Is There An Electrician in the House?

[Jim Redelfs]

It's not.

More than a union "thing" it's more of a "brotherhood" thing: You burned the crap outta (or killed) my buddy, yours is gonna be the LAST service restored.

You can then expect all manner of "fun and games" from the utility's legal department, just for starters. They WON'T, however, "never" reconnect the service. They'll just bury you in so much bullsh*t following the accident that you'll hire a licensed unionist electrician to install a transfer switch

- and wish you had done so earlier.

I honestly believe that everyone participating in this contentious topic has the KNOWLEDGE and smarts enough to OPEN the main breaker or pull the meter. It's the plethora of clueless DIY'ers out there buying generators "just in case" that are cause for concern.

[Puddin' Man]

Sho'ly, sho'ly.

I switch the MAIN off, and pull the meter. Start the generator, and

30A jumps thru thin air, once in the breaker circuit, a second time in the meter socket. Runs out thru the power lines and kills some po' lineman.

It'd have to perform magic only once to close the external circuit with your safety switch ...

Any lineman could glance at the empty meter socket and KNOW for certain that "juice floweth not" from the house to the lines.

Face it. 30% of lineman injuries are due to simple carelessness. Near 70% are related to the insane conditions that ensue when the utility's grids fail massively for one reason or another.

"They Have Seen The Enemy And He Is Them!" to paraphrase Walt Kelly.

Puddin' (at home, always all by his lonesome)

Pease pudding hot, Pease pudding cold, Pease pudding in the pot Nine days old ...

[Pete C.]

Those are the clueless DIY'ers who are dropping like flies from CO for running their generators in their living rooms in the PNW...

[CJT]

Illiteracy (or is it unwillingness to read instructions?) takes its toll ...

[Doug Miller]

Cite one instance, please, in which a lineman has been killed by a backfed generator when the service disconnect was OFF.

(Not holding my breath waiting...)

Yes, I understand there is a potential for serious danger. No, I'm *not* advocating backfeeding service-entrance panels without a transfer switch. I'm just pointing out that it's not automatically going to kill a lineman.

[Doug Miller]

OK, how about listing some of the ones you consider more likely? Do you

*really* think that pulling the meter is *not* a secure means of disconnecting from the utility?

You don't have to be "perfect" -- you just have to get it right. Fer cryin' out loud, man, how hard *is* it for you to throw the main breaker?

Sheesh.

[Doug Miller]

OK, fine, they arose from _other_people's_ imaginations. Point remains that you apparently have not yet learned to distinguish between real and imaginary hazards.

[CJT]

I wouldn't be at all surprised if some DIY'er somewhere had turned the main breaker "off" (having been warned of the dangers) and then hooked up to the wrong side of it. Why, wondered he, was the generator so hard to start, and why didn't his lights come on?

[Doug Miller]

I sure would be surprised if that happened... and if it did, I'd expect even the dullest person to figure out why it wasn't working.

[Goedjn]

Usually. But Linemen make mistakes, too. And the time they're most likely to make mistakes is during the Nth day of a long term outage, which is conveniently also the time when people are most likely to (A) be running generators, and (B) be getting sloppy about it.

[Goedjn]

You keep saying that. You keep telling us that you always pull the meter, and shut the main breaker off.

YOU may think you'll get it right, but you've already demonstrated, by not putting in the switch, that your judgment cannot be trusted. So don't expect anyone to agree with you.

--Goedjn

[Goedjn]

Clearly you have never worked a customer service desk.

[Pete C.]

Pulling the meter *and* doing the lockout-tagout thing would be pretty secure.

Pete C.

[lwasserm]

Hah! That's the best one I've read today!

Thanks

[Jim Redelfs]

In THAT case, I'm a huge believer in Darwin's theory...

[Mark Lloyd]

I already did.

Apparently you didn't read what I wrote. [whole sentence deleted].

And don't leave out the EVERY SINGLE TIME part.

[needless repetition deleted]

[Mark Lloyd]

And all storms fully respect bonding-to-ground.

[Mark Lloyd]

This is a big enough place that a lot of things really do happen.

And, of course, a healthy imagination is a good thing. It helps you prevent real disasters.

Then there's that real big imaginary hazard that more than half of Americans claim to worry about....

[Thomas D. Horne, FF EMT]

The installation you describe is only lawful and safe if the interlock was installed pursuant to the local electrical code and the installation was checked very carefully with appropriate test equipment against the existence of sneak current paths back to the utility side of the main breaker such as a second meter or utility remote control for water heating or air conditioning.

[Tom Horne, Electrician]

To render it safe would take a double block and break consisting of opening the main breaker followed by a utility person removing your meter and locking the meter enclosure to prevent the installation of meter shunts. That way both parties would have to make the same mistake in order to jeopardize the outside wiremen who are working to restore the power.