Power outage

[dlbleak]

Went to bed at 9:30 last night with no power. We’re in a brand new addition with building still going on. Loss of power has been a regular occurrence but there was no crews working yesterday so I don’t know what was going on. Had to reset the router this morning to get any of the streaming devices to work.

 

[Tanis143]

so what is the difference in 110 coming out of a receptacle versus 110 going into the receptacle? Or 220 to back feed my shop through the welder receptacle? Im truly curious how it's unsafe. Understand, I'm not arguing, I just want to know.

On a side note, you won't kill a lineman. At best, if you forget to kill the main, you'll power everyone elses house and put to big of a draw on your genset.

I'm sorry, but spoken like someone who has NO clue what they are talking about. Yes, linemen are supposed to watch for this kind of thing, however if you backfeed into the main line it will possibly charge a downed powerline in the reverse direction and can catch a linemen off guard. If it has gone the reverse through a stepdown transformer it will go from 124 volts (we say 110, but it actually is now 120-125 volts) at say 60 amps to whatever voltage the main powerline runs at but with reduced amperage.

And the difference between 110 coming from your breaker box and 110 coming from your generator is the amperage. Most electrical outlets are fed with 12/2 gauge romex which is rated at 20 amps. Coming from the breaker box you have a breaker that will flip if the amperage is too high. If you have a 6000 watt generator that is backfeeding you are now pushing 50 amps through that same line. This will cause the romex to overheat, melt the insulation and cause arcing, which WILL catch your house on fire. This is why you need a dedicated connection point with an automatic cutoff that ties back to the generator to turn it off when the power comes back on. That way you have the proper gauge romex that can handle the amp load and prevent backfeeding to the main line. Those who know what they are doing know how to calculate what to run and how much of it and can turn off the proper breakers in the house to isolate just the circuits they can run safely by backfeeding.

 

[yukonjack]

Its still amazes me that unqualified people will give and support such terrible advice.

This is dangerous. Off the top of my head (I had to open my book for the specific) look at 406.7(a) in the NEC (adopted at a state level)

The real trouble comes into play if someone gets hurt or dies. You CAN and likely WILL be held criminally and financially liable. Burn the house down ya better hope the fire inspector doesn't catch it (and the wew I've dealt with are pretty good and would definitely catch it). Aslo, your insurance company will not cover the loss if somethinh like this results in a claim.

I wasn’t giving advice. Personally I wouldn’t do it. I was simply relating what my FIL had done and had been doing for over 25 years without incident. If you’d like to scold him I can give you his phone number in heaven. And ultimately it was his property and he could do with it what he wanted.

 

[Timmy59]

Once I get more ducks in a row I'll pick up the proper transfer switch, breaker and outlet. I looked already but haven't identified my panel model #, it's 100 amp and not a late model so my quick dig didn't uncover what I needed..

 

[SoonerP226]

The carbon Monoxide is nowhere near the home is why this happens. Lots of folks don’t understand how CO can get into a house and kills folks annually.

About 10-15 years ago, we had a guy at work who got really lucky on this. He had a professionally-installed generator, but the installers screwed up on its installation location, so when it kicked on, it started pumping CO into his house. I don't remember how they figured out what was happening, but his entire family ended up in the emergency room that night.

 

[PBramble]

I'm sorry, but spoken like someone who has NO clue what they are talking about. Yes, linemen are supposed to watch for this kind of thing, however if you backfeed into the main line it will possibly charge a downed powerline in the reverse direction and can catch a linemen off guard. If it has gone the reverse through a stepdown transformer it will go from 124 volts (we say 110, but it actually is now 120-125 volts) at say 60 amps to whatever voltage the main powerline runs at but with reduced amperage.

And the difference between 110 coming from your breaker box and 110 coming from your generator is the amperage. Most electrical outlets are fed with 12/2 gauge romex which is rated at 20 amps. Coming from the breaker box you have a breaker that will flip if the amperage is too high. If you have a 6000 watt generator that is backfeeding you are now pushing 50 amps through that same line. This will cause the romex to overheat, melt the insulation and cause arcing, which WILL catch your house on fire. This is why you need a dedicated connection point with an automatic cutoff that ties back to the generator to turn it off when the power comes back on. That way you have the proper gauge romex that can handle the amp load and prevent backfeeding to the main line. Those who know what they are doing know how to calculate what to run and how much of it and can turn off the proper breakers in the house to isolate just the circuits they can run safely by backfeeding.

First, I've gotta say that Im impressed. I was unaware I could use a step down transformer to turn my 2200i into a Lincoln pipeliner.
Second, thank you for explaining that. I was also unaware that generators put out 50 amps on the 110 side.
This is why I leave the wiring to those who know.

