Safe Luxury

Hooking up a 220 volt generator--is it safe to hook the neutral to the home breaker box as long as the main?

breaker is off? Will it run my water pump and split the 220 to neutral for 120 volt circuits as well? also, My generator is four wire plus a frame grounding screw. Is the Generator neutral, the plug ground and the frame ground all the same?

Public Comments

1. hold on I'll let u no when my h comes back h knows, but i think u can., not sure, hold on, h had to drive about 50 mile to pick up something for work, h b back, Sorry for long wait. My wife wanted me to email you. You should have 2 -110 leads and to neutral leads. You can hook the 2- 110s to the bottom of the main breaker were the 2 leads come out of it.The 2 main leads are 110 ea. and the ground lug goes from machine to the ground rod ate your service entrance under meter. YOU WILL HAVE TO MAKE SURE MAIN IS OFF, and not on until you disconnect the gen. machine.Depending how many watts your gen. is you can figure how much load it will pull. Ever thing you need to run ,check the amps on it, it should be on most all elect. appliances etc. Figure amps x volts=watts. If water pump is 4 amp motor it would be 4x120=480 watts. Remember ther 2 110-120 leads coming to main breaker.For most all homes.I forgot to tell you earlier to hook up the neutral wires to the neutral bus on the breaker box.Its the lugs with the white wires attached to it in the box.You can put a seperate 100-200 amp breaker at the gen, Depending home many watts the gen is and use it to cut gen out when you need to turn on main in House. Have a good one.
2. it is against the law and electric company rules to hook up generators tothe house if you are not licensed,,, you could burn the house down and the insurance will not cover anything,, also you could blow up thousands of dollars of utility company equipment and be held liable for it all! obviously you don't know how to do it so leave it alone,, cheaper to hire a pro than lose your house and pay thousands to the elec company!!
3. I would not recommend. http://www.dremodeling.com/
4. You really need an approved transfer switch to do this safely and legally. First, no it is not safe (or legal) to connect to the service neutral without some safety precautions. Because of the way service transformers are wired, you can have potential voltage on the neutral even with the main breaker off. Not a problem as long as the neutral is just connected to ground. When you connect your generator, it is possible for the generator to "pull" current across the neutral which will damage the generator and may cause voltage on service lines that may otherwise be dead. It takes some very specific circumstances for this to happen, but if it does you may be liable for damage caused to the power company equipment or injury to line workers. The neutral and the grounds are not the same. They need to be wired properly to maintain safety. If your generator has an integrated GFCI, it will trip if not wired properly in this application. The specifics will depend upon how your existing equipment is wired. A proper transfer switch will take care of all of these issues. There are a few good consumer grade switches available that come with good instructions that you should be able to buy for less than $350. Have a look at http://www.reliancecontrols.com/ProductDetail.aspx?30216BRK , based upon your question it should do what you need and retails for around $300. It is perfectly legal for you to install this type of equipment as a DIY project. In most places you could not install one for someone else or in a commercial environment unless you are licensed, but you can work on your own home without any legal issues. You may have to get a permit and have an inspection, but you should be OK if you have a bit of experience with electrical work and can follow directions.