I suspect this very dangerous

[coobie]

I know it's Sunday, but it's time to stop preaching.

I never suggested how many hours you should work. I only suggested you should not work when your not up to doing so safely.

I am actually good friends with a retired lifetime veteran lineman, so I do have a clue what the job involves.

Not preaching ray,just stating the facts.Take care.coobie

 

[Matt_Jr]

I plug my generator into my drier plug too. But before I even plug it in to back feed into my house I turn off the main breaker. I've done this several times. When we lose power, it's more often than not, for a few days.

 

[Jenkins003]

When our power went out for 5 days last month because of a major snow storm the power company pulled up in front of my house and secured a cable from the top wire on the pole to the bottom wire to ground it out. They went several miles up the road and did the same thing. I asked them what it was for and they told me in case the lines somehow became energized from a generator. About 5 years ago there was a linesman working at my house and I asked him about what size generator I might need and about wiring it into a single plug into my living room that I was going to just run some extension cords from. He told me to wire the generator into my garage and feed the whole house from there. In other words "backfeed". He said that was what he did. He told me as did the power company linesman the were here last month that as long as you turned the main breakers off they had no problem with it and that was why they grounded the wires down . To be on the safe side I just use extension cords.

 

[ray66v]

When our power went out for 5 days last month because of a major snow storm the power company pulled up in front of my house and secured a cable from the top wire on the pole to the bottom wire to ground it out. They went several miles up the road and did the same thing.

From my understanding, grounding out the de-energized wires this way, before considering them dead, is a standard safety procedure, for several reasons.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

If the main is turned off, then it is safe. However, the only way to be absolutely sure it is safe is to use the transfer switch, then there will be no doubt. If safety needs to be preached, then preach it. Electrical accidents are very deadly.

 

[coobie]

If the main is turned off, then it is safe. However, the only way to be absolutely sure it is safe is to use the transfer switch, then there will be no doubt. If safety needs to be preached, then preach it. Electrical accidents are very deadly.

Very true,please use a transfer switch.I have lost a good lineman friend and have seen 2 others injured very bad.coobie

 

[Lineman North Florida]

We are taught as electrical lineman that before we can work on a line as dead, to test, tag and ground, that being said a lot of our young guys ie apprentices get caught up in the hype of a major restoration with the go go go mentality and some have never been in these situations before and may not be on their A game, therefore all the help that we can get from the general public to not create any more hazards for us than we already are facing are a big help, there are a lot of people out there who could backfeed and take the proper steps and it not cause us a problem, but there is always that one homeowner who has no clue and if one of our guys misses a step you have the potential for a fatality, it's not worth it, thank's to you all who get your generators wired with a transfer switch we appreciate it.

 

[JB4310]

We are taught as electrical lineman that before we can work on a line as dead, to test, tag and ground, that being said a lot of our young guys ie apprentices get caught up in the hype of a major restoration with the go go go mentality and some have never been in these situations before and may not be on their A game, therefore all the help that we can get from the general public to not create any more hazards for us than we already are facing are a big help, there are a lot of people out there who could backfeed and take the proper steps and it not cause us a problem, but there is always that one homeowner who has no clue and if one of our guys misses a step you have the potential for a fatality, it's not worth it, thank's to you all who get your generators wired with a transfer switch we appreciate it.

With the proliferation of $300. generators, you can bet highly inexperienced users will raise the risk of grid back-feeding exponentially. Whether or not they are a greater risk to themselves or overworked utility workers is a crap shoot at best.

That islanding article brings up the risk of grid back-feeding by those with alternate energy systems that by design intentionally back-feed to sell power back to the utility, this is becoming more and more common so you lineman have to have a foolproof, zero tolerance protocol for dealing with these threats.

Lineman North Florida, is it true that a generator back-feeding grid would step up the voltage going "backwards" thru the transformers? or is this a myth?

I recently posed that question to some power workers on my property, when they where finding and repairing a failed leg on the DB service to my shop out back. They seemed to shrug it off, but maybe they didn't get the question.
They hooked up that nifty Phase splitter thing which took 1 leg and split it to 2 so I could still have 220Volt even with only 1 leg working.
They said it was a new expensive acquisition, it was wicked heavy for a compact little unit.

JB.

 

[Lineman North Florida]

With the proliferation of $300. generators, you can bet highly inexperienced users will raise the risk of grid back-feeding exponentially. Whether or not they are a greater risk to themselves or overworked utility workers is a crap shoot at best.

That islanding article brings up the risk of grid back-feeding by those with alternate energy systems that by design intentionally back-feed to sell power back to the utility, this is becoming more and more common so you lineman have to have a foolproof, zero tolerance protocol for dealing with these threats.

Lineman North Florida, is it true that a generator back-feeding grid would step up the voltage going "backwards" thru the transformers? or is this a myth?

I recently posed that question to some power workers on my property, when they where finding and repairing a failed leg on the DB service to my shop out back. They seemed to shrug it off, but maybe they didn't get the question.
They hooked up that nifty Phase splitter thing which took 1 leg and split it to 2 so I could still have 220Volt even with only 1 leg working.
They said it was a new expensive acquisition, it was wicked heavy for a compact little unit.

JB.

It's not a myth a homeowners generator backfeeding 120/240 volts into a distribution transformer will generate the primary voltage that is normally stepped down by said transformer. Grounds that we install burn up homeowners generators usually as soon as we install them when they are backfeeding onto the line, there are a lot of solar systems feeding back into the system down here where I am at but they are set up to only feed back on the system when there is primary voltage present the second the line goes out they shut off, I personally always pull both meters though because it is a man made system that could fail and if those meters are pulled it gives me a VISUAL OPEN which to a lineman is a must. I take it that you have an underground service for them to be using a dry transformer or power temp as we call them, we use them a lot in the middle of the night to restore service on a secondary burnout and we generally go back in a day or two and dig it up and fix it.

 

[JB4310]

It's not a myth a homeowners generator backfeeding 120/240 volts into a distribution transformer will generate the primary voltage that is normally stepped down by said transformer. Grounds that we install burn up homeowners generators usually as soon as we install them when they are backfeeding onto the line, there are a lot of solar systems feeding back into the system down here where I am at but they are set up to only feed back on the system when there is primary voltage present the second the line goes out they shut off, I personally always pull both meters though because it is a man made system that could fail and if those meters are pulled it gives me a VISUAL OPEN which to a lineman is a must. I take it that you have an underground service for them to be using a dry transformer or power temp as we call them, we use them a lot in the middle of the night to restore service on a secondary burnout and we generally go back in a day or two and dig it up and fix it.

Yeah, they left the temp set up for a day and fixed it the next, I have 2 separate underground services, one to house in pipe and one to shop direct burial. the DB had a leg taken out by a nick in the insulation that totally oxidized the AL cable in a short section. Wonder how long it took to happen, if that cut was there since installed 20+ years?

So I guess that we can't trust if someone were back-feeding grid, that all the other houses on the street would overload the genny. There may only be a few homes on the secondary side of a particular transformer. most likely since most back-up systems are sized to a single home, that even a few more would still bring down the generator, but not guaranteed, then you have the issue of energizing the primary in the other direction.

JB.