GardenFork – Eclectic DIY

Tag: “Hook up generator to house”

Hook Up A Generator To Your House – GF Video

Learn how to hook up a generator your house electric panel safely in this video. We run our house with a portable generator and transfer switch when the power goes out, and here we’ll show you how to safely connect a generator to your circuit breaker panel. Watch this video, and read through the text below for more information.

Learn more about installing a generator transfer panel here and how to buy a portable generator here.

AND, watch this video about installing a generator interlock, which is another option for hooking up a generator to your house. It is a simpler option, if an interlock is available for your particular breaker panel.

IMPORTANT:
Do not run a generator in your basement or your garage. Gas engines create carbon monoxide, which will kill you. OK?

This is part of a series of emergency preparedness videos and articles we are writing.

To Hook Up A Generator, The Nuts and Bolts:

Using a portable generator is an affordable way to power the house during a power outage. You can install one of those large generators that sit on cement slab with an automatic transfer switch, but we opted for the less expensive portable generator and a manual transfer switch. I installed the transfer switch myself, but you must follow local electrical codes, and if you are the least bit hesitant, or are not experienced in working on electrical panels, please call a qualified installer.

This 6500 watt generator runs everything we need in our house

Before you go off an buy a portable generator, stop, breathe, and do some math. Generators are rated in watts. You need to know how many watts or amps all your electric powered stuff uses.

To determine how many watts of generator power you need, figure out what appliances in the house you want to power with a generator. Each appliance will list on a label somewhere how many watts or amps the appliance uses.

Use the formula if the appliance is rated in amps:

Watts = Volts x Amps

This will help figure out how many watts you need to power your home. And it will give you a good idea of how large a generator you need to buy. Most portable generators are rated by how many watts they generate.

Go around and total up how many watts your fridge uses, the freezer down in the basement, the large TV, the well pump, the sump pump. Think about all the big things that draw power in your house. (Not the Telsa, ok?)

Fridge 750 watts
HDTV 195 watts
Chest Freezer 200 watts
Furnace 400 watts
Microwave ?
Toaster ?

At its most basic, that total wattage number tells you how powerful a generator you need. Keep in mind most of these appliances will not be running all at the same time. Well pumps turn on for maybe a few minutes, furnaces run longer.

Light bulb usage is not worth calculating, I think, especially if you use LED bulbs. The power drawn is minimal.

After 12 years of regular winter power outages, I have found that I never use the full wattage of the generator I bought. If I had to do it again, I would have bought a smaller portable generator. The meters on my transfer panel barely move when powering most of my house. Something to keep in mind.

The only caveat to under sizing a generator is: with my generator, you can tell when the well pump turns on. The generator engine is definitely under load when the water is pumped. Check with your well pump installer for how many amps the well pump needs to run, that is real important. You don’t want to risk burning out your well pump with an undersized generator.

That being said, my friend has a 5k watt generator, and it runs his well pump just fine. But just check how many amps your well pump draws, OK?

If you have a whole house air conditioner, read this post about will a portable generator run whole house AC.

Figure out what circuit breakers control all the things you want to supply power to in a power outage. You will need to buy a manual transfer switch that has that many breakers. Here is one brand I like to use. (affiliate link)

And of course,

A couple of other things I have learned:

If your generator won’t start after sitting for a long time, its time to watch our replace the carburetor video

Listen to me on our podcast, GardenFork Radio, talk about how to hook up generator to a house.

Let us know below your experiences and thoughts on generators and emergency preparedness, how do you prepare for winter storms?

July 1, 2018
Will A Portable Generator Run Whole House AC?

Can a portable generator run whole house AC? I learned the answer in short order the other day. I had just installed a generator interlock switch (video here) on my sister’s electric panel, and showed her how to hook up a portable generator to the house.

Can a portable generator run whole house AC?

The power went out during a recent storm during a heat wave, and out came the portable generator, ready to hook up to the house electric panel. Soon we would have the whole house air conditioning up and running.

The proper hook up steps were followed. All breakers turned off, main breaker turned off. Interlock switch engaged. Generator cable connected from it to the weatherproof outlet. Fire up generator.

But will a portable generator run whole house AC?

The generator started up right away on the second pull. The generator used to never start easily, but thanks to the new carburetor we installed, and an excellent generator tune up it fires up nicely.

