A guy I know told me of a way to connect a Gasoline engine power generator to your house using your dryer recepticle.
He says you can "build" a cable, heavy guage, with a male plug on one end to fit your dryer's plug, and one on the other end to fit the 220 recepticle on your generator, he says to use the shortest length you can to make the connection, and certainly that you can't run big stuff like your central a/c or heat, but that most other 110 stuff will work fine like fans, fridge,water pump,lights, ect, he says be sure & turn OFF your main, so if & when power comes back on that ther won't be any trouble.
Anyone heard of this??

 

Sounds like good advise to me. The electric dryer already has the heavy gauge wiring you will need to back feed your power panel. Just make sure you use the same gauge wire to make the connector plug, and make sure you throw the main breaker first!!

Bru
2002 F150 Super Crew
Black 4X4 Lariat
5.4 Engine Ford Chrome Bars

1979 Bronco 351M 75K orig.

 

This should work fine. Just remember to leave the existing dryer circuit breaker alone. Do not replace it with a larger one. This will limit the amount of current supplied to the rest of the house, but it will keep you from melting your dryer circuit.

Also, you can buy kits that allow you to hook up your generator to your power box. I know Sears sells them. This allows you to connect your power between your meter and the main breakers. All power from the generator is fed through your mains just like it was coming from the power company (except you aren't "paying" for it). Plus, if your generator has enough output, there is nothing you can't run in the house.

The kits install very clean and work great.

If you go this route, the safest way to install it is to pull out your meter so all power is cut off. As long as you tell your power company what you are doing, they usually do not have a problem with it. Let them know when you are done so they can install another one of those 'tamper' seals.

For the record, I'm not an electrician; just have a lot of experience.

 

I have a 4KW portable generator that I plug into my welder outlet in the garage on a power outage. I use a cord just long enough to keep the generator outside and use #10 wire. The very MOST IMPORTANT thing, open the main breaker before you hook it up and do not close the main breaker until you have disconnected the generator.

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 21-May-02 AT 12:54 PM (EST)]>The very MOST IMPORTANT thing, open the main breaker before
>you hook it up and do not close the main breaker until you
>have disconnected the generator.

^^^^Above is very important.^^^^

Also, remember: you will have a male end on your wiring FROM the generator. Do not start the generator if the plug is not plugged in. Otherwise you have electrons dancing around on on those (exposed)copper plug tabs, and you don't want to let them get on you!!
Otherwise this set up will work fine.

One other option, make yourself a pigtail and back feed the panel AT THE PANEL rather than at the dryer plug. Same principle, just a different way of doing it. If you are not comfortable messing with electricty, breakers, panels, etc. DO IT THE DRYER WAY.

Good luck!

Brian A

One last and important thing: Be sure you wire the plug correctly. You will have TWO wires carrying electricity from your generator and ONE wire for the return path (neutral). Be sure you get those wires to the right tabs in the plug.
If you want to really do it right, hook a ground wire from the lug on the generator frame to a cold water pipe, etc.

 

I would echo what Brain said about the male-male cord. It is expremely dangerous. If you remember to kill the main first, plug the dryer second, then plug into the generator third, and when disconnecting, do it in reverse, you will be ok. Trouble is, under some circumstances, you may forget.

I have, laying around in my workshop (at least I don't remember throwing it away), a dpdt very heavy duty relay for just such a purpose. You could connect the relay coil to house current, which would hold the relay in disconnect mode, then when power fails, it would default to "on" which would connect it to your generator. Then, even if the generator is running, when commercial power is restored, the relay would automatically switch the generator out of the circuit.
This is assuming that you have a permanent connection and leave the main breaker on.

I had future plans to do that, but never bought a generator. This device is heavy, weighs about 50 lbs, but would handle any home power needs.

Winford

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 21-May-02 AT 03:46 PM (EST)]Warning: If you are not comfortable working with/around electrcity and you do not know what you are doing, HIRE A PROFESSIONAL.

That said, I have a 5KW Coleman and I use the dryer outlet to hook it up to my house.