 

[tyromeo55]

Why wouldn’t it be? Your generating your own electricity with your own generator and feeding it into your house. My FIL did this with the back feed going into the 220 outlet for the dryer. The dryer vent was on an outside wall and he’d feed the cord in through it.

I wasn’t giving advice. Personally I wouldn’t do it. I was simply relating what my FIL had done and had been doing for over 25 years without incident. If you’d like to scold him I can give you his phone number in heaven. And ultimately it was his property and he could do with it what he wanted.

When someone asks "is this legal" you say .... "Why wouldn't it be" That is from you.

To my knowledge your FIL is not going around posting how he backfeeds his dryer outlet on the internet. You are doing it and passing the buck toward him. My main issue is that ignorant / ill informed people who read these posts (that seem to live forever) will try to replicate and hurt themselves or others.

 

[tyromeo55]

it looks like others might of answered this but why not go ahead and add my 2 cts?

So how do you hook a generator up without connecting to your current service? Do you have extra wire run in your house that's only on generator power lines? Red generator only receptacles? I'm truly curious. Maybe you should just leave the power off til the linemen fix it? I really want to know how you do it.

The NEC requires there be a mechanical means of interlocking multiple sources of power. In a nutshell that means only one can be turned on at any given moment. When one is ON the other is physically held off. There are companies that sell listed parts-kits for most panels to add this functionality (see https://www.interlockkit.com you can find them for appx $75 on Amazon last I looked) Then from the secondary input breaker you wire to an inlet of some kind. in outlet form it looks like a shielded male cord end. With the interlock power can not be present on those prongs

so what is the difference in 110 coming out of a receptacle versus 110 going into the receptacle? Or 220 to back feed my shop through the welder receptacle? Im truly curious how it's unsafe. Understand, I'm not arguing, I just want to know.

On a side note, you won't kill a lineman. At best, if you forget to kill the main, you'll power everyone elses house and put to big of a draw on your genset.

Part 1 .... there really is no difference the problem comes from using 2 male ends to make a "suicide cord" and lack of interlocking the primary service. if you had a way to either mechanically lock the primary open (off) and hardwired into the outlet that would be the safe/better way to do it That is assuming other standard electrical practices are followed like wire sizing / not overloading the grounded conductor

Part 2 ... It really does not work that way. your roll-around generator would never pickup the load. Linemen will open (turn off) circuits to try to clear faults so that they can re-fuse/close and restore power in as many sections as quickly possible. Then they will start working on individual (smaller # of customer) faults (or another team will) Protocal will mandate that they ground open lines to protect themselves from accidental closure and idiots with generators but in the event that does not happen you would be energizing a portion of the line they assume is dead. The transformer will step up the voltage making it even more dangerous (think 13,200V in most cases). What if the section they assume dead is on the ground in a neighborhood or on top of a car across an intersection. to me it is no more reckless then shooting a gun into the air. Is that bullet going to kill someone on the way down? Probably not but it can and has happened. If it does do you want to be the A-hole who killed someone?

 

[yukonjack]

When someone asks "is this legal" you say .... "Why wouldn't it be" That is from you.

To my knowledge your FIL is not going around posting how he backfeeds his dryer outlet on the internet. You are doing it and passing the buck toward him. My main issue is that ignorant / ill informed people who read these posts (that seem to live forever) will try to replicate and hurt themselves or others.

Please reference a public law that someone is breaking when they back feed electricity into their own house from their own generator. I’d like to see that. And he’s not the only that has done that during extended power outages. I’d also like to know what law enforcement agency issues citations for back feeding electricity through your dryer outlet. I didn’t see anything in Oklahoma Title 21 that would cover that.

https://law.justia.com/codes/oklahoma/2014/title-21/
And to top that off there are umpteen websites that tell you how to backfeed from a generator into the dryer outlet. Why hasn’t the FBI shutdown these websites and prosecuted the folks that put them up?

https://upgradedhome.com/connect-generator-to-house-through-dryer-outlet/

 

[Tanis143]

First, I've gotta say that Im impressed. I was unaware I could use a step down transformer to turn my 2200i into a Lincoln pipeliner.
Second, thank you for explaining that. I was also unaware that generators put out 50 amps on the 110 side.
This is why I leave the wiring to those who know.

First, if you had read what I said you would have seen that the amperage would have been way lower, so no, it won't be an arc welder. Second, yes, I was over on the amperage IF all the protections built into the generator are working. I had a GFI in a house I rented that had over 40 amps pulled through it for over a year until it finally burned up (found out my living room and our office was fed behind it, both those rooms had the majority of our electronics on it). So you don't want to trust those. Third, 110 v at 20 amps can still kill someone, so why even take the chance. Either have a generator wired up properly or just run the few things you need off extension cords.