Hurricane Sandy looks like a doozy headed this way
Briquette, 1992 - 2008 ~ < Forever In Our Hearts >
Lily, 1995 - 2009 ~ < Forever In Our Hearts >
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched.
They must be felt with the heart. ~ Helen Keller.
Lily, 1995 - 2009 ~ < Forever In Our Hearts >
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched.
They must be felt with the heart. ~ Helen Keller.
- renovation
- Posts: 13859
- Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 8:24 am
- Location: on a lake in michigan
- Contact:
you on the east coast may decide to move west the way the weather is going ! I understand there lots of open land avail. in Montana .
the Last time I was Talking to myself . I got into such a heated argument . that is why I swore I never talk to that guy again. you know what it worked now no buddy talking to me. 

might be a plan ; )
Briquette, 1992 - 2008 ~ < Forever In Our Hearts >
Lily, 1995 - 2009 ~ < Forever In Our Hearts >
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched.
They must be felt with the heart. ~ Helen Keller.
Lily, 1995 - 2009 ~ < Forever In Our Hearts >
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched.
They must be felt with the heart. ~ Helen Keller.
- FlyingPenguin
- Flightless Bird
- Posts: 32977
- Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 11:13 am
- Location: Central Florida
- Contact:
Charging Cell Phones With Camp Stoves
http://gothamist.com/2012/11/01/oh_just ... _charg.php
http://gothamist.com/2012/11/01/oh_just ... _charg.php
---
“Be careful when a democracy is sick; fascism comes to its bedside, but it is not to inquire about its health.”
― Albert Camus

“Be careful when a democracy is sick; fascism comes to its bedside, but it is not to inquire about its health.”
― Albert Camus

Cool idea. I am unsure if i would want to lay my $200+ cell phone that near an open fire. Residents in my town have been crowing the major intersection street corners traffic lights that are currently run by generator to charge cell phones and laptops. All of our down town area is currently a free xfinity (comcast) hot spot for the residents to use.
- FlyingPenguin
- Flightless Bird
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- Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 11:13 am
- Location: Central Florida
- Contact:
The way I connect my generator is to back feed it through to my panel so I don't have to run extensions everywhere. My main panel is outside which makes this easier.
My house has a mains breaker, so first thing I do is kill the mains breaker, and all the other breakers. Then I have a 220 volt harness for my generator with pigtails on one end that I connect to a spare 220 breaker and use it to back feed the generator to the panel.
I then turn on only the individual breakers I want to use. I have a big 6500 watt generator.
The mains breaker stays off until I disconnect the generator.
My well is on a separate meter so I do the same thing out there with a smaller generator, and only fire up the generator when I need to bring up the water pressure in the tank.
Oh, most important thing to do if you do connect your generator to your panel is to put a note on the meter to let the power company linesmen know that you are NOT backfeeding through the meter. They may hesitate to restore power if they thing you're doing that.
My house has a mains breaker, so first thing I do is kill the mains breaker, and all the other breakers. Then I have a 220 volt harness for my generator with pigtails on one end that I connect to a spare 220 breaker and use it to back feed the generator to the panel.
I then turn on only the individual breakers I want to use. I have a big 6500 watt generator.
The mains breaker stays off until I disconnect the generator.
My well is on a separate meter so I do the same thing out there with a smaller generator, and only fire up the generator when I need to bring up the water pressure in the tank.
Oh, most important thing to do if you do connect your generator to your panel is to put a note on the meter to let the power company linesmen know that you are NOT backfeeding through the meter. They may hesitate to restore power if they thing you're doing that.
---
“Be careful when a democracy is sick; fascism comes to its bedside, but it is not to inquire about its health.”
― Albert Camus

“Be careful when a democracy is sick; fascism comes to its bedside, but it is not to inquire about its health.”
― Albert Camus

