If I had a job, I'd attempt to get it and turn it around for a small profit (or just keep it outright). But maybe this isn't as good a price as I think

http://raleigh.craigslist.org/grd/1057620809.html

3/3/2009 1:04:48 PM

Yea I'd say that is a good price, cheapest one at like Lowe's or Home Depot was about $750 for a 5500W. Try and talk him down to like 290 or 300 and I'd say go for it. What brand is it?

3/3/2009 6:59:31 PM

how much does it cost to run one of those things?

3/3/2009 7:04:04 PM

i was looking today, and the smaller (3500W) ones said a full 4 gallon tank would last 8-9 hours. obviously it depends on efficency.


slightly off topic. how much does it cost to have an electrician install the neccesary wiring to correctly plug it in to the home breaker box?

3/3/2009 10:52:20 PM

its very simple to do yourself by using your dryer outlet

3/4/2009 6:11:12 AM

lulz

and then to backfeed the whole area with your generator

[Edited on March 4, 2009 at 2:36 PM. Reason : 

3/4/2009 2:35:52 PM

yeah. i'm looking to do it right, not the "easy" way

rough numbers for parts and hours of labor?

3/4/2009 3:17:09 PM

so if i am not mistaken, an electrician will do nothing but wire a new 220 volt outlet and tell you to turn off the main breaker

ive never seen it done any other way at least?? just plug that shit in your dryer outlet and flip the main breaker

3/4/2009 8:48:50 PM

We have wired a double pole breaker to a generator, put it in the breaker box, and turned off the main breaker. If you have a generator hooked up to a house during an outage and have the main breaker on so that it's back feeding into the grid, it will be ruined when the linemen ground out the line for safety before they start working on it, besides posing a serious safety risk.

3/4/2009 9:31:27 PM

Quote :

"lulz and then to backfeed the whole area with your generator"

Quote :

"yeah. i'm looking to do it right, not the "easy" way rough numbers for parts and hours of labor?"

not that i'm a licensed electrician or anything, but all you need to do is put a plug on one end of a 10-3 s-cord to match your generator, probably a 4l or 3l 30p twist lock, and one to match your dryer plug, red and white go to x1 and x2, green is ground, turn off your main breaker, plug in the dryer end, start up the generator and plug it in

as long as you never have the hot end plugged in first, have the power on and the generator, or forget to turn off the main breaker, there are no problems, if you want a dumbass-proof system with a 2 way main disconnect and a sub panel for your generator feeds, you are looking at $3-5k, and you are gonna have your power off for at least a day until the power company comes back out to put the meter back in after the disconnect to change the panel

^ your generator breaker will kick out before it ever puts enopugh power to backfeed any significant voltage into the grid

[Edited on March 5, 2009 at 6:39 PM. Reason : sigh]

3/5/2009 6:38:45 PM

Backfeeding the line can seriously injure or kill line workers.

It is entirely possible to use your dryer outlet and try to always be careful with your main breaker and having it off, but the reality is, having a dedicated generator outlet near where your generator will be, and having your house on a transfer switch is the proper way to do it, not to mention convenient.

I don't know where your dryer is in your house, but mine is in an interior laundry room, behind the dryer. I would need a good 25-50 foot cord to get out to the outside to plug into the generator, and i would also need to climb behind the dryer to get it hooked up.

It was a matter of convenience for me, but I also installed everything myself so I saved a ton of money there.

3/5/2009 7:49:06 PM

exactly, i too would need about 25 feet of cable to get to the dryer outlet.

so what's it cost to do it your way wolfmarsh? about how long did it take?

3/5/2009 9:37:27 PM

I think all told it cost me about $600-750 bucks to do the installation. If I remember right, the transfer switch was about $300 or $400 of that cost. The remainder was wire, conduit, etc..

It took me a saturday to complete it.

The hardest part was where I had to pass a huge 4 wire cable through a U bend. It took a lot of lube and weight to get that thing to move through.

I remember seeing some kit at lowes so I went and looked it up for you:

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=182534-48019-30216BRK&lpage=none

This is not what I used, but it looks pretty interesting. Seems to contain everything you would need for a pretty decent price. I can't speak to quality or anything, because I didnt use it, but seems like a decent option.

Here is the user manual for it:

http://www.reliancecontrols.com/Documents/30216BRK%20Instructions.pdf

3/6/2009 12:17:03 AM

unless you are experienced with wiring and are comfortable working inside of a hot breaker box, this isnt something you should even attempt to do yourself

and stay away from the reliance crap, stick with square d or siemens in case you ever need to replace the breakers, there is a lot more interchangability with those two

3/6/2009 10:02:02 AM