Interlock vs. throwing the main circuit breaker for generator powering a house

[MossRoad]

. Where are you doing the switching and placing the locks to prevent energizing the male plug prongs ?

On the breaker for that outlet most likely.

 

[LouNY]

Of the generator痴 neutral is bonded . The transfer switch is supposed to switch the neutral to avoid running current through the ground system .

Afraid you are mistaken about this.

 

[fried1765]

I'm of your same mindset, as in I backfeed my house when I need to. And I do it from a sub-panel in my garage, which feeds back to the house. So I have to kill the main breaker outside under the meter, kill the main breaker in the house panel, etc... before doing the generator hookup in the garage.

However, as I get older, and hopefully wiser, I'm leaning towards being a bit safer, and if I can take a risk out of the equation, especially since it's so cheap to do now, I should do it. Accidents happen. I forget things once in a while. It's just not worth it when I can put a lockout on it for well under a hundred bucks.

We put one on my in-law's breaker panel and wired a "real" generator outlet onto the outside of their house. It works great.

And as far as it being as simple as getting in the truck, turning the keys.....

How many times have we read about people driving right through a store? These are people that have been driving for years, yet they have a brain freeze and BOOM.

Why do drivers crash into buildings? Statistics and reasons why.

So I figure I'm not infallible. It could happen to me. So why do it anymore when the safety system is so good and so cheap?

I agree.....none of us are "infallible"!

That said: I do not have a transfer switch, and do not intend to get one!

I spent 39 years, and 30,000+ hours flying around the world in many types of aircraft without foolproof interlocks.
We used checklists for EVERYTHING!
I have a small handwritten checklist attached to my service entrance panel main breaker, and another attached to my my generator starter button.
I suppose if I forgot how to read, or became blind, it could become dangerous.

Before you ask.....I have not had a wife for 20+ years!

 

[Industrial Toys]

I used to run a pto set, shut off the main switch, open a 200 amp splitter box and clamp on some booster cable size clamps to the lugs. I was always worried, a clamp would jump off but it never did.

There are all kinds of things you can do in an emergency, but really one should make proper provisions. My Lady friends new house has a welding recept. in the garage, I have been eying, in case she needs my little Yanmar 3.7 some day. It has an unused neutral. I would probably put a pad lock on the main panel if I back fed it.

 

[MossRoad]

I agree.....none of us are "infallible"!

That said: I do not have a transfer switch, and do not intend to get one!

I spent 39 years, and 30,000+ hours flying around the world in many types of aircraft without foolproof interlocks.
We used checklists for EVERYTHING!
I have a small handwritten checklist attached to my service entrance panel main breaker, and another attached to my my generator starter button.
I suppose if I forgot how to read, or became blind, it could become dangerous.

Before you ask.....I have not had a wife for 20+ years!

Yes, checklists work IF you follow them.

What's that about old pilots and bold pilots? :laughing:

 

[Industrial Toys]

I knew a guy that had a small plane. I once handed him some "B" Connectors or the other way around and they fell to the ground. After that, the joke was always asking "Do You Have The Controls" whenever we would hand the other something.

 

[aczlan]

Afraid you are mistaken about this.

If he meant to start with IF rather than OF he would be correct.
IF the generator has neutral and ground bonded, the transfer switch is supposed to switch neutral.
If the generator does not have neutral and ground bonded together, the transfer switch is not supposed to switch neutral.

The idea being that there is only one place where the neutral and ground are connected together.

Aaron Z

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I pulled the "bottle" off the meter loop AND turned off the main, for a lot of years and then back fed through a welding outlet... Can't get any safer than that...

Power co. would hear/see my tractor powering my pto genset, stop and start walking down my drive. Once close enough to see the pulled bottle, they turned around and went about their business...

Once the power was restored, they walked in and told me, and put the bottle back on, while I unhooked the genset.

Not once did anyone care that I did that.

SR

 

[MossRoad]

You have to break a seal here to pull the meter. The utility gets kinda pissy when they find a broken seal due to so many people stealing electricity around here.

 

[Industrial Toys]

The nice thing about the backfeed approach is that all your circuits are powered. None of this, just essential stuff. Nice to be able to walk around and have all your lights working.

I have had crews drive in here, during an outage, wondering about the brightly lit place. Never, did they ask how it was connected. Those guys always ground out whatever they are working on anyway. Them getting zapped from someone livening up the line, I think is highly unlikely.

 

[otlski]

I did not read the whole thread so apologies if someone mentioned it already. If you are going to not have an interlock, please make the place you store whatever generator attachment cord you have right next to the main breaker box. That way you have to make a trip to the box anyway; a good reinforcing practice.

 

[CobyRupert]

Consider this: my neighbors a few doors down had a situation where a lightning strike shorted one leg of the 240v to the neutral underground. Lights became very bright, smoke from wall receptacles and after a short while, the entire house burned unto the basement. If the power had burned itself a disconnect, how would a standby generator without a neutral opening transfer switch reacted to this?

The reason I asked is because a few months ago, I had a 7600v underground line going from a pole to my on the ground transformer burn out and shorted to earth. If it had shorted to a neutral, my house could have been burned. The talk of neutral disconnect is new to this semi-annual discussion.

The neutral to your house is connected on the low/secondary side of the transformer. And it’s directly connected to ground rods.
Probably connected to a ground rod at your house and one at the transformer.
Your neutral is not connected to the 7600V high/primary side of the transformer or the line that shorted feeding it.
...maybe if the 7600V shorted to the case of the transformer, it may raise voltage on the neutral if the ground rods can’t absorb it all, but that would be momentarily until the 7600V feeder trips.

 

[MossRoad]

Can anyone find a documented case of a lineman being injured or killed from a generator backfeeding a line? I found only one instance, and it was not proven, and the company he was working for had questionable safety practices.

Not making lite of it at all. It should be interlocked or transfer switched. But just want to know if it has happened to a lineman, and, if so, how often does it happen.

 

[Hunter29]

Can anyone find a documented case of a lineman being injured or killed from a generator backfeeding a line? I found only one instance, and it was not proven, and the company he was working for had questionable safety practices.

Not making lite of it at all. It should be interlocked or transfer switched. But just want to know if it has happened to a lineman, and, if so, how often does it happen.

It happens, who would take a chance of killing someone..

 

[Industrial Toys]

Obviously, someone that is without power with a generator.

Like I said, I think it's standard safety proceedure for them to short out lines, OR consider them live. They are not that foolish. They wouldn't live very long in that job. And I'm sure in outages, they would be highly mindfull of the possibility of a backfeed.

 

[MossRoad]

It happens, who would take a chance of killing someone..

I can't find a documented case.

 

[MossRoad]

There may be one in '02 at a gas station. Still looking for details.

 

[MossRoad]

What I have found is several blogs/message boards for utility linemen. To a T, they expect homeowners to be idiots and blame any injuries on poor training by the employer of the lineman or lack of discipline in not following proceedures. One that they refer to in '05 says a homeowner came past them and fired up a generator while the lineman was working on a line he was told was grounded out. It wasn't grounded out, and they never proved any homeowner fired up a generator. The line may have touched something else. Regardless, it wasn't grounded out while he was working on it.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

You have to break a seal here to pull the meter. The utility gets kinda pissy when they find a broken seal due to so many people stealing electricity around here.

I broke the seal EVERY time I did it! And they put a new seal on, every time they replaced it.

SR

 

[Industrial Toys]

I should break mine and insert shorting bars everytime there is a terrible cold snap like this. We used to insert bars to get a customer back in service before the utility could get back there. Maybe, on new services. I don't remember why we wouldn't have had a meter.