ever see it".
They then pointed out that this was the preferred way to do this, since "if you want to add a cable, there's plenty of room left in the notch".
I always knew that they considered the Codes an impediment to their half-vast ideas, but I now have to wonder how you add a cable to the notched studs...once the drywall is in place??

This is an interesting discussion. Here is the crux of the matter:
John Doe and family, having just survived an ice storm (together with 10 000 others) have decided they need to repower the house, specifically the furnace and the well pump - because right now there is no heat and no water and nowhere else to go (all hotels within 100 mi are all full if you could get there anyway) and the kids are cold and where will they sleep.

The priorities are as follows:
1) Get generator and by association get heat and water
2) Dig out from storm
3) EVERYTHING else can wait

Things like code, linemen saftey and electrician don't enter the picture, they can't be had for love or money right now. In any case it's kind of the lineman's / electricians / POCO fault because the wires weren't strong enough to withstand the storm etc etc

There are two types of folk with regard to the generator wiring. Those who will wire it up (regardless of weather they know how or not) and those who wouldn't dare. The latter we don't need to worry about, but the former are a real problem.

For the electrical pioneers out there they are going to connect it up one way or the other - with or without Wiki-how, blown TV's or not, they dont care or don't know enough to know they should care. They will be connecting the INTERNAL wiring of the house to a generator because simply running extension cords to specific items does not solve either of their two biggest (only?) issues: HEAT and WATER.

The new reworded Wiki-how does nothing for John Doe in this situation - he needs the information now. It's kind of like saying to someone who's leg has been severed and is in the middle of the jungle - I'm terribly sorry I can't inject the morphine, I am not a doctor and you don't have a prescription. What you should have done is have a physician write one out for you before you needed it. For John Doe "Code" doesn't enter into the equation here - he couldn't care two hoots about the code - plus the fact that live 7.2kV lines are across his yard makes cable support intervals seem a little trivial.

So the question is: Do we as electricians provide reliable information in good faith that it is not used as a substitute for our services or do we say "You should have got an electrician" and allow them to soldier on ingnorance to their and possibly our detriment?

Edited for typo


[This message has been edited by Ann Brush (edited 01-02-2007).]

While I agree with most of the sentiments expressed here, there is another dimension to the problem.

Recently, in Windham, Maine, a father and son lost their lives due to carbon monixide poisioning (I'd post the article, by my newspaper charges me to access archived stories).

The long and short of it was that, the POCO shut off their power for non payment sometime before Thanksgiving. (there is a block on this kind of shutoff here betweeen mid-November and mid-April - I don't know the details). At any rate, they connected a generator, and had it running in the basement. Somehow, after several weeks, the door that was providing ventiliation blew shut. It took over an hour before anyone was allowed in the building due to CO levels.

I don't know about the code compliance in this case, but when I install a genset and hookup, I spend a bit of time educating the homeowner on the other aspects of a safe genset installation. I make sure the cord is long enough to reach outside the garage, shed or barn. I tell them how to protect the running generator from ice and snow - DON'T PUT IT INSIDE! - and usually go back for a no-charge visit if the generator is not already on site when I do my hookup - surprising the number of calls I get via word-of-mouth....

My 2 cents........

We recently had a wind storm here in the NW that kocked out power all around, a bunch of people, especially people for whom english was no their first language, died by running gennie inside the house, I think in one apartment building the death toll was over a dozen, hyperbaric chambers (needed for severe cases) were full in all regional hospitals... so I would have to agree that CO warnings are, ultimately, more important than electrical ones, in the short term
Will

Did some poking around - if you're interested, Google Windham, ME carbon monoxide

Perhaps more detail than you want.......

Grov

CO poisoning is the biggest single cause of death from hurricanes, even worse than electricution, which is up on the list. Actually getting killed in the storm is fairly rare. Most storm related death happens after the storm when the generators and orange cords come out.

I just put in a 150 gallon propane tank for my pool heater. That 15-20kva genny is looking a little more attractive now.

I was about to edit the wiki and post a graphic of how to cut the end off an extension cord and splice it to a dryer cord when I realized these people won't have internet access, and my advice would be useless when most needed [Disclaimer: for anyone stumbling onto this thread from google, THIS IS SARCASM!]

