Generator question (household wiring to be more accurate)

[Ken45101]

Save your self some money and just pull the meter!

SR

If you pull the meter, how will you know when the power is back on? No neighbors in sight here.

 

[aczlan]

When you find please post it I'd like to see.

Here is one: http://www.tripplite.com/shared/oth...ational-Maintenance-Bypass-Planning-Sheet.pdf
I know there was one on their site as well, but I dont see it now.

Aaron Z

 

[MossRoad]

It would safer to leave everything operational rather than irk SWMBO.

Wouldn't irk mine. I do the laundry.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

If you pull the meter, how will you know when the power is back on? No neighbors in sight here.

IF you can't even figure that out, you probably shouldn't be "messin" with your meter... lol

SR

 

[GLyford]

Don't your meters have seals on them from the power company?

We replaced our main panel this summer. The electrician pulled, reinstalled, and resealed the meter herself. Says the utility can't be bothered to do basic consumer level service any more. Not sure who provides the seals, or keeps track of them. We did not have to replace our service feed for the upgrade from 150 to 200A, but if we had, they would have only dealt with connections at the other end, even the feed upgrade would have been up to us to dig up, supply and install.

Though when the last big storm brought down branches on some aerial feeds on a couple of houses the next street over, I eventually saw the utility's trucks fixing that...a week after the rest of us had our power back from a 5-hour outage.

 

[MossRoad]

Yeah, when we bought our house, I had someone move the meter base from the west-north corner of the house around the corner to the north-west corner of the house and install a proper riser and head, then put a disconnect under the meter. From the disconnect, we ran to a new sub panel, then installed a 100 amp breaker and fed the old main box off of that. That way, I could pull the new disconnect and have a nice safe new box to slowly move all the circuits off of the old panel onto the new one.

Anyhow, the guy that moved the meter base just clipped the seal, moved everything, and stuck the little seal wire back into the hole so it looked sealed. 15 years later, the power company comes out to change out the old style meter to the new ones that the CIA tracks from satellite. I had to meet them here when they did it. The first thing the guy says to me is "You broke the seal." I told him I had a man relocate the meter when we bought the house. He asked who. I told him I didn't remember his name (I don't) and I met him as a friend of a friend of a friend and he did electrical work..... 15 years ago (which is all true). The electric company guy then just shrugged his shoulders, removed the old meter, popped in the new one and put a new seal on it.

I suppose the purpose of the seal is an attempt to keep people from stealing power by swapping meters or something like that.

 

[MossRoad]

One more thing... as I recall, the man that I had do the work was an employee of the electric company and did work on the side.

 

[hr3]

I saw a comment in another thread regarding a 100 amp service panel and adding some 220V items....

Got me wondering.

My main panel is 200A.



I have (if I recall correctly) an 8-3 wire going .... let's call it 40 feet to a second panel in the garage.

On this second panel, I have a couple 20 amp circuits going to the downstairs HT setup. The rest of it will be used for some garage lights and circuits.

This second panel is on a 50A breaker in the main box.

Brings me to a generator question. We needed one a year ago and the brother in law happened to have a 10KW diesel unit he could bring over. We were able to hobble along for the week and keep things working as long as we rotated them.

If I were to buy a generator, I'm wanting a larger one than the 10Kw because I'd like to have the ability to keep the well pump on as well as the water heater!

So, if I were to get (what size?) a 20-30 Kw generator.... what I'd like to do is take another run of that wire (which again, I believe to be 8-3 or, was it 8-2 with ground....I get that third wire confuse sometimes!)

Anyways, what I envision is running an outlet to the outside of house. Being able to then, plug the generator into that outlet to it feed the second panel and then let that panel feed the primary panel.

Ultimately, my question is, with a 50 amp breaker serving the second panel, what might that restrict me to with regard to a generator?

(I'm aware that need some kind of control panel to prevent back-feeding to the electric company, that is independent of what size generator might be too big for that 50 amp circuit)

To answer your question Rich on generator size 12 kw is about all you can put on a 50amp breaker.

Now to answer the rest of the " Kirk Key " question. The key setup is used in industry quite a bit some applications are legal some are not. In side every panel is a list of accessory's that can be used with that panel and if an item is not on that list it will break UL.

Square D Generator interlock kit