<VV> Generator

[Ken Wildman]

We had a major ice storm a year and a half ago.  Many trees down, many 
power lines out.  We were without power for over a week.  Our power line 
was torn free.

I made up an extension cord with two male plugs.  Plugged into the Ultra 
Van generator at one end and the garage outside socket with the other 
end.  Back-fed power into the house that way.  Fortunately the garage power 
was on the same leg as the furnace, refrigerator, freezer, and some random 
lights in the house.

My generator is an Onan 2800W unit.  I would run it until the house warmed 
to about 68deg (F) and then turn it off.  That was sufficient to keep the 
refrigerator and freezer operating normally.

You shouldn't do this if the power line to the house is intact.  First, you 
will be feeding back into the grid and could seriously injure a lineman 
doing repairs.  Second, you may wind up powering the neighborhood until you 
burn out your generator.  If the power line is intact you need to have a 
means of switching out the external power into the main box.  There are 
automatic switch boxes available for that purpose.

Finally, while its nice to have a mini-municipal power plant for your home 
its probably overkill.  A reasonable 2500-3000W portable genset will cost 
under $1000, including buying an autoswitch box for the main board.  Honda 
has a good reputation and their units are extremely quiet.

Ken