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Wiring an Electrical Box to Support a Backup Generator
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Wiring an Electrical Box to Support a Backup Generator
computer-generated transcript - may not be 100% accurate
" We have a generator on the job and right now Harry Cunningham is here our electrician to explain the hookup to us and Kim Hansen is here from square D. Terry let me ask you first how is an electrical connection this is the service basically how is it different when you have a generator. "
" We have two inputs of power one obviously the utility power yet the second one in here is that feed the generator itself OK. And we don't have too many switches to worry about what. What happens here well basically we have a safety mechanism here that does not allow us to bring the generator power into the utility circuit. Simply by the fact that we must turn off the utility first before we can lift this mechanism. And at that time we can bring the generator power on now it's fed to the load center in the house as it normally would be even under the utility power."
" All right is I mean even the power is down from the utility on the street after a terrible hurricane you still your generator doesn't want to try to be feeding power out to the whole neighborhood."
" This mechanism serves two purposes one obviously is safety of life and personnel. So that we are not feeding electricity back into another circuit where someone might be working on it Yeah then the second advantage of it is that. We can control the amount of power if we allow the utility or the generator to feed into the utility. You couldn't carry all of these other houses with it so consequently we have a limited amount of power from the generator. And this way we conducted straight into the load center here at this house."
" Gotten nowhere else Now Kim him what are what are some of the features that we're talking about in terms of the switching mechanisms that are required. For a generator. "
" Well on you definitely want to have the flexibility to. Run multiple circuits and run different circuits at different times why don't you just put the power on and allows the kids can go watch TV. Actually this generator. Doesn't run the whole house is not large enough to do that so. This device gives you the flexibility to turn some circuits on them and others off and then switch that around as you need to. So you can run your air conditioning it is large enough to run the an air conditioning. Com and perhaps as the house cools down in the evening you decide that we don't want to run the air run the conditioning irrigation for a couple of hours but you want to do a load of laundry you go ahead and flip that switch and turn your wash."
" Sure in a storm emergency sometimes people might be without power for three or four days or even longer. And if you've got those capabilities and you got a generator then you at least can keep your food from spoiling. You can keep the temperatures under control because one of the biggest problems is when you got the high humidity and high temperatures and you've had some water infiltration you can have a lot of mold and mildew damage -- That's correct great. All right well it sounds like we're all set across ."
