3 ms·

You could use it power a house the same way you can with any generator - using a double male end extension cord. The reason you can't find such a cord at Home

You could use it power a house the same way you can with any generator - using a double male end extension cord. The reason you can't find such a cord at Home Depot is that it's dangerous and a generator should only be connected to a home electrical panel through a transfer switch that prevents paralleling it with the utility supply. It would also be more economical to install a stationary generator or battery system for emergency power.

Waterluvian 6y ago
You probably know this but for others: doing this is a great way to kill linesmen who are trying to repair your local outages. It’s often illegal for the above reasons.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  You need a few things to go wrong in order to kill a lineman. The load of the neighborhood looks a lot like a short to your generator. The lineman should be grounding the line because the power company and other linemen kill linemen by energizing things much more often than homeowners kill linemen and he wants to avoid that. Even just momentarily grounding the line shorts your generator. Most linemen are going to assume the line is hot (it often is) and work accordingly so either your genset breaker will flip when your generator tries to power the rest of the grid or you'll break something when the grid forces your generator to instantly synchronize with it. There was a big thread on a popular VS owned forum that shall remain nameless and they were able to find two instances in North America of linemen being killed by back feeds and one of the stories didn't conclusively say the death was caused by a generator back-feeding the grid. Yeah you should use a proper transfer switch but it's not nearly as risky as internet commenters make it out to be. The real reason to use a transfer switch is so that the system is stupid proof enough that you can make a different member of your household go plug in the generator when the power goes out in the middle of a hurricane.
  - jupp0r 6y ago
    Thanks for sharing, this is why I love Hacker News.
  - eigenvector 6y ago
    Many things in electrical and building codes aren't that risky to break one at a time, but they all contribute to safety by eliminating possible hazards. You're right that temporary protective grounding protects power workers from inadvertent energization, but that is primarily to protect from sources of hazardous energy that can't be isolated (like lightning or induction from parallel lines). Temporary grounding can fail too (improper application, bad jumper, an accident severs the earth connection after the job begins, etc) so we provide multiple levels of protection instead of relying on just one thing to keep people safe. Electrical systems need to be stupid proof because although you might be smart, the next person who comes along won't be. I agree that improper use of a home generator is unlikely to injure someone, but the job as electrical engineers is to think of unlikely but hazardous things and prevent them from happening.

Waterluvian 6y ago

You probably know this but for others: doing this is a great way to kill linesmen who are trying to repair your local outages. It’s often illegal for the above reasons.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
You need a few things to go wrong in order to kill a lineman. The load of the neighborhood looks a lot like a short to your generator. The lineman should be grounding the line because the power company and other linemen kill linemen by energizing things much more often than homeowners kill linemen and he wants to avoid that. Even just momentarily grounding the line shorts your generator. Most linemen are going to assume the line is hot (it often is) and work accordingly so either your genset breaker will flip when your generator tries to power the rest of the grid or you'll break something when the grid forces your generator to instantly synchronize with it. There was a big thread on a popular VS owned forum that shall remain nameless and they were able to find two instances in North America of linemen being killed by back feeds and one of the stories didn't conclusively say the death was caused by a generator back-feeding the grid. Yeah you should use a proper transfer switch but it's not nearly as risky as internet commenters make it out to be. The real reason to use a transfer switch is so that the system is stupid proof enough that you can make a different member of your household go plug in the generator when the power goes out in the middle of a hurricane.
- jupp0r 6y ago
  Thanks for sharing, this is why I love Hacker News.
- eigenvector 6y ago
  Many things in electrical and building codes aren't that risky to break one at a time, but they all contribute to safety by eliminating possible hazards. You're right that temporary protective grounding protects power workers from inadvertent energization, but that is primarily to protect from sources of hazardous energy that can't be isolated (like lightning or induction from parallel lines). Temporary grounding can fail too (improper application, bad jumper, an accident severs the earth connection after the job begins, etc) so we provide multiple levels of protection instead of relying on just one thing to keep people safe. Electrical systems need to be stupid proof because although you might be smart, the next person who comes along won't be. I agree that improper use of a home generator is unlikely to injure someone, but the job as electrical engineers is to think of unlikely but hazardous things and prevent them from happening.