I think this is a situation where like the old song says: The /Gittin' ain't worth the go" I hadn't thought about a breaker sticking, but I actually had it happen once. So I guess I'm either gonna put out the bucks and get somebody to do this professionally or else just take my chances on the power company's maintenance program.
Bill Stephan Kansas Citty MO Email: wstep...@everestkc.net Phone: (816)803-2469 ----- Original Message ----- From: Tom Fowle <fo...@ski.org> Date: Monday, September 28, 2009 1:19 pm Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] Backfeeding question > To clarify some of Ron's excellent points, if your main breaker > should stick > on when you think it's off, even if there is no power from the mains, > you're pushing power back into the local pole transformer. Now it > will probably > overload your generator, but it might not and it will produce the > high voltage > at it's primary that would be there if the mains wer operating. > So the guy comming along to fix things expects the mains to be dead > and they're not. I've definitely heard of linemen being killed in > justexactly that situation. > > Even if all goes as you expect, when the power comes back up, > you'll have main spower on one side of your main breaker and your > generator'soutput on the other, and that can surely exceed the > breakdownvoltage of the breaker. You can then have the mains > trying to push out of > phase voltage back in to your generator and we don't > even want to think of the fire that would result. > > If you wanna get rid of that garage, there are better ways. > > Don't do it! > > Tom Fowle > >