Normally, I'd encourage a skilled DIY to do a job in their own home, but in this case- wiring a whole-house generator to the service entry- there's no way in hell I'd give any DIY instructions that weren't intended purely to frighten the guy/gal into hiring a pro.

[This message has been edited by SteveFehr (edited 01-03-2007).]

This is exactly my point - it's during an ice storm - he couldn't hire anyone even if he wanted to. Hands up those of you out there who would dash off to residential call #5674 that night to install a transfer switch that can't be had, at a residence you can't get to. The comment above fails to consider the situation John Doe finds himself in.

That does not mean I am obligated to help them kill themselves or others.

It is a rare occasion that a home has to have power.

I had a similar issue with temporary power. I had no POCO connections yet, so I ran an extension cord from the main breaker to a plug. This made my whole installation into something resembling a plug-connected appliance.
BTW, I tore it all out a few hours later when I no longer needed the power.

If a HO desperately needs to power his furnace from a generator, I'd feel more comfortable telling him to disconnect it from the house power and put a cord on it. That way, none of the house wiring will ever be energized.

Personally, I'd much rather that they leave and head for a shelter. If there's no power, there's likely no sewer, water filtration, ambulance, police or fire department services, or any of the other things that we all depend on to live.

I have been debating on commiting on this. But here goes. When I lived in the mountains in a small town the power went out at least one time each winter for at least one week. The Volunteer Fire Dept. had some large generators that were used to power up homes and the local stores during the emergency. When I got there they used a Male to Male cord to give power to the people on a rotating schedule. I informed them of the dangers and set up a system that was safe but not totally code compliant in all ways. There was no way of moving the generator to each location and have a good ground/bond to every service. I did the best I could but many of the homes did not have any good way of getting a temp ground and with several feet of snow not a good way of driving a ground rod. After I got involved the services were improved to include a ground rod. The means of disconnect was the meter in a lot of cases. After I pointed out the dangers of the old system I was elected to fix the problems. I had to teach the guys how to connect the gen and pull the meters so the Po Co would not be back fed. My point is make it safe for every one is the #1 thing. The reason for the code is for safety and fire protection, the letter of the rules seem to be more important to some than the reason we have a code in the first place. Rod

As we enter 2007, it is hard to realise that just 100 years ago electricity was something of a novelty, confined to lighting and some industrial uses.

Indeed, it wasn't until "the Great Depression" that many, many parts of the US got electrical power for the first time.

Even today, there are communities that manage to get by without power.

I fail to understand the desperation some express, when the power is out for a few hours, days, or even weeks. I suppose that my opinion is mere whistling in the wind, though.

Generators of varying sizes are getting ridiculously cheap. Even the local Wal-Mart and auto part store is selling them. This fact suggests to me that the problems will get worse lng before they get better.

Education is probably the best solution; I like the idea of keeping the thing separate from the house wiring completely, and using extension cords.
Our biggest threat seems to come from those who try to 'clever up' that simple arrangement.

Apart from the dangers posed by improper connections of generators to the "grid," there are also the dangers posed by fuel storage, exhaust fumes, and simple crime. A man worried about his generator being stolen is more likely to try to run it inside. When the taks runs dry, there will be fires associated with refueling.

I suppose that places like "Wiki-how" are a good place to start educating folks.

I know the pains of living without electricity all too well, when we lost power for 8 days after hurricane Isabel. It was not a pleasant week, let me tell you! But we got by. We got very good at cooking on the propane grill and spent a lot of time outside. I even built a solar-powered water heater out of some aluminum foil, a cardboard box and some 2L bottles of soda so we could take rustic showers!

Unfortunately, generators were not to be found ANYWHERE, and those that were availible were expensive as hell. I bought a small 3.5kW about a year later I hook up with the old *cough* *cough* and a 30A 240V welder/shoptool socket by the garage door I cleverly put there for expressly that purpose when I built the garage. I give myself a pass because I'm a professional who knows enough to kill and tag out the main breaker, but for people that don't understand why backfeeding their receptacle only turns on lights in some rooms and makes their generator and water pump sound all funny...

Basically, I'd rather see 100 families eating cold chef boy r dee for a few days than a linemen dead by electrotion

Also, there are such things as portable ceramic heaters that hook up just fine to extension cords plugged into generators!

[This message has been edited by SteveFehr (edited 01-04-2007).]

