Edit: I was not expecting a sticky and such an outpouring of support. I've decided to try and find an electrician after much suggestion. Thank you for the love and support. You guys are awesome!
Weird question.
My fusebox is in my basement, where I've pretty much stocked up for Armageddon. I'm wary of letting an electrician into my home to install fuses and switches for my power generator so I'm thinking about doing the install myself.
I was wondering if anyone might be able to assist or provide a step by step with my set up?
Thank you
Lost a coworker in a storm to this. Do not back feed transformers!
^This. I made a similar yet much less technical response. Could also kill kids with downed lines sitting in streets after a hurricane or ice storm.
damn I wish I could have you do some electrical work at my house. I have one room without power. Prob just need to replace the breaker for the room but im scared
A breaker was never designed to be tripped repeatedly. To put this delicately, if you use a breaker as you would a light switch, after about 20 uses; it isn't a breaker any more. It de-rates quickly. The first dozen trips at 20 AMPs at say, 15 seconds
They depend upon heat deforming a bi-metal component, under a spring load. Ideally, they only trip a half-dozen times in their life. If it's tripping often, it's pretty easy and quick to replace. They sell them in the hardware section of most stores. I'm just a digital design Electrical Engineer, this is NOT my specialty. They are designed such that a home owner can swap one out for another. I would talk to an electrician and get an opinion on your use case, but I would swap that breaker out if it's tripping often. i would also look at what my load on that circuit is, and do what I could to split that load up.
Yea the breaker isnt tripping at all, just no power to a room in a 4 bedroom house. No other room affected.. no power to all outlets in that one room. Breaker never tripped really, I just noticed one day it lost power. I have tried resetting entire panel to no avail. Could me using excess power in another room cause this?
Ive seen utility company workers at my electrical box outside and noticed they put the new smart home shit on it. Nothing I can do about that.
You probably have a GFCI outlet that feeds that room. If your breaker hasn't tripped and there is no power to the outlets in that room, there is probably one GFCI outlet up stream that has tripped and has cut off all the outlets downstream. Check for a GFCI outlet that needs to be reset. GFCI outlets can and do go bad, so it may need to be replaced.
I have seen this with a Ground Fault that tripped in my Garage.
I would strongly suggest looking into this, as this could be a very bad thing. You have 20 Amps at 120 Vac (2,400 Watts of power) going "somewhere" and you don't know where, or how it's ending. It could be something as innocuous as a wire nut that came loose. Or, it could be a wire that has been somehow cut, and may be intermittently sparking - and set your home on fire.
It could be a lose wire at the fuse box, but this is something I would dig into. Uncontrolled power is a disaster waiting to happen.
Umm... did you try turning the breaker back on?
Yea i think the breaker needs to be replaced but not sure I use a ton of power in one room so that may be it.
It is possible that you cooked the breaker, more likely it's just too much current for the one breaker. Just as well to do some tests, and see how much can be plugged in before the breaker trips.
Might save some cash over an electrician.
Here's a nice site for resources https://www.geninterlock.com/
You know, for 'not an electrician' this is a surprisingly complete and, AFAICT, accurate description.
Most places, if you're connecting a generator along the main, will require you to install an interlock so that the main can ONLY be powered by the grid or the generator at any given time. There's a range of reasons for this, and you covered the important ones.