Portable Generator for Home back up

[Monk]

Not much to check on electric heaters.......thermostats and elements.
Hard water in our area eats them up like crazy.

[milner351]

Dan - get a vent free gas log kit for your fireplace if you have one - or get a free standing vent free fireplace.

It requires no flue or chimney.

It requires no electricity - start it like your gas grille - and you have 30,000 or so btu of gas heat when the power goes out.

as far as the natural gas back up generator goes...I guess we have better than average natural gas supply - we've never had an issue with running the generator when the power was out... and we have lots of neighbors with similar set ups. My buddy worked at eaton so we got a good deal on the whole set up - now Scott has me convinced to install a 4.3 v-6 if the kohler ever craps out.

[STINEY]

I've pulled the meter on several houses over the years in order to work safely on the main breaker, replace entire panel, etc. Power company has never done anything more than put a new seal on.

Wind also wears the wire on the seal in half quite often, at least around here. Seems every few years the seal just falls off from wear.

As long as there is no sudden change in your usage (at least downwards) there is unlikely to be much trouble, especially if there was a sustained power outage in your area. They have bigger fish to fry.

[BigAL]

pull the meter, no back feeding to lines.. just unplug anything you like before you put it back, surges kill.. the power comp. toasted my desktop when they changed out the meter.. from the old type to new digital readout.. they unplugged and pluged within a minute, but the desk top was on.. and pop let out the smoke... I was like wtf. and went screaming at the guy walking away from my meter with old one in hand.. the desktop was 2 weeks old..

Pull the meter??, I don't know about where you live, but they lock the meters on the breaker box here. Your just not going to walk out an pull it off. Or are you meaning turn off the "Main" breaker, which would cut power to the whole house. then you could jumper off the lugs on the bus bars and supply your power from the gernerator that way without worrying about bad things happening when the power comes back on. The best thing would be if the generator had a 4 wire 220v plug, that way you can run the two black wires to the bus bar lugs, the white wire to the Common bus bar and the green to ground, this idealy would power your house like if it was hooked to the grid and would power any 220v curcuits in the house. By the way 5500 watts is only about 45 amps, so think about that and your power needs. And of course this is a "in a pinch" way of doing it, for long term I'd do it the right way as described in previous posts.

[nesabo]

They do not lock them around here. If there is a fire, the fire department can just walk up and pull the meter out. My Breaker box is in the basement of my house, so it is not easy for the fire department to throw the main. They do put "wire" locks on them, but a pair of wire cutters remove that easily.

[Russell]

The are wire locks here. Al what kind of locks do they use. For $20 you can buy a set of 18" bolt cutters that will drop and master lock like butter!

[Deaf Bob]

They do not lock them around here. If there is a fire, the fire department can just walk up and pull the meter out. My Breaker box is in the basement of my house, so it is not easy for the fire department to throw the main. They do put "wire" locks on them, but a pair of wire cutters remove that easily.

Here in OR, many places have fuse/breaker panels by back door or (mine) front door.. Old gas meter was on side of house.
I was surprised while at my inlaw's in Iowa all meters read in the basement..
I want to redo mine to read from same place for the reader, but have better branching out, like to outdoor buildings instead of going thru the house and out th garage..

[dieselgeek]

Scott has me convinced to install a 4.3 v-6 if the kohler ever craps out.

lol

Merely suggested it as a similar cost alternative that would last as long as the house. Kohler is fine if it needs to run 500 hours in its whole life.

I didn't figure such a suggestion would draw out so much snark,

[TheSilverBuick]

The are wire locks here. Al what kind of locks do they use. For $20 you can buy a set of 18" bolt cutters that will drop and master lock like butter!

They locked them in So. Cal. too, but they were hardly master lock quality locks. Crap pot metal locks by the look of it. A good hammer blow would destroy it. I'm sure it's more for keeping honest people honest or such. They just wire tie them here too.

[BigAL]

The are wire locks here. Al what kind of locks do they use. For $20 you can buy a set of 18" bolt cutters that will drop and master lock like butter!

They use a security type bolt that they have to unscrew with a special tool.

[Huskinhano]

The are wire locks here. Al what kind of locks do they use. For $20 you can buy a set of 18" bolt cutters that will drop and master lock like butter!

I found 4" angle grinders made short work of any anti tamper stuff on meters when I was doing service changes.