Reno is on the right track. Use cords.
I think they should write an exception to the code to allow furnace blowers (controls etc) to be cord and plug connected. This is certainly a small enough load to run safely on an orange cord.
Pumps can already be cord and plug connected.

It's interesting - there are some comments that have the same basic thread:
As I am an electrician and know what I am doing it's OK to go ahead and attach the generator in an electrically equivalent manner to a coded installation, just so long as I am aware of the risks and am in control of the situation. Is that the key here?

I have thought a lot about this problem and have decided that there is no straight forward solution.

Depending on the situation John Doe may be completely justified in hooking (in a code incompliant way) his generator to the residence - of course he may not, it would depend on the severity of the need and the situation. Also is John Doe any different from a regular electrician when out of need both backfeed the dryer outlet and both get the wiring correct but code is absent?

In it of itself the requirement of a code compliant installation in every situation is absurd simply because it may not be possible to implement. Thus the blanket statement that generator hookups should only be done by a electrician is just that, a statement. It supposes a perfect world where all eventualities are foreseen by all people and assumes they have limitless resourcs. The reality is of course that some have transfer switches etc and the rest make do. Some of those making do resort to jerry-rigging (electricians included) something so that "it's working for now", rightly or wrongly that's the reality.

In general I have left the risk taking up to those who take risks but when asked I provide a schematic avaliable at: http://www.schneider-electric.ca/www/en/products/stab-lok/Gen_Panels_Appl_Note_EN.pdf
It explains diagramitically what is correct and what is not but does not focus on the technical aspects of the code - my assumption is that if you need this you are not an electrician anyway.

One other thing - and I am not dismissing this risk by any means - do any of you have independently verifiable accounts (press or in journals etc) of linemen getting injured / killed as a result of this. As a statistician I tend to think that the real number of lineman / utility worker incidents associated with this phenomenon (backfeeding the grid) is actually much less than we think or like to suppose. I would like to get a handle on what the real extent of that threat is. (A bit like how people think that the likelyhood of having a child accidentially killed by a gun in the house is very high when in actual fact you are several times more likely to have a child drown in your neighbours pool or a bucket of water in the laundry, it's just that the gun is a much more obvious and ominous threat.) Comments welcome.

Since when isn't it code to cord and plug a forced air furnace in? This is common practice here, and has been at least since the early 60's...

And as Ann asked

Lineman killed in Alabama
http://www.nbc13.com/news/4718733/detail.html




The above is enough for me not to give DIY advice on plugging a generator into a panel... Water can (and should) be stored in ample quantities if your dependent on a well pump, Wal-mart has a vast selection of portable room heaters and 12AWG extension cords...

Out here in earthquake country, we're told to keep a few 5Gallon bottles of water around (rotated for freshness), batteries, flashlights, portable radio, blankets in waterproof packaging, and canned food that can be eaten cold....


[This message has been edited by Lostazhell (edited 01-05-2007).]

Personally,
Google has outstayed it's welcome on the Net, that is my HO.
Once it pimped itself out to any and every advertiser it could get, it is useless as a search engine.
Big money earner for it's share-holders, no good for users like you and me.
I religiously avoid Google, there was a time when you could do a decent search with Google, them days are sadly gone.

Randy - nicely said!

Ann, I think you've summed up my feelings pretty well. There is electrically nothing wrong with a properly hooked up dryer backfeed for a typical small home generator- the cable can handle it, the outlet can handle it, and the breakers will protect it. The issue is that the homeowner hooks this up correctly and that the main breaker is opened before starting the generator. I don't know if we should be trusting ourselves to do this (complacency can kill, too!), but if the DIY knows what they're doing and knows the risks and carefully manually isolates himself from the grid, there is nothing inherently wrong.

The real problem we see is that of safety and risk to the linemen- I can go into one of my electrical plants and jerry-rig a temporary backfeed and feel perfectly confident, as I have complete control over every possible power source in the building and I KNOW my circuit isn't going to be accidentally energized. The lineman can tag out breakers and do everything right, but still get killed if joe homeowner (who may or may not know what they're doing) makes 1 tiny mistake. Which is why the codes are written like they are, and why we're required to stick in idiot-proof isolation devices.

[This message has been edited by SteveFehr (edited 01-05-2007).]