When I rigged the auto-start genset (cow-methane powered !) we'd had to upgrade the earthing considerably. 'Leccy board wouldn't let us rely on a single rod, we had to bury a grid.
I have this strange picture in my head now of Andy standing in a field cranking a cow's tail as someone nearby is holding a dimly glowing bulb shouting "we need more power".
All I am going to do, is make a cable up with a plug on each end, fitted with a 3 Amp fuse, fasten it to the generator so that it wont get separated. Then switch off the mains at the fuse box and plug the genny into the nearest 13 amp socket. I bought the genny for just this reason, after seeing that the possibility of power cuts may take away our use of the central heating. Its gas powered, but as you know, the pump hast to run and the gas control valve needs power. After this, all the rest is a bonus. We don't have a large freezer, so the contents can be a total loss if power is off for more than a couple of days. OK I'll lose the RCD system, but at least I will be able to run the central heating and a couple of lights, possibly even the TV. The house is PME by the way, so I might have to hook up an earth to my earth rod. All that remains, is to open a curtain to see when the power comes back on again and reverse the connections.
PLEASE, PLEASE don't. One some one *will* leave that plugged into a live socket and catch hold of the now live and lethal pins at the other end.
Also take serious note about the lack of N E bonding on a generator and the earthing requirement of the generator.
The other thing to bear in mind is that some one is also bound to turn on something that is far to large a load for your generator. What happens then is unpredicatable, it may simply stall, it may stuggle badly with the volts and current going all over the place causeing damage to it or other connected equipment, or it might appear to cope but burst into flame a short while latter.
How does that show the power is back on during the day? It wouldn't work up here anyway, nearest street light is 1 1/2 miles away fed off a different 11kV line.
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