Honda generator and electrical grid

steveh27 wrote:
I have thought of doing the transfer switch to be able to run the furnace if power went out in the cold. Or I could rewire the furnace from direct to a plug so it could be run with an extension cord.

During the summer about the only item we'd like to keep running in the house during a power outage is the kitchen fridge and perhaps the small freezer in the workshop, though I can always use the camper fridge as well and run it on propane. Anything else we can get along without or simply run an extension cord to power a few lights. In winter it's the furnace I'm most concerned about so a few years ago I did just this - cut the 120 vac house feed to the furnace and wired it to a junction box where I wired in a short length of flexible cable terminated with a female connector. The remaining length of furnace cable I wired to a male chassis mount plug mounted next to the furnace. Under normal circumstances the flexible cable remains plugged into the male chassis connector so the furnace is powered by the house system.



Should we ever lose power I can simply run an extension cable from the genset running safely out in the backyard in through the laundry room and plug it into this breakout connection. Turns out this furnace pulls only 550 watts so a 2K genset easily handles the load even if I split the feed and run a cable upstairs to power the fridge and a few lights. If losing power was a regular occurrence I'd wire in a transfer switch but for infrequent use simply running an extension cord from the genset and into the house where it can be split to power a few select items, including the furnace, works just fine. :B