Disconnect Power When Using Generator?
We lost power to all sites in our park today. The park let us run our generators, but said we should disconnect our RVs from the power pedestal first. Why?
Forum Discussion
Safety. Because if only legitimate electrician's worked on electrical systems and did everything to code, there is the chance of a malfunction and a worker encountering back feed from a generator.
Many people that work on RV's are not electricians nor do they have any clue what the code is. The things I've seen... Some people think it is perfectly acceptable to modify an extension cord so it has a male connector on each end. plug one end into your little generator and the other into any outlet on your camper and every electrical appliance running off of that breaker will work. AND power will be fed back into the pedestal and every other one on that breaker. It is likely at that point the breaker on the generator will continually kick. But what happens when the campground workcamper opens up a nearby pedestal to look for a bad connection when he knows the breaker for that loop has been turned off? And he grabs a wire just when extension cord guy resets the breaker on the generator?
Many people that work on RV's are not electricians nor do they have any clue what the code is. The things I've seen... Some people think it is perfectly acceptable to modify an extension cord so it has a male connector on each end. plug one end into your little generator and the other into any outlet on your camper and every electrical appliance running off of that breaker will work. AND power will be fed back into the pedestal and every other one on that breaker. It is likely at that point the breaker on the generator will continually kick. But what happens when the campground workcamper opens up a nearby pedestal to look for a bad connection when he knows the breaker for that loop has been turned off? And he grabs a wire just when extension cord guy resets the breaker on the generator?
