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this post was submitted on 25 May 2024
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First part is classic stuff right?
Yeah. My grandfather (former electrician and electrical inspector) had a specific outlet he’d plug a gas generator in to back feed power into the house. This was in the 80s and 90s.
He also pointed out that he turned the main off so it did not back feed into the grid and power lines that a lineman is expecting to not be live.
From the article:
But isn’t a power outage the time you need it?
I think its more that you can supplement you normal power draw so your electricity bill isint so high
Then you can just use the sockets already present on the device.
Transfer switch is the proper tool for this and is a fairly simple install.
Yeah my parents house had an rv/generator hookup and it had a huge bar across both the breakers so power could only flow in one direction. If you hooked up a generator it would cut the house off from the mains.
Your grandfather's extra outlet for the alternate feed was the other half of a switch that flipped over when the mains power died. It shuts off the power connection to the house by flipping over and ensures no power goes back over the line, among other things. We have these - albeit the size of a washing machine - in really big datacenters.
If you're gonna do dumb shit, do it smart
Yes as your granddad points out, you can’t just plug a power source into any old outlet at any time. Selling a system like this on Amazon to apartment dwellers seems to encourage just that behavior.
You cannot plug in any old power source, but you can with special micro inverters.
Thanks for the info, very interesting!
I wonder if just plugging a power source in a socket would work in a more modern setting?
Had all electricity redone last year, there was some crazy stuff from the fifties, a hot line going everywhere, just plug into it and ground it, power everywhere 😵💫. Guess I could have plugged some power in anywhere (cutting off the mains).
Now there are differential and fuses for every applience etc.
If you want to power your house independently from the grid, your house has to be independent from the grid.
Anything where you sell your excess power back to the grid is in tight cooperation with the grid operators.
Standard house wiring is not set up to accommodate back feeding the grid nor independently powering.
So you will need a changeover switch professionally fitted if you want an independent power source, or your solar panel installers will fit the appropriate equipment to back-feed the grid.
Anything else will likely involve deaths, fires, broken equipment, criminal prosecution, insurance invalidation and all that nasty stuff.
For clarity, if you do a stupid job at your DIY solar installation and it burns your house down, that is likely a covered cause of loss. There isn't a policy exclusion for stupidity, unfortunately.
There may be an exclusion for the panels themselves since you could argue that improper workmanship was the proximate cause of loss, but the ensuing damage would likely be covered.
A similar scenario would be an improper plumbing repair flooding your house. Insurance won't pay to redo the plumbing that was wrong, but it will pay to fix the water damage.
As your own story shows, even in today’s modern times, there is planet of aging wiring still out there and in use.
If you’re asking whether it’s possible to build a home that can work this way, it’s been possible forever and it doesn’t require anything fancy, just a properly rated input outlet (not the same as a regular old bedroom wall plug) and a switch to disconnect from the mains so you aren’t electrifying the grid while workers are repairing it. Whole house generators have been a thing forever. You just have to take some elementary precautions. You don’t just plug some dynamo you bought off Amazon into any old bathroom outlet and say “tada!”
Should not be via a standard wall jack. As far as I know.
Depends on electrical code which depends on, most of all, your standard plugs. In Germany Schuko is deemed non-optimal, but acceptable, for up to 800W.
...no issues regarding exposed prongs, if the inverter doesn't see AC to sync to it doesn't output anything. It's not a dumb spinny magnet generator we're talking about here.
Most people don't have an outlet on their balcony, though, and weather-proofing the thing is an issue in any case so while you're at it you can just as well put in a proper Wieland outlet. 20 bucks or so, the expensive part will be the electrician not the outlet.
In the UK our everyday plug is rated for 13A - nearly 3KW. The plug on my phone charger is the same as the one on my tumble dryer and I don't know if that's a good thing or a bag thing.
Schuko is rated for 16A continuous for one hour, 3680W, I think the UK plug would actually take quite a bit more you're just being conservative. Or something odd about ring circuits I don't want to think about.
In any case practically nothing in a household actually uses 3kW. A stove, yes, but that's connected to three phases and without a plug (usually 3x20A over here -- CEE plugs can do that but they're chonkers and how often do you move your stove). Newer dryers should stay under 1kW, the standard high load appliances are kettles and hair dryers.
Eh, that's pretty standard where I live. Didn't even know there were non standard wall jacks lol
If it has anti islanding at least it's unlikely to be a shock hazard.
That said are there any other concerns I'm missing?
You don’t want to be sending current up into the grid while workers are repairing it during a power outage. If you just plug some shit into your bedroom outlet, that will happen. You need to disconnect your house from the mains. Whole house generators are old news, but no, your bedroom wall plug isn’t rated to power your whole house, and no, you aren’t just electrifying your own wiring if you try to do so. Whole house generators aren’t hard but they aren’t this easy. And you should be suspicious at how magically simple it sounds to just plug a dynamo into your wall to power everything. It’s the kind of thing we would love to be true because it’s so elegant but there’s a little more to it.
This particular product says it's 800W max. Most residential wall outlets installed in the last 30 years should be able to handle that (in the US). Also, it's a product only available in Europe at the moment where they do 220 through the wall, so less than 4 amps which is stupidly low.
Yes, being able to power your whole house through a single outlet is insane. Unless your house draws less than 800W
That's what anti islanding is.
Prevents power from going into the grid when it's down.
Way I read it is it puts surplus into the grid to keep you elec bills down.
800 watts isn't exactly going to set an outlet on fire.