Ok. In northeast, and last 10 years Hammered by storms and power outages. I've survived using heavy extension cords to each appliance. I have a EB3500 watt Honda, 120-240 generator. I'm debating upgrading to a newer, or quieter generator, possibly a inverter unit, and add a transfer switch . 2 questions.

1.. To have a simple transfer switch installed, to supply whole panel , I assume I need a 240 volt outlet to supply both legs of the panel with 120 volts ? I won't be running any of the 240 items( ac, dryer)

2. If I went with a silent inverter, 120 volts only, i assume I'd need a seperate panel with the critical circuits like fridge, furnace, etc.

This will be done by liscence electricians, but just try to save him time and figure out what exactly I need now.


Thanks

I'm not an electrician, but have a little experience with generators powering houses.

A manual lock out, generator interlock kit I beleive it's called, is probably the easiest and least expensive to have installed. It's what I have in my house in Florida. It's a sliding metal plate installed in the breaker box along with a breaker for the generator. If the main breaker is on, the plate prevents the breaker for the generator from being flipped on. You flip the main breaker off, slide the plate, and flip the breaker for the generator on. The plate in this position prevents the main breaker from being flipped on.

With this setup, you use the other breakers to select which things you want to run.

We are having whole house generators installed at my parents' house and our house in Michigan. These are sized to run everything and include an automatic transfer switch. Is the power goes out, the generatora will kick in and the switch will shutoff the mains from the electric company while powering the existing breaker panels with the generators.

If we had chosen smaller generators, the automatic transfer switch would have had a separate breaker panel that would be wired to the specific circuits that we would run without overloading the generator. This would be the most worm for the electrician.

The main reason for the backup generators on the houses in Michigan is to keep the sump pumps running. With record lake levels, our sump pumps are running 24/7. Long story, but the power went out for 8 hours while we were there. The group 27 batteries on my parents' backup pumps weren't keeping up after 6 hours. The price difference between a whole house generator and ones sized to run specific loads wasn't much when you consider the whole house transfer switch would be less labor for the electrician.

Most generator panels will be set up for 120/240 (2 hot lines).

Most inverter generators are 120v (1 Hot line).

While you could run just half of a transfer switch, it would not be proper, and would likely void any warranty on the equipment.

I personally would wire up the transfer switch or panel interlock for a 240v feed. It allows for more use, and as technology advances in the generators themselves, you can upgrade the equipment as needed.

quote:

Originally posted by Gibb:


While you could run just half of a transfer switch, it would not be proper, and would likely void any warranty on the equipment.

I personally would wire up the transfer switch or panel interlock for a 240v feed. It allows for more use, and as technology advances in the generators themselves, you can upgrade the equipment as needed.

I think the traditional generator with 120-240 is more versatile from what I'm reading, and half the price for same output.

You could do it if you really want to, but you'd be really limited on circuits.

Use a 8 space panel or smaller. Fed with an interlock switch, put all the loads on one side A or B.

Seems kind of like a waste. If you are dead set on getting a inverter generator. There are 240v ones, you don't actually have to use any 240v loads to use it. Also you can buy a paralleling kit and have two little inverter generators.

One thing I recently learned is some newer high efficiency furnaces won’t run on dirty generator power and need the inverter type or some other alternative. Hoping mine will run on the dirty type if I ever need it.

Not an electrician.

I agree that the manual lockout interlock would be the easiest. As to your 120/240 question, you could make sure you have the items you want powered in the correct breaker position and then go every other breaker slot.

If you do have a need for 240 volts then I'm not sure how to go about that part of it.

quote:

Originally posted by Oz_Shadow:
One thing I recently learned is some newer high efficiency furnaces won’t run on dirty generator power and need the inverter type or some other alternative. Hoping mine will run on the dirty type if I ever need it.

From what I've read, quality traditional generators are relatively clean. The newer hondas have " intelligent auto voltage regulation" to keep everything clean. Yes, inverters can be better, but as was said in a article, there not running inverters at coal plants and nuclear plants, just huge traditional generators.

After asking around on here, I went with the interlock kit. They are much simpler to install and give you lots of flexibility in that panel.

quote:

Originally posted by Mountain Man:

quote:

Originally posted by Oz_Shadow:
One thing I recently learned is some newer high efficiency furnaces won’t run on dirty generator power and need the inverter type or some other alternative. Hoping mine will run on the dirty type if I ever need it.

From what I've read, quality traditional generators are relatively clean. The newer hondas have " intelligent auto voltage regulation" to keep everything clean. Yes, inverters can be better, but as was said in a article, there not running inverters at coal plants and nuclear plants, just huge traditional generators.

Any decent generator has some form of AVR or the frequency and voltage would be off. The issue is the sine wave generated and fluctuations. Generators produce more squared some wave. Most electronics can handle it, some can't, you may also get some weird noises from motors, and possible damage to ceetian motors. For the most part the compactors and other electronics can reduce negative impacts.

