Forum Discussion
ScottG
Dec 16, 2018Nomad
AllegroD wrote:
We lose electricity every year for 2 - 14 days.
We have an Onan 7kw. If you have a gas furnace, see if a local Home center or radio shack has a Leviton Male Outlet.
We put one of these on the outside of my garage connected to a female receptacle inside and then put another one on the wall between the garage and house wall, again to a standard female receptacle. This allowed us to run standard (not suicide/dead man cord) electric cords from MH genny to garage. In the garage We have the gas furnace wired to a standard socket so We can pull the plug and connect the blower to the genny and route another standard orange electric extension cable to the house for lights. Definitely keeps the pipes from freezing.
We winterize the MH so do not live in it during power outages. We also have gas WH and range, so we can live comfortably in the house.
We have been told that there is a grounding issue that could put your furnace control board in lock out. I talked to the salesman and install technician about how we wanted to use our MH genny. The install technician said some of the above, looked at my genny and said it would work fine. The install technician did all of the wiring to the furnace electrical. Many years later, we are still using that very setup, every winter.
I've been doing the same thing for years but I had to create a bonding plug (connects neutral & ground togther) or the new furnace wont run. The plug simply plugs into one of the outlets on the gen. Any furnace made in the last 10 years (roughly) will require this of any portable gen.
BTW, the the connector you speak of is referred to as an inlet.
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