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).]
