You do realize that if he was back feeding the grid he would be powering the whole neighborhood. I very highly doubt his generator was capable of that. And if it was no one noticed that the power was back on for days and shut there generator off? I dont buy they cut his power.
Not back feeding the grid. He was back feeding his house, and because he never shut off the main breaker to his load center, the power company linesman were able to detect power being back fed up to the pole they were working on. As such, the linesmen needed to find out where the back fed power was coming from in order to work on the downed lines nearby, as well as protect themselves from some ****** illegally powering his home.
What happened in my neighbors case is that when the power company started to do the repair work to the lines on my street, they went around to anyone who had a generator running and asked to see how they were hooked up before they started work on the lines.
They wanted to see which ******* was back feeding their generators up to the pole for their own safety.
I have a portable generator with a 10 position manual transfer switch that I set up before hurricane Sandy, and mine was up and running when they came to my door. They said to me, not to a guy that knew a guy, who knew his uncle about the issue, but to me directly, to see my set up.
They said that someone who had a generator running in the area around the pole that had wires down was back feeding the line as they detected power coming back up to the pole. They wanted to see my generator setup, and make sure I was not the one illegally back feeding my house.
I showed them my set up, and they said I was fine, as the transfer switch was preventing any back feeding.
They then went across the street to my neighbors house, who had the illegal back feed hookup, with the double ended male cord (which by the way I saw with my own eyes when he made it) as his generator was also running.
I have no idea what they said to him, but a few minutes later his generator shut off, and one of the power guys went up the pole and cut the line to his house. Physically cut it at the pole. This I saw with my own eyes. They then did something to the line so that it did not fall to the ground, but was still hanging up at the location where it was cut.
They then went around to the 4 other houses that had generators running, but they never came back to the pole to cut any more lines, so I figure everyone else had a legal way of getting power to their homes via their portable generators.
Our area was hit very hard by hurricane Sandy, and there were lines down everywhere, and people everywhere powering their homes with portable generators. Because we all have wells and septic systems, everything we have requires electricity to run. If you did not have a portable generator for the 11 days it took to get the power back to our part of town, everything you had in your refrigerators went bad, you could not heat your home or have hot water, you only flush the toilet a few times, and you had no discharge for your human waste into your septic system.
Out here, the issue with people illegally back feeding a home is taken VERY seriously. And if you screw with the power company, which by the way is New Jersey Central Power and Light, they have no issues with cutting your power lines and making you pay a fine before they hook them back up.
Jim
