What I have Learned from Hurricane Irma....

Originally Posted by t00nces2

The 6K I am using to backfeed the house through the dryer plug. This is illegal to do, and dangerous to equipment and lives, so I am not going to tell you how to do it.

There were reports of gangs in the area stealing generators. This concerned me to the point I had to weigh the benefits of hiding the gen and using a less capable line or keeping it in front of the garage where it would be easier to steal. The garage won. This is what I did:



I put the gen as close to the garage door down as I could get and doubled 3/16 steel cable six(?) times. The cable is nearly impossible to cut one at a time and multiple loose cables I thought would be secure. I looped them and drove a tapcon with a fender washer to keep it in place. You can see the lip of the garage door there between the anchor and the gen frame. If they want to try to hacksaw those cables around and 300 degree generator while it runs, you have a lot of moxie and a tolerance for heat and pain that surpasses mine. BUt, I also have emergency night lights that plug into outlets that will come on when the power fails when you have an outage. I tell customers and friends to plug these lights into the GFI outlet in the garage they plug there extra firde or freezer into so the light will come on when the GFI trips. It will let them know that the power is off to their freezer before the food rots.... The one pointed at my face at night will let me know the gen has stopped running for whatever reason and the first tool I will take outside to fix it will be the Bersa .380 wrench.

Becky and I were in a trailer park and she wanted to dry some cloths in her 220 volt dry, the park supplied one 110 volt plug for the trailer. I made up a pig tail that would plug into our socket then an empty lot next to use that happened to be on the other half of the 220 circuit.

On the Island when the power went out, did the same as your doing back fed power into the house circuit from a Miller big 40 welder / Generator that put out 220 volts.

Many an unsuspecting lineman has been electrocuted from home generators back feeding power into the mains.

The legal way to do this is by using a transfer switch tied into the home circuit.



We've had a rash pf theft over the summer months, I'm going to cement and eye bolt into the lawn mower shed to chain the mower down.