Short of getting an oscilloscope, knowing your output is difficult. I believe that LED lightbulbs are a decent indicator of how clean your power is. I hooked up a 6kw portable gas generator to the house awhile ago and all of my LED lightbulbs were flickering. With my standby diesel generator using a Marathon generator head, everything is just like grid power, smooth and steady.

We are about to do an interlock kit, that allows us to determine what circuits we want to run. Of course, you need to know you're not going to be able to run everything at the same time unless you have enough generator.

Example - https://www.interlockkit.com/

I'm going to go the inverter generator route. Harbor Freight has the Predator 3500 that can be doubled-up to provide 7000 watts. They are about $800 each. Wheels seems small and being able to move the thing is a factor for us.

https://www.harborfreight.com/...generator-63584.html

Honda has the EU 7000iS which is probably a great bet, but it's $5,000

https://powerequipment.honda.c...tors/models/eu7000is

Next week, we're getting some feedback from our electrician as to how much power we need to run what we need. It's a stretch goal, but I would like to be able to run the central AC for a bit to cool things down in the house even if I have to turn everything else off.

Buy a small window AC unit and make a " cool room " for sleeping . Use that wattage somewhere else .

quote:

Originally posted by steve495:
It's a stretch goal, but I would like to be able to run the central AC for a bit to cool things down in the house even if I have to turn everything else off.

Do you have a propane tank or natural gas line? For less than $5,000 you can get a 22kw Generac standby generator with a 200amp automatic transfer switch.

Link

quote:

Do you have a propane tank or natural gas line? For less than $5,000 you can get a 22kw Generac standby generator with a 200amp automatic transfer switch.

For the genset itself, yes. Then you have the cost of the install and it's not a do it yourself unless you are a electrician. Then you still need someone certified to hook up the fuel supply. I had to upgrade the propane supply to run mine. Figure as thousand or more for the install for the genset only.

True, not diy. We have an electrician doing the electrical and a plumber/furnace guy doing the gas. The gas company is installing the larger meters, but once it's done, running the AC is not a "stretch goal". Compared to the $5,000 7kw Honda, that would still need an electrician to install the interlock kit and some sort of socket to plug the generator into, the 22kw Generac makes for a simpler solution for maybe $750 installed extra.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
True, not diy. We have an electrician doing the electrical and a plumber/furnace guy doing the gas. The gas company is installing the larger meters, but once it's done, running the AC is not a "stretch goal". Compared to the $5,000 7kw Honda, that would still need an electrician to install the interlock kit and some sort of socket to plug the generator into, the 22kw Generac makes for a simpler solution for maybe $750 installed extra.

If you don’t mind me asking, what is the total price that you’re looking at for getting that generator installed? I really want to get a generator here for our infrequent outages, but haven’t really looked into it because I figured it would cost too much.

Standard easy 22kw should be $11k +/- 500.

Extremely long gas or electric runs can add a lot to that. For instance large house with gas and electric on opposite sides and a finished basement, could end up $13k or more.

Add $2,500-$3k if your panel needs to be upgraded. This would not be likely as long as house was constructed after 1975 or so in most cases.

Pricing is for DC Metro area where everything is expensive.

Both the plumber and electrician will be time and materials. They've both been out to measure, I've used them before, I trust them, and I didn't ask them how much. They've been fair in the past and with the lockdown in Michigan having been lifted, they are busy.

On the one house, the gas meter and electric service are on opposite ends of the house. The generator cannot be within 18" of a nonflamable wall, 5' of an opening (window, door, basement window, etc) or 10' of the gas meter which made for an intersting location for the generator on that house. The electrician has a lot of work to do; like 70' of cable from the generator to the transfer switch next to the existing breaker panel. I'm guessing $1,500 - $2,000 for both.

On the other house, the electric and gas are right next to each other and there are no openings on that wall, which will be as simple as it gets. I'm guessing $1,000-$1,500 for both there.

The automatic transfer switch that comes with the generator isn't complicated. Disconnect the elctric service from the panel and run it to the transfer switch instead. Connect cables from the transfer switch to the panel. Connect cable from the generator to the transfer switch. On this particular one, the AC thermostat wire is also connected to a module that come with the transfer switch. This module shuts of the AC if it senses the generator is being overloaded.

The generators are $4,800 each and we used 12 bags of concrete for each 3'x5' slab to put the generator on.

Northern Michigan isn't DC though.

I have a bulletproof 12 KW Koehler propane generator for basic electric function. Auto transfer switch.
I also have a gasoline 6500 watt Yamaha portable invertor . A 4 prong dryer plug allows connectivity from the Yamaha to a generator circuit. Manual disconnect to the street.