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Old 01-08-2017, 01:02 PM   #1
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Using generator for house

This is actually not camper related but I want to post it for safety's sake. As some of you may know Southwest Georgia got hit by multiple tornado's the night of January 02. IF there was one tornado it bounced into and out of different areas or there were more then one tornado. Bottom line: Lot's of damage to tree's and homes that had trees placed into the living areas. My area was spared thankfully. A mere 600 yards to the East and there was major damage. I have friends who have been without power since late January 02 and power may not be restored for another 7-10 days. One of our friends works out of her home via computer and she had no power to do her work so I offered my generator to power their camper in their backyard so they could have some type of livable situation. While hooking the genny up to their camper, checking the voltage, etc. their neighbor came over to chat and he stated that he had driven approximately 35 miles to a neighboring town to purchase a genny and had hooked it up to his home. I immediately asked him how he had hooked it up and he stated that another neighbor had shown him how to make a pigtail with two (2) male cord ends. One end plugs into the genny and the other plugs into an outlet under his carport to energize the entire home. STOP right there, I told him and proceeded to his house. YES, he had the genny running, hooked up to the house with the rigged pigtail and had lights, fridge, etc. working in his home. I immediately shut the genny down, much to his surprise, and asked him which lineman was he attempting to electrocute. Meantime my friend went and got the other neighbor who had also hooked his genny up to his home and shut that person's genny down. I had to explain to them how hooking up a genny in this manner would back-feed the electrical system and could/would shock any lineman that just happened to touch a supposedly "dead" line bare handed, which we know they should not do. We have 187 linemen from different cities helping to restore power to a large area.I showed them how to turn the main breaker OFF to offer some protection. They had no idea that electricity fed to a house in this manner could back-feed to the main line(s). Yesterday's local news ran a spot on this very subject. It seems that as local first responder's were going house-to-house for wellness checks they were finding people with generators hooked into the home's wiring in some manner. Fortunately as of this writing there have been no reported injuries to homeowners or linemen due to having a generator hooked up to a home. Just a word of caution, Thanks for reading
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Old 01-08-2017, 01:12 PM   #2
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Old 01-08-2017, 03:14 PM   #3
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IF the main breaker is off and remains off, there's no way to electrocute anyone up from the breakers. Back feeding through one plug can power only the circuits on that "leg" of the box. Not approved, not recommended but can be used if proper ops followed. Can feed a breaker next to main with mechanical device that only allows energizing circuit when mains are off. In order to get power from mains, that in/feed breaker has to be powered off or the device won't allow.
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