Got a portable generator recently. Would like to eventually wire in a tran sfer switch for my house and run a few selected rooms. My generator has th e neutral bonded to the frame. You are also supposed to ground the generat or frame. Seeing as it's portable they tell you to pound a grounding rod i nto the ground and wire your ground lug on the frame to that.
I'm going to jack it into my house, so I think I can just use the same grou nd that runs through my house. Every 120V outlet will have a ground connec tion so getting to this ground be easy with a custom cable or modified exte nsion cord.
If I ground my generator to the same ground that the power company provided to my house, I believe I can use a standard 2-Pole transfer switch that do es not have the special third pole to switch my house circuits over to my g enerator neutral....basic transfer switches just connect the neutrals toget her (house and generator). So that's what I want to do. House Neutral is c onnected to Generator Neutral. House Neutral is also bonded to House Groun d (by the power company, not me) and Generator Ground (frame of generator) is connected to house ground (this one by me). I think this avoids all the problems with ground loops and GFIC outlets on the generator tripping....
I can't see why this doesn't work BUT there are articles all over the inter net describing this problem. I've not seen this simple solution mentioned. It's always you need to buy a special and more expensive transfer switch or you need to modify your generator and remove the ground-neutral bond. I t seems to be a source of great confusion.
Can anyone see a problem with method I'm describing?