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Larry Caldwell

In article ,
(Husky) says...

It is too bad that no one has built a main panel with provisions built
in for this... It would be much easier to have redundant MAINS breakers,
interlocked, and then power the breaker busses from the mains or the
generator as required, than to put the mains breaker and the transfer
breaker in series, and switch from the transfer breaker to the generator
breaker in the transfer switch. Also, you would only need to flip one
breaker, move the interlock, and flip the other breaker, instead of
going down one side flipping one for each transfer circuit, move the
interlock, and back up the other side, flipping one each again. Then
repeat when mains power comes back on-line.

A whole house transfer switch only has one switch to isolate the house
circuit. Most people don't have large enough generators to run the
whole house, so some circuits have to be turned off to manage the load.

$300 will buy you a nice, fancy, automatic transfer switch designed to
work automatically with a standby power generator. I bought a 16-
circuit, 60 amp panel for $110 that will handle the largest generator I
am ever likely to have. I just need to flip one switch and turn off
some breakers to load manage, when it is hooked to my 4400 watt
generator.

I have a small tractor that would power a 16 kw PTO generator, which
works out to 67 amps at full output. From my experiences in power
outages, that amount of power would be unnecessary. My wife has
commented on how effortless it is to do without power in this house,
which has heat, water and light without electricity. We usually don't
even bother to hook the generator up until the second day of an outage.

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