I am going to hook up 220 in my garage. I have a 100amp service to the garage from the 200amp service at the house. I am finishing up the interior walls of the garage this week. I would like to be able to back feed the house from the garage (not connected) with a generator but I'm not sure the size of breaker or wiring I should use. The generator is rated for 5000 watts. My entire house is electric so I would like to be able to have hot water and keep the fridge running if the power goes out at a minimum. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
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Hooking up 220 outlet to also use as a generator input if needed.
- Thread starter bsteward
- Start date
ishiboo
Well-known member
I am going to hook up 220 in my garage. I have a 100amp service to the garage from the 200amp service at the house. I am finishing up the interior walls of the garage this week. I would like to be able to back feed the house from the garage (not connected) with a generator but I'm not sure the size of breaker or wiring I should use. The generator is rated for 5000 watts. My entire house is electric so I would like to be able to have hot water and keep the fridge running if the power goes out at a minimum. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
This has been beaten to death... DO NOT attempt to do this. It is illegal and dangerous. Wire a proper inlet (not that much money) or at least run the conduit now until you can afford to. This requires a manual interlock to prevent the inlet from being connected to the power supply at the same time as mains. Without it you can kill a lineman.
Hot water heater is usually at least 4KW, a 5k max generator could MAYBE run it, but very little else. The moment the fridge kicked in it would trip the breaker due to the start-up surge.
I think you need to consider your budget and what you all want to run, and the convenience factor, before you can get much more advice. You can save a ton of money by switching the fridge/etc over to a different outlet and not having the manual interlock switch/etc.
Falcon67
Well-known member
Just about all electric hot water heaters have two 4500 watt elements. So your 5K won't cut it for hot water. And without the lockout switch, you could very well kill someone.