re: Electricians of the OT... question about transfer switch

They sell a switch at Homedeopt that locks out your main while you have the Generator switched on. A manual transfer switch.


I have a female plug in a weathertight box that I have fed to a 60 amp breaker. I plug the generator on, flip the main on the house and back feed through my garage's 125 panel to my house's 200 panel. I have a voltage sniffer I put in the box near the main's left leg. If I hear it buzzing I know line power is restored and I just flip my garage breaker off, then flip my main back on and I'm back on city power. I'm sure its not code and all, but the concept of not sending power past the main isn't hard to grasp. I also turn all my two leg breakers off while on generator power as I only have 6500W.

I am mulling having a whole home generator installed behind the garage, but don't know If I can put the generator 100' away from where the line comes in, even though at that point it's only a few feet from the garage panel. I like having my generator as far from the house as possible.




Also the procedure for pulling the meter and putting it back in with the tab undamaged is pretty easy. If you have ever been poor you may know how to do it already