Quote:
Originally Posted by Truth voice 2012
I should have mentioned turning off the power first to the house or when society collapses in on itself and the power grid is off it can then be used safely. Thanx for the concern lads. Peace out
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OK, but still get an electrician to do it. I'm an electrician and I have seen many cases where someone has or could have seriously injured themself or others because they figure "Hey I can follow instructions". Maybe you could do it right, but it's too easy to mess up and hust someone.
And as someone mentioned before, when hooking up your house to any alternate form of energy other than a powerline, you need a TRANSFER SWITCH. This is exactly what it sounds like: it switches the house's power source between the "grid"(powerlines) or generator/whatever. They make ones that will do it automatically during a power outage, but you can set them up so that the house will run, when possible, purely on solar/wind/etc. and when available power dips below a certain level it will switch back to the grid.
This is one example why a transfer switch is nescessary:
Say power goes out in your area, so you start up your generator (you have no transfer switch). The generator powers your house, but it's unlikely that you'll be drawing the maximum output of the generator (if it's of good size)running your lights, refrigerator, computer, whatever. So this extra energy needs somewhere to go and since your house is still hooked up to the powerlines, the energy goes back onto the powerlines- this is called BACKFEED.
Someone down the street or the power company guy can get killed during a power outage because you decided to fire up your generator.
But you probably already know all that, I'm just saying it just in case.
-Good luck