We then switched on the 240 volt AC breaker in house electric panel. The air conditioner started to fire up. Then a clicking noise started coming from the outdoor unit. We shut off the breaker, waited a few minutes, and tried again.

And it did the clicking thing again. The AC tried to start, but never got up to full speed. After this second try, we didn’t try again. We set up some fans in the house and called the air conditioner repair guys.

Portable generators are a great thing to have, they can run most of a house when the power goes out. I call them portable because they are on wheels, they aren’t those giant metal boxes that sit on a cement slab connected to a propane tank next to the garage.

I’ve talked about how to size a generator for your needs in this video. Figure out how many watts/amps you want to power in a house when the power lines go down, buy a generator that matches that number.

Problem here was I didn’t do this with this install. We already had a generator that came with the house, and it seemed sufficient to take care of our needs.

The air conditioner repair guy came out quickly. I was happy and surprised, figuring they would be busy during a heat wave. He showed me the mistake we made in sizing a generator to run a whole house air conditioner.

I hadn’t looked at the label on the side of the AC that noted the unit needed 23 amps to start up.

That’s a lot of power. All at once.

And our little 5000 watt portable generator was not going to supply that.

Even a larger portable gen unit was not going to supply that amount of amps. One would need one of the stand alone units, with the propane tank and all, to fire that AC up.

Our work around for this was to realize we did not need to cool the whole house during a power outage during the summer. We could buy one or two bedroom size window AC units to have on standby, and stay in a few of the rooms in the lower part of the house during an outage.

The portable generator we have will run a couple of small window ACs.

Learn More:

How to install a generator interlock switch

Generator Transfer Switch, How It Works

How To Hook Up A Generator To Your House

June 30, 2018
Hook Up A Generator To Your House With This Generator Interlock Kit – GF Video
A generator interlock kit is a simple and safe way to hook up a generator to your house. I just learned about this kit, and wish I had installed it in my house. I installed a generator transfer switch in my house, now I wished I did this instead. Watch the video I made below and read through for more information.

Steps To Install A Generator Interlock Kit

Circuit breaker with metal shield provides power to the panel from the generator.

First of all, I strongly suggest you hire an electrician for this project. I am showing you the steps because I myself was curious how the generator interlock worked. Sticking your hands into an electric service panel is not for the non-professional, OK?

Interlock in generator ON position. Not how it blocks the line power from being turned on.

Basically, an interlock provides a way to feed power from your generator into your electric service panel without backfeeding generator power back down the utility line. Backfeeding is bad, it means sending electricity from your generator into the electric grid, aka, the utility wires that connect to your house to the local power company. Backfeeding can kill a lineworker.

The interlock provides power to your home in a simple way. A 220 volt circuit breaker, matched to the amperage of your generator, is installed at the top of the stack of breakers that feed power to the various rooms and appliances in your house. This 220 breaker is connected, with the proper gauge wire, to a weatherproof outlet outside your home. (NOT in your basement)

The interlock kit is a metal slide, that is fabricated for the model of circuit panel you own. Interlocks are not avail for all electric panels, you will need a generator transfer panel if one is not made for your panel.

This mechanical slide does one simple thing. It keeps anyone from turning on the main power breaker (power from the utility lines) when the generator circuit breaker is turned on, and vice versa. Utility power is feeding the circuit panel, the slide is pushed down, generator feeding the panel, the slide is up. The interlock prevents both the utility power and the generator power breakers from being ‘ON’ at the same time.

Couple of Things I Learned About Generator Interlock Installation
- Site your weatherproof outlet where you can easily get to it, and have the generator near by.
- Make sure the outdoor outlet is mounted into studs or brick, you will be yanking on it to plug and unplug the power cord
- Interlocks are not available for all circuit panels.
The 10-3 wire can be run through a hole in the mortar, but the bolts holding the outdoor outlet must be set into the brick or a wood stud.

20 amp L14-20 generator cord, and the corresponding outlet on the generator.

Here is a list of items you will need for the installation, your electrician may need additional materials, talk to them before purchasing anything. This is sized for a 20 amp 220 volt generator plug & outlet, the L14-20.

