Generator Installation Question

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freebe

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Feb 17, 2013
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OK gang I'm looking for advise. I have a ranch style house built into a hillside, with a walkout basement. I have a exterior electric outlet that mirrors a interior outlet. What I would like to do is make the exterior outlet a inlet for a generator, powering a 4 plug interior 110 outlet. I'm thinking it'll run the blower motor on my buck stove, a hot plate, and a phone charger.

So my question to the experts is....

How do I get there from here? How big a generator? Gas or propane? And how the heck do I wire it?

Help!
freebe
 
It can be simply, get a 1500 watt or more generator. Plug an extension cord into it and run few items that don't overload it. Or as involved as a whole house unit with automatic transfer.

Mine, and others here is a 2000 watt sine wave inverter that I back feed the whole house, after disconnecting from the street power. Trick with this setup I need to watch the load. I can run the fridge, but only the fridge. I can run most of the house lights at one time. It's all manual, limited, but it works well and sips gas. No 220 Volt from it so my electric hot water heater and grinder pump won't work.
 
Never a good idea to run thru an outlet.

Install a dryer vent and run the cord thru it and into the house. Or use an outlet cover - the larger rectangular one to make a pass thru.

Best bet, a small transfer switch.
 
RAVinMetrowest said:
Never a good idea to run thru an outlet.

Install a dryer vent and run the cord thru it and into the house. Or use an outlet cover - the larger rectangular one to make a pass thru.

Best bet, a small transfer switch.
Click to expand...

Agreed. You 're best bet is to install a transfer switch if you want to feed the entire house. Then, depending on what you want to run, you'll need to pick the appropriate size generator. If you go the pass-through route, you will want to weatherproof it to keep out the elements and the critters. You can run quite a bit in a house with a 5000 watt generator - lights, well pump, fridge, and such.
 
Thanks for the advise guys, been wanting to do this for awhile.
 
I think I get what you're trying to do. You prolly want to get an exterior inlet box (these are sealed/weather resistant) that you'd mount on the outside of the house and wire it to an outlet mounted on the inside of the house. No connection what so ever to interior home wiring. Then run the generator plugged in to the inlet and run extension cords to whatever you wanted to power. Again, no connection what so ever to interior wiring as you'd unplug whatever you wanted to power and plug in to the generator outlet.

This is basically the same as running an extension cord thru a window/door etc. In out old home I made a hole in the wall big enough to run to big extension cords into the house and a cover to keep the weather out. It works OK so long as A) you do things safely - no overloading of any of the cords, use the right sized extension cords and B) you place the generator some where safe that gives you ample ventilation and clearance to any combustibles outside the house.

Anything that tries to connect the generator to the house wiring system MUST use an approved transfer system of some type, either a transfer switch, interlock or other method (there's a system that sits in your meter housing). Backfeeding the home system via a dryer outlet or any other outlet is illegal in most starts/prov (if not all??) and can be very dangerous.

If you want to connect to the house wiring, probably easiest to use a transfer panel or if your main panel is new enough often you can install an interlock directly in the panel. If that last sentence is greek to you, call an electrician.
 
You cant do much with 12 gauge wiring which is what is probably feeding your outdoor outlet. Aside from it being dangerous if you overload it and do not do it "properly" which you can never do it properly as its against many electric codes.

You may want to look into a transfer switch you can get 120v or 240v ones. I use a 120v transfer switch that I can hook my 4000w genny up to or my 2000w inverter.
 
To do it right you have two choices, run an extension cord to the stuff you want to run or put in a transfer switch and wire it to the circuits you want to power. Those really are the ONLY two ways to make it acceptable.

The size of the genny is directly related to what you want to be able to run.
 
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For the record - I do consider interlocks to be a version of transfer switch. They do a fine job.
 
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I had an electrician wire a pigtail from the panel which is at the end of the walkout ranch-style house and cut a 3" hole through the block wall. I run the cord outside and plug into the 7550W/15,500 surge Generac. The panel has a switch to keep from backfeeding the street, and he wired a lightbulb socket into it all so when outside power is restored the lightbulb comes on. Then i shut off the generator, the switch at the panel, and im done. It powers most of the house including 2 refrigerators, well pump, 80 gal hot water, a few tv's etc. not perfect but it gets us through
 
D8Chumley said:
I had an electrician wire a pigtail from the panel which is at the end of the walkout ranch-style house and cut a 3" hole through the block wall. I run the cord outside and plug into the 7550W/15,500 surge Generac. The panel has a switch to keep from backfeeding the street, and he wired a lightbulb socket into it all so when outside power is restored the lightbulb comes on. Then i shut off the generator, the switch at the panel, and im done. It powers most of the house including 2 refrigerators, well pump, 80 gal hot water, a few tv's etc. not perfect but it gets us through
Click to expand...

That's interesting to hear about the light bulb. When I bought my house, it was already set up with the transfer switch and they had wired an outlet into my shop/boiler room in the basement which has a radio plugged into it so when power is restored, the radio comes on. So if we are upstairs or asleep, we know we can switch back and shut down the generator.
 
My FIL lives downstairs and he is a bit of a night owl since he is retired, he keeps an eye on it at night. That is good and bad :-/
 
KB007 said:
I think I get what you're trying to do. You prolly want to get an exterior inlet box (these are sealed/weather resistant) that you'd mount on the outside of the house and wire it to an outlet mounted on the inside of the house. No connection what so ever to interior home wiring. Then run the generator plugged in to the inlet and run extension cords to whatever you wanted to power. Again, no connection what so ever to interior wiring as you'd unplug whatever you wanted to power and plug in to the generator outlet.

This is basically the same as running an extension cord thru a window/door etc. In out old home I made a hole in the wall big enough to run to big extension cords into the house and a cover to keep the weather out. It works OK so long as A) you do things safely - no overloading of any of the cords, use the right sized extension cords and B) you place the generator some where safe that gives you ample ventilation and clearance to any combustibles outside the house.

Anything that tries to connect the generator to the house wiring system MUST use an approved transfer system of some type, either a transfer switch, interlock or other method (there's a system that sits in your meter housing). Backfeeding the home system via a dryer outlet or any other outlet is illegal in most starts/prov (if not all??) and can be very dangerous.

If you want to connect to the house wiring, probably easiest to use a transfer panel or if your main panel is new enough often you can install an interlock directly in the panel. If that last sentence is greek to you, call an electrician.
Click to expand...
This is exactly what I'm wanting to do!
 
freebe said:
This is exactly what I'm wanting to do!
Click to expand...

If that's the case, then find a genny that fits your need - likely not that big, maybe an inverter if you have any electronics 2000W prolly enough for what you described, but check the startup requirements of what you're powering. . Elec supply house should have the box and inlet for 120 connection. Some #10 from the inlet to a wall mounted outlet fed through a small hole in the wall. Seal it up nice. Essentially you've built an extension cord that goes thru the wall. Just as easy would be to drill a hole through the wall big enuf for the plug end of a multi-outlet extension cord and have a cover when it's not in use. Also make a cover or some other way to plug the hole when you have the wire through it (for bug and cold). Check the rating on whatever hot plate you might use, that might drive you to a little bigger generator.

The key thing here is to keep this completely disconnected from your house wiring, period.
 
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Another version f a transfer switch that has some real advantages is one of these: http://www.generlink.com/about_generlink.cfm

If I had to do it again I'd prolly spring for one of these. Currently have a transfer switch/panel that works beautifully, but includes a little extra wiring to install versus this thing that's dead simple.
 
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