One of several reasons you do not want to leave your main breaker on is that your generator will supply electricty to the whole neighborhood. This also presents a risk to the Elec crews when they come out to work on the lines. If they come out and work on the lines in the neighborhod and expect them to be dead (and don't follow common sense saftey procedures) you could electrocute (or at least shock the ***** out of) someone.

I would also recommend turning off big power consumers like your Elec Water Heater, Elec Stove, Heat Pump, etc. before hooking up the generator. This prevents you from accidently overloading your generator.

I recommend using 10Ga. wire as a minimum (I actually bought a dryer pigtail and used it).


To connect your generator:

1.) Main breaker OFF
2.) Dryer breaker OFF (I turn all breakers off)
3.) Plug modified pigtail into dryer outlet
4.) Start the Generator
4.) Plug other end of modified pigtail into 220 outlet on generator
5.) Dryer breaker on (your house should now have power)
6.) Turn on breakers to circuits you want to use (lights, Refrig., etc.)

When you want to disconnect your generator:

1.) Dryer breaker OFF
2.) Turn Generator OFF
3.) Unplug modified pigtail from 220 outlet on generator
4.) Unplug modified pigtail from dryer outlet
5.) Plug-in Dryer
6.) Dryer breaker on
7.) Main breaker on (you should now be returned to regular service)
8.) Turn on any other breakers you turned off


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Caution: Not following these steps could expose you and/or others to a very dangerous (possibly deadly) shock hazzard. BE CAREFUL!

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Gary M.

2002 F250 SD, SC, SB, 4x4, 6.8L v10, 3.73LS, 4spd Auto, Reverse Aid Sensor, Class IV Hitch, Offroad Package, Manual Hubs, 40/20/40 Bench Seat, Camper Package, Lariat, White, Putco Locker Side Rails, Mud Flaps, K&N Filter, Vent Visors....

 

All of this is good advice.

Also remember that phase neutral IS NOT GROUND!

Grounding the neutral would short the whole shebang to ground, with the same results that you may have seen in Battlestar Galactica -

"Mass-quantities of Electronic Feldercarb!!!"

The reason for using the higher voltage, is because more power can be delivered at less current.

I'd display the math behind it, but why?


~Wolf

 

Guys, Thanks so much to all that replied, I feel much safer now with all your imputs doing this, its less than 2 weeks until hurricane season here in Florida, and this year I'm going to get prepaired, no sense suffering with a $600.00 generator sitting out in the shead, I've got an idea of running the cable from outside through the dryer vent that goes through the wall, shouldn't need more than about 6'-8' of cable for this.

 

National Electrical Code requires that you put a transfer switch in your main service line. THIS IS FOUR YOUR SAFTY AND THE SAFTEY OF THE LINE CREWS. A transformer works either way. If you have a 12,500 volt primary comming into a transformer and 110/220 volts comming out every thing is normal. If that Primary line is down and you back feed that transformer from your generator that transformer will have 12,500 volts at the taps and any lines connected to the primary taps. This puts lives in danger. Just shuting a main breaker off in your main pannel is not a sure fire garentee that everything will be ok. Please don't cobble it together through your dryer plug, have it done right or do it right yourself.
Sorry if I sound so agressive but I have been layed on my *** by people trying to take the short cut.

25 years in the business, Master Electrician.

 

I hear that one -

Talk about long probes on a meter.....


I use a 'scope prod that's good for 50,000 V in my daily work.
It's about the size of an old fashioned dill pickle times TWO!

 

I have a Coleman Powermate generator, and in the instruction manual it states that if you are connecting to the 230 volt recepticle and the load on it is split to 115 (like for household use) to take a 115 volt plug, connect the neutral to the ground on the plug and plug it into the generator.

 

 

Might want to run this by Dan's Wiring Message Board.

http://members.sitegadgets.com/dan316/board.html

I have posted to this board several times and usually Dan responds. I always got good advice there.


INLINE SIX POWER!
300 Cubic Inches of Low RPM Truck Torque! And twin-I-beams too!
"Drive a stick young man! There'll be time for automatics when you're old and unable."

 

Cyberbyrd, if you shut off the main breaker, how could you still backfeed the utilities?

Thanks!

Barry