If I got a generator for my house to be prepared for a power outage (California wildfire country) – how does that work? Do I have to run extension chords from any appliances I want on generator power? Is there a way to connect a generator to the house so that lights work?
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Source – I’m have one of these installed.
As others have said, you can buy either a mobile generator, usually gasoline powered or have an actual permanent “standby generator” installed. Residential standby generators are usually propane or natural gas powered as it’s common for people to have those as a utility or have tanks on site in rural areas.
In the case of a standby generator, they have what’s called an “Automatic Transfer Switch”. It’s a device that you can think of as a Y shape, one leg of the Y connects to the main power grid, the other to your generator. The tail of the Y connects to your house. In the event of a power loss, the ATS “senses” this, and cuts your connection from the grid leg to the generator leg and sends a “turn on” signal to the generator. This usually takes around a minute for the generator to get fully on, so you’ll be without power for a full minute or so, then the lights come back on. That’s pretty much it.
In my case, I have a mobile gas powered generator that isn’t powerful enough to power my whole home, but it it can still do a lot. I don’t have an ATS, my switch is manual.
My generator comes with two sets of outputs, one is just regular 3 pronged outputs for normal devices to plug directly into the generator. The other is a high-voltage plug like you might see on a dryer or washing machine. I had a corresponding plug installed on my home that can receive this cord directly.
That cord feeds to an electrical sub-panel in my basement along with a “manual transfer switch”. The electricians installed this small panel which looks a lot like my main home panel, just much smaller. My main home panel has about 40 breakers which feed my entire home, my subpanel has roughly 1/3 of that.
In the event of a power outage, I have to throw switches that disconnect my home from the power grid and connect it to the generator plug I had installed.
I worked with my electrician to decide which circuits should be fed from the generator (because I couldn’t choose them all, my generator is too small) So in general I’m feed my home heating system, a few lights and outlets per floor, my main appliances, and that’s about it. More than enough to get through a few days of outage.
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