Powering my house with a 4500 watt 120v generator.

With the recent winter power outages in Texas, there's a lot of interest in home generator setups. This is how I run my house using a $900 generator and a simple mechanical interlock.
All in, this setup cost me less than $1200. And it lets me run every 120 volt circuit in my house. If I ever get a bigger generator, I can even run my 240 volt equipment, including my air conditioner.

The generator is a Westinghouse iGen 4500, it's available in lots of places.
The male plug for the inlet box is a Marinco CS6364N
I have no affiliations with any of these companies.

[hfjeff]

Great video. I recently picked up a Westinghouse i4500DFC inverter for $749 on sale at Lowes. I already have the interlock, breaker, and inlet box installed for my older 7500w generator (super loud) and was trying to figure out how to use the new inverter to feed the house rather than running extension cords. Problem solved with this video. Thank you.

[mitcharbiter]

Finally, a video for the common folk looking to get a portable generator to power some basic appliances during a power outage.
Informative and well explained!
Well done!

[fratomdev]

Thanks for the info on putting 120VAC to both legs of the breaker box. I have asked other knowledgeable people if I could do what you did with the plug to supply 120VAC to each leg and they said it wouldn't work. I couldn't figure out why this would not work. This video solved my issue, it will work. Thanks

[nunya]

I power my home with the iGen5000DF. I have a 50 amp inlet box so I just use a 30 amp to 50 amp dogbone adaptor to connect my 30 amp power cord to the 50 amp inlet. The dogbone adaptor comes already internally wired to feed both legs with 120v. The only appliance I have that my generator can’t run is the AC since it’s 240v. With proper load managing, I can run everything else if needed including furnace, hot water heater, and dryer since they run off our house supplied natural gas. That generator works great for our application.

[JerryHawk]

I have the Igen 4500DF and converted it yo use natural gas. Hurricane Francine had knock out my power for 4 days. I only had to stop the generator once to change the oil. I have mine set up the same way. It ran lights, ceiling fans, two refrigerators, Chest freezer, three tv's and a 10, 000 BTU window unit with no problems. Who needs to spend $8k for a whole house unit. I have a second unit that i used to run the washer and dryer when needed. It's setup for NG as well. For hurricane Ida we were out of power for 19 days. This little generator was a life saver.

[AlexanderBell]

Great video....I was searching for the info regarding energizing both lines of the panel and you clearly provided that at 4:16....thank you

[ACommenterOnYouTube]

Its not the dirty power that does the damage, its the voltage "spikes" that hurt the electronics

As long as the unit has a voltage regulator and keeps the voltage at 120V, then its fine.

[spacecoastz]

There is a better or cleaner way. Purchase a standard 240 generator cord...and a short "conversion" cord that will take your generator 120 output and split it into both legs for the generator cord. I have this kind of set-up, except mine is the 30 amp four pin inlet box rather than the 50 amp.
And actually I would recommend replacing the 50 amp inlet box with a 30 amp. The reason is that the 30 amp 240v generator cord will be less expensive that a 50 amp cord and easier to handle.

[johnsn]

Your supposed to shut every breaker off when using an interlock then slowly turn on what you need

[shenmisheshou]

For the same installation cost you could do 240. A 240 inverter generator would only have cost a bit more. My advice is to always go 240 for interlock setup.

[justkelly]

Gas stove? Keep an old style percolator pot you can use with a cook stove or camp stove. No power needed.

[zootjeff]

This technique would be dangerous for me and the way my house is wired. Many of my 15A and 20A runs use a shared neutral using 14-3 or 12-3 Romex. This means for each lug of the split phase, they ran the red and the black wires off different 120v breakers but then shared the neutral between those two separate circuits in the single Romex, it then branched out to separate circuits at the switch boxes or outlet branches. This only works because if the two 120V circuits pull the same amount of current, the current on the neutral cancels out to zero, if only one circuit pulls 120V current, then the equal current comes back on the neutral, in general this wiring method saves energy and cost because of less neutral runs and the canceling out of current feature reducing the amount wasted transmission loss in the neutral. If I used this 120V generator technique where I connect the two lugs of the split phase together like he did in this video at the generator input plug, I would risk putting 30 amps through my 14gauge neutral feeders if both 15 amp circuits were fully loaded.

[avflyguy]

You wou would be suprised how little amps/load the furnace takes. 300-400 watts. Only has to run inducer fan, glow igniter, then main blower, which most have a capacitor so it will slowly ramp up. If anyone has natural gas and lose electricity, the gas furnace will take priority,

[Mixwell]

One thing to make sure if you get a generator is find out if it has a floating or bonded neutral. Westinghouse brands usually come with a floating neutral meaning that it is ready to hook up to a main panel where the neutral and grounds are bonded..

Of you're trying to run this with another brand or sub panel you must make sure to switch it.

There can only be 1 bonded neutral in a full circuit, and I don't have the exact answer but I did watch a video on why and forgot the reasoning.. it had something to do with possibly letting the return power go through still or something like that.

[markbilyk]

Any chance can you show how you wired the inside of the plug in?? How you made it power both legs with 1 wire

[georgediego]

Great video! I really need to do this, but I think I need to invest in that sub box now as I'm out of breakers, lol.

[johnwedgeworth]

Could you please make a video showing how to jumper the plug to be able to supply 120 to both legs of the house? Theoretically energizing all 120 circuit in the house. Thanks.

[adamgee]

Did you just put a jumper in between A and B to get 120 to both sides?

[billhoward]

Does your generator not have a jumper between ground and neutral? For your setup the breaker box has the ground and neutral connected. This can only be done once in a system. Unless you run power cords from the generator to your appliances you need to remove the shunt from the ground to neutral. It is out of code and unsafe to have 2 shunts in the system.

[ltp]

We could directly add this plug in dryer outlet so we can power house … only think we have to make sure we connect two legs with 120 volt like how you did