On Sunday, March 12, 2017 at 11:10:32 AM UTC-4, trader_4 wrote:
On Saturday, March 11, 2017 at 3:25:35 PM UTC-5, DerbyDad03 wrote:
On Saturday, March 11, 2017 at 9:25:07 AM UTC-5, DerbyDad03 wrote:
On Saturday, March 11, 2017 at 9:24:03 AM UTC-5, DerbyDad03 wrote:
On Friday, March 10, 2017 at 9:45:17 PM UTC-5, wrote:

I lost power from the wind storm that hit the Great Lakes area on Wednesday. Last night I
borrowed a generator from a friend to get the furnace going. I simply unhooked the wires
from the breaker to the switch for the furnace and used an extension cord (with the receptacle
end cut off) and wire nutted the hot to hot, neutral to neutral, and ground to ground from
the generator to the wire that goes from the switch to the furnace. Everything worked fine,
other than the fact that the power came back on less than 3 hours later. It figures.



Leave the ground wires attached - as found -
- but add connect the generator cord's ground wire.
Don't over complicate this.
John T.

That's fine for emergency hooks up like I did, but I' like to install a plug
and play set-up.

The one in the video (cord and plug) doesn't "work" because it disconnects
the ground from the furnace once the plug is disconnected from the receptacle.

Greg's 3-way switch and inlet solves that problem quite nicely.

Something like this would be perfect because it could replace the On-Off
switch currently installed on the furnace.

Sorry... I left off the "perfect" link. ;-)

http://haleselectricalservice.com/wp...le-circuit.png

Man, how many times can I screw up just trying to post a link?

Here is the link I meant to post. Inlet receptacle with a switch for line
power, generator power and off.

http://www.transferswitchplace.com/1...tch-tf151w.jpg

In most cases you can just as easily put an Interlockit slide on the main
panel together with an inlet and then power whatever you want in the whole
house.

Yeah, but...

I'm not looking to power too much, mainly the furnace, one fridge and
a couple of lights. I did that the other night with a couple of extension
cords off a 3500 watt generator. It was good enough for SWMBO and I. We
camp, so roughing it a bit - inside a house - is no problem. :-)

The main goal is to get the furnace up and running as quick as possible
and the switch I linked to does it quick and easy. (As would Greg's
suggestion of a homemade unit with a 3 way switch and inlet.)

I'm also not looking to buy (and store) a huge generator for the rare times
that the power goes out for anything that resembles an "extended period".
3500W is probably more than enough but I need to run some numbers before I
pull the trigger. My neighbor bought a 7000W beast that he never even got
hooked up before the power came back on.

We were lucky. We were without power for less than 36 hours. The
out-of-state crew cleared the lines and restored power along a 1/2 mile
route north of, and including, my street. On the next street to the south
and for another 1/4 mile the generators are still running. I'm not sure
what the delay is. There must have been 15 trucks - bucket trucks, pole
setting trucks, electrician trucks - working late into Thursday evening
to restore my part of the neighborhood. Since then all we've seen is a
few trucks mainly clearing downed trees south of me. There are still poles
to be set and wires to be strung. It sucks to be those without power. It's
been in the low to mid teens since Thursday night.