RW> That's normal too.  Did you wire that into your service
RW> panel?  If so, hope you wired in a transfer switch which
RW> isolates your house from the grid when it's running.

 MH> I shut off the "Main" breaker that comes in from the street before
 MH> doing anything.  It all worked fine and once I knew we had power in
 MH> the neighborhood, I shut off the generator, unplugged the
 MH> connections, and reset things on the panel.

we have a special plug and socket that is in place between our power feed and
our main breaker box... there's only one socket and two plugs... ya can't go
wrong and feed power back into the neighborhood ;)

  ============================================================
  on commercial power:
                                         ---- generator power
                                        /
  house       breaker    socket       <-
  wiring ---- panel ---- box   --<<--
                                     \
                                      ---- commercial power
  ============================================================
  on generator power:
                                       ---- generator power
                                      /
  house       breaker    socket      /
  wiring ---- panel ---- box   --<<--
                                      <-
                                        \
                                         ---- commercial power
  ============================================================

we also use only specific circuits in our house wiring when we are on the
generator... those circuits are specially marked and coded... namely the well
pump, the fridges/freezers, the AC/Heat, the computer network essentials (ie:
DSL modem, switches, no printers), a few lights and one or two TVs...
everything else is disconnected... we have GAS for the actual heat part of the
AC/Heat unit, the water heater and the stove... plus there's a GAS grill on
the deck...

the main problem is getting the generator started but we're working on a
pullcord replacement thing that has a 12Volt car battery and some sort of
starter that'll spin the generator until it fires... we just can't pull that
cord any more without falling over... then it is a matter of ensuring that the
25+ gallons of fuel are clean and ready for use that fuel gets cycled with our
mower so it is pretty fresh...

we get 8 to 12 hours on a tank of fuel in our generator and that greatly
depends on the load... we also have a method of filling the generator tank
while it is running so we don't have to shut it down and worry about trying to
get it started again... this is another mod like our big power socket mod
above... in this case, the tank is is removed from the generator and a longer
fuel line is afixed... one could also use a larger tank if they desired to do
so... with the tank separated from the generator, there's no danger of
spilling fuel on the running generator :)

)\/(ark

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