Generator Interlock Kit (this is the one for our panel, yours may be different)

20 amp Two Pole Circuit Breaker (for our brand of circuit panel)

Generator Power Cord (20 amp with L14-20 plugs)

Outdoor Outlet For Generator (20 amp)

Let me know thoughts and questions, I’ll do my best to answer, thx!

Hook Up A Generator To Your House – GF Video
January 2, 2018
Install A Generator Transfer Switch, How to and How Not To

To safely use a generator to power your home, you can install a generator transfer switch. This can be done by a licensed professional or someone who has experience with breaker panels. We also have a generator transfer panel video and a post on how to pick a generator for home use.

NOTE: Be sure so follow local codes. We strongly suggest to hire an electrician. Use this information at your own risk.

Why You Should Install A Generator Transfer Switch

A manual generator transfer switch allows you to safely connect a generator to your circuit breaker panel. A transfer switch allow you to flip a few switches and manually disconnect your home breaker panel from the utility line power (the power coming into your house) and connect it to your generator. Hence the name, manual transfer switch.

If you don’t use a transfer switch, the power from the generator can feed back into the power line that serves your house. This is called Back-feed, and is incredibly dangerous for many reasons. The biggest being you can electrocute a line worker who may be working to restore your electric power.

Here is how the Columbia River Utility explains it:

Standby generators make life easier during power outages, but if used improperly, they can be deadly. During an outage, electricity from your generator can backfeed the power lines, killing or seriously injuring our line crews who are working to repair the lines.

A transfer switch stops backfeeding, and also makes using your generator much more convenient, allowing appliances to be operated much like when the power is turned on.

A transfer switch also protects your generator when your local utility restores power, it keeps that local power from feeding back into your generator and damaging it.

Do not fashion an extension cord to plug the generator into one of your electrical outlets. A neighbor had a friend do this for him, only problem was the guy hooked up the generator side of the cord to the 220 volt output of the generator. They plugged in this very un-smart idea into one of their 120 volt outlets and burned out all the TVs, microwave, etc in the house.

We installed a manual switch similar to these. Here is one of the better transfer switches you may want to purchase.

To Install A Generator Transfer Switch, Things to think about:

The first thing one must do is figure out how many watts and/or amps your home will require when running on generator power. Read our post on how to pick a generator here. When calculating this, figure out what essentials you need: furnace, well pump, lights, fridge, freezer. Your power needs determine how large a generator you need, and what size transfer panel you’ll need. Also pay attention to how many 220 volt and 110 volt items you have, because some transfer panels only have one 220 volt circuit breaker.

A transfer switch swaps out line power for generator power on the circuit breaker level. When selecting what circuits to be connected to the transfer panel, you need to balance the generator load. There are two meters on the transfer panel, and you want the load on each side of the transfer panel to be relatively equal. An example is you should put the furnace on one side of the panel, and the fridge on the other side. The instructions that come with the panel will go into detail about this.

Why do you need to balance the power load? The fields in the generator – those coils of wire that generate the electricity – work best when the north and south coils have equal loads.

Think about where you plan to locate the generator outdoors. Your weather proof generator plug has to be nearby. This may mean running electric cable through the basement or garage. NEVER run a generator inside a garage or basement, you will die.

To install a generator transfer switch involves working inside your circuit breaker panel. If you don’t feel comfortable doing this, don’t.

Be sure to turn off the main circuit breaker before opening up the panel. Pay close attention to the directions that come with the transfer panel, many come with a video. Watch it, you’ll learn. Again, if you don’t know your way around a circuit breaker box, don’t do this. Hire an electrician.

I think the hardest part of all this is getting the bx cable from the transfer panel to connect with the breaker box. This silver armored flex cable that contains all the transfer panel wires has to go through a hole in the breaker box. Most boxes have a number of holes pre-punched, but they can still be hard to punch out. I use a cold chisel, but there are real electrician tools to open up these holes.

This whole process requires some thought and planning. Before you go out and buy a generator, calculate how much power – amps – you need. Here is a post about how to calculate the power load and buy a generator for home use.

Again, I’m not the expert here, but wanted to share some of my experiences with generators and transfer panels. Please be careful, and hire a professional if the job requires it.

Here is a video we did talking about our generator transfer panel installation

Hook Up A Generator To Your House – GF Video

January 8, 2010