hooking up generator to house???

No.

Also it is illegal.

Many, many people appear to do so, but it is not proper or legal.

--->Paul

I don't see how how spending 2 seconds on plugging and unplugging is trouble. Its alot safer than messin' with the grid.

Retired master electrician here . Having a license means nothing as far as doing electric work properly goes . The local high school has a trade school that some students attended part of the school day to study various trades , one of which was electrical . These students came out of high school with an electricians license . I hired a few of them & found they didn't have the slightest idea what to do out in the field . I also found that it was harder to teach them to forget what they thought they knew & reteach them , than it was to pick someone up off the street & teach them what they needed to know . That being said if you hire a licensed electrician & they goof things up , you have someone to point the finger at .
If everything is done properly & there are no equipment failures it would be safe to do what the op was asking about , however I have seen main breakers that failed to work properly . Being an electrician with the required meters & knowledge , I have done a very similar type hookup for myself many times but I would recommend the average person have a transfer switch installed .

[QUOTE=barnyardgal;5387066

My question is-is this safe & feasible????His generator is outside & runs the cord to the dryer plug......
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NO!!!!!!! its not safe. If done incorrectly it could be deadly to lineman work the power issues. You need a transfer switch to do it correctly.

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Gary in Central Ohio

Not anymore.

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"Nothing so needs reforming as other peoples habits." Mark Twain

Not funny, I climbed poles for a few years hanging fiber lines and have seen electricity jump a long way and hit people that were doing all the right things.

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If the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, water your grass

If you don't pay attention to what you're doing, you can kill people with any sort of equipment. All a transfer switch does is keep the homeowner from making one particular mistake. There are plenty of other mistakes to be made with generators.

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The garden's getting bigger this year. Again.

But those other mistakes are more limited to hurting the person who makes them, or his family and property. As far as I'm concerned, everyone should be free to do whatever stupid dangerous things they want if it's their life/property that's being risked.

Chickenslayer- yep, that 10. Foot Safe clearance is kinda hard to maintain while hanging cable. I remember vividly the first time I closed a 14kv pole fuse during a storm after the rain..... hair standing on end and hot stick crackling. Talk about trusting your equipment.....Luckily the guys waited until I pulled out of the fuse holder to scream BOOM.... I would have thrown the pole and my lunch and probably STILL been running LOL

I just bought a propane generator, anyone have a ballpark figure on what it would cost for an electrician to hook up to the breaker box? I'd like to do this right.

If you buy the switch and enclosure I wouldn't pay more than a hundred dollars

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If the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, water your grass

Who will be hooking up the propane, what is the kW rating, and what brand?

I bought a 100 lb propane tank and will get the propane company to fill. Husband will connect it to the Buffalo Tools 7000 wat propane generator. Need to call an electrician to setup the breaker box.

I plug in to the dryer and disconnect the main. Generally if you plug in and not disconnect the main - How many other houses do you think you 5500 Watt generator can run? Plus feed the transformer back up the system ie 220 to 13000 volts? Unless the power fail is your own house, generally, your 5500 Watt generator will bog down and stall

I'm not sure what the requirements for that generator are as far as propane, I normally install 17kW generators that will power the house. These type of installations require a seperate regulator in order to measure the amount of propane in inches of water column, does your unit have a built in regulator?
I have a healthy respect for propane, be as careful with that as the electric.

We're planning to use this to power the well pump, fridge, and freezer in the event of a short term power loss. Did I buy the wrong size generator?

I can get the propane company to connect the generator to the tank if that's safer. I really appreciate the comments.

I believe you will be close on size, depends on what the requirement is for the well pump. You should have a hose with regulator that was supplied with the unit for connection to the propane tank.

I've done something like this, only I installed a reverse service plug on the house that feed the circuit breaker box through a disconnect.
Sequence is: Open the main breakers to isolate the house from the meter feed (no dead linemen); connect the jumper cord from the generator to the reverse service (prongs/male) connector, start the generator, monitor the load so as not to overload the generator.

Using a reverse service conector with its own disconnect is safer than having a dryer plug coming out of the generator with the possiblity of the exposed prongs being hot.

Sure installing a proper transfer switch and hard wiring in the generator would be best, but sometimes you have to do it yourself inexpensively. It can be done if you are familar with basic electrical safety. In my case the disconnect was the 220V dryer breakers, which weren't used. Only I operated the set up and I double checked everything. Beats trying to run an extension cord though a window or door during the winter, plus you get to choose what gets power and what doesn't. The time I used it the power was off for nine days in the winter.

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Pezzo Novante Ranch
Atoka County, Oklahoma

Works as long as no one flips the main breaker back on (it happens) and as long as the main breaker doesn't fail (also happens). I'm the first to say we have too many regulations and building codes, but there are very good reasons for this one. People will always still do it wrong, and most of the time everything will be OK, but not worth the risk for me.

DH and I have had this very discussion over the last year or so.

We ended up having a transfer switch with a secondary panel installed last week. It wasn't cheap...estimates all came in at just around $1,000.

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Beth ~ Old Church, VA
3 Nigerian Dwarf goats, 4 cats, 3 Pekin ducks and 7 chickens. One very patient husband~