On 03 Aug 2007, at 12:18, Chuck Hards wrote:
I went with 5.2KW (continuous); it will run the whole house but only big power-hungry appliance at a time, not a real handicap in a power outage. And it's small enough to haul in the back of the Explorer if I really need it at a remote site.
Years ago I bought a small (2.2 kW) generator that I used for running scopes and small appliances at remote star parties. Later I got to thinking about using it at home during a power outage. I did some calculating and found it would not run the whole house but would run necessities (furnace, a few lights). But then I checked with UP&L and was told that if I was going to do that I had to get some sort of switch installed that would isolate the house from the power grid. They added that just turning off the main circuit breaker would not suffice. However, since then I have heard from two electricians that they'd be happy to installed the switch UP&L recommended (for a few hundred dollars) but that the expensive switch would not do anything more than turning off the main breaker would do. It sounds like there are folks here that have run their houses off of generators. How do you handle the "special switch" issue? pw