- FlyingPenguin
- Flightless Bird
- Posts: 32977
- Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 11:13 am
- Location: Central Florida
- Contact:
Having been a stagehand in a past life and used to doing jury rigged wiring, electricity doesn't scare me much, and I'm very comfortable inside a breaker panel.
Back feeding isn't really dangerous if you do it correctly. I don't back feed through a 220 outlet though. I have a 220 cable for my generator with bare leads on the other end. I connect those to an unused 220 breaker in my outside panel (I just open the panel up and connect the two hot leads to the breaker and the neutral to the neutral bar).
I'm lucky that my breaker panel is outside so it's just easier to do it this way. Yeah you can use a back-feed cable through the dryer plug, although I worry about somebody unplugging it and touching the prongs while the generator is running.
Needless to say when I do that, I have the mains and all the breakers turned off and then I turn on the back-feed breaker and only selected breakers for lights, TV, microwave, etc.
From previous experiences I have breakers marked that I know I can leave on for the generator without loading it down.
Transfer switches are nice but they add a LOT of extra wiring to your panel and then you are limited on what circuits you can power with a generator since the transfer panel needs to be a one-on-one correlation for each breaker you want to power. This gives me more flexibility.
For instance, normally a small transfer panel wouldn't include the hot water heater since that's a high current device, but if I needed hot water I know I could kill some other breakers and wait 15 minutes for the hot water to heat up and then turn the heater off.
Fortunately we don't lose power here often enough for it to be a major hassle. Last time I needed to fire the generators up was when a Tornado can through five years ago and we were down for a couple of days. When we do build our new house I do intend to install a whole house propane generator with a transfer switch. Much easier to do during new construction. A lot of my neighbors have that along with a BIG propane tank.
Living in Florida I keep a hurricane kit ready every year. Just a big plastic bin with LED lanterns, propane stove, emergency crank weather radio that also charges USB devices, and I have lots of spare batteries in the fridge (old photographer's trick - batteries last FOREVER if you store them in the fridge).
The old 1993 Suburban has a 40 gallon tank. We don't use that truck much except for hauling debris around the property and making Home Depot runs, so I consider that my gasoline depot for emergencies. It has an old design gas tank that can be siphoned.
As long as I have a generator to power the well pump, I can survive without power for quite some time, and now that we have the RV (assuming it survives a storm) we have someplace to sleep comfortably with air conditioning or heating if the house isn't comfortable.
The nice thing is that being in central Florida, we get few hurricanes. They mostly hit the coast. Also we have a VERY proactive electric company. These guys trim the trees along the roads every year before hurricane season. Even during the nightmare 2005 hurricane season (3 hurricanes in a row that crossed central Florida - a rarity) we weren't without power for more than 3 days.
Back feeding isn't really dangerous if you do it correctly. I don't back feed through a 220 outlet though. I have a 220 cable for my generator with bare leads on the other end. I connect those to an unused 220 breaker in my outside panel (I just open the panel up and connect the two hot leads to the breaker and the neutral to the neutral bar).
I'm lucky that my breaker panel is outside so it's just easier to do it this way. Yeah you can use a back-feed cable through the dryer plug, although I worry about somebody unplugging it and touching the prongs while the generator is running.
Needless to say when I do that, I have the mains and all the breakers turned off and then I turn on the back-feed breaker and only selected breakers for lights, TV, microwave, etc.
From previous experiences I have breakers marked that I know I can leave on for the generator without loading it down.
Transfer switches are nice but they add a LOT of extra wiring to your panel and then you are limited on what circuits you can power with a generator since the transfer panel needs to be a one-on-one correlation for each breaker you want to power. This gives me more flexibility.
For instance, normally a small transfer panel wouldn't include the hot water heater since that's a high current device, but if I needed hot water I know I could kill some other breakers and wait 15 minutes for the hot water to heat up and then turn the heater off.
Fortunately we don't lose power here often enough for it to be a major hassle. Last time I needed to fire the generators up was when a Tornado can through five years ago and we were down for a couple of days. When we do build our new house I do intend to install a whole house propane generator with a transfer switch. Much easier to do during new construction. A lot of my neighbors have that along with a BIG propane tank.
Living in Florida I keep a hurricane kit ready every year. Just a big plastic bin with LED lanterns, propane stove, emergency crank weather radio that also charges USB devices, and I have lots of spare batteries in the fridge (old photographer's trick - batteries last FOREVER if you store them in the fridge).
The old 1993 Suburban has a 40 gallon tank. We don't use that truck much except for hauling debris around the property and making Home Depot runs, so I consider that my gasoline depot for emergencies. It has an old design gas tank that can be siphoned.
As long as I have a generator to power the well pump, I can survive without power for quite some time, and now that we have the RV (assuming it survives a storm) we have someplace to sleep comfortably with air conditioning or heating if the house isn't comfortable.
The nice thing is that being in central Florida, we get few hurricanes. They mostly hit the coast. Also we have a VERY proactive electric company. These guys trim the trees along the roads every year before hurricane season. Even during the nightmare 2005 hurricane season (3 hurricanes in a row that crossed central Florida - a rarity) we weren't without power for more than 3 days.
---
“Be careful when a democracy is sick; fascism comes to its bedside, but it is not to inquire about its health.”
― Albert Camus

“Be careful when a democracy is sick; fascism comes to its bedside, but it is not to inquire about its health.”
― Albert Camus

If you manage to back feed to the grid this is the worst thing you can do as it makes it more difficult for linesmen to work when the lines that are supposed to be "dead" are in fact live due to people improperly running generators connected to their house. If you are going to back feed you panel make sure you turn off the main breaker before hooking up your generator. Then make sure you unhook your generator first before turning the main back on.
[align=center]A self-aware artificial intelligence would suffer from a divide by zero error if it were programmed to be Amish[/align]
- FlyingPenguin
- Flightless Bird
- Posts: 32977
- Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2000 11:13 am
- Location: Central Florida
- Contact:
Yup. Which is why I also leave a note on the meter (in case I'm not home) to let the linesman know I am not backfeeding through the meter.
A backfeed is not something the un-knowledgeable should be doing. It DOES involve some common sense knowledge of electrical systems.
A backfeed is not something the un-knowledgeable should be doing. It DOES involve some common sense knowledge of electrical systems.
---
“Be careful when a democracy is sick; fascism comes to its bedside, but it is not to inquire about its health.”
― Albert Camus

“Be careful when a democracy is sick; fascism comes to its bedside, but it is not to inquire about its health.”
― Albert Camus

I just did a bit of research on it and found that the transfer switch is required for meeting code. Unfortunately, it is sold out at the big box stores and online unless i overpay by $100-$150.00. This is the one I seek: https://www.google.com/shopping/product/5825536471875405561?q=31410CRK&rlz=1C1GGGE___US509US509&oq=31410CRK&sugexp=chrome,mod%3D11&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Yeah, I'm going to get a transfer switch when I scrape some $$ up. I had mine ready to roll but there were cords everywhere. Much easier that way. I'm just going to have to do a longer run into the house, because the panel is on the street side which is essentially blind from the house and things have a way of disappearing.
<a href="http://www.heatware.com/eval.php?id=123" target="_blank" >Heatware</a>