No Electricity

I am considering adding solar panels to my home to generate electricity.  I will not add batteries however (to expensive) so when the grid goes down I won't get energy from the panels (you need a special inverter and batteries) so I want to add a portable gas generator for those, hopefully, limited cases.



I just wondered how the solar wiring gets interfaced into my system (breaker panel?) and can I later add a transfer switch or interlock switch when I add the generator?



Or should I do that at the same time (perhaps the interface is complicated)?



Thoughts?



Thx
      

I am in the process of designing our new kitchen. The design calls for a free-standing island that needs electricity for a range/stove. The spot where the island is going currently has no electricity.



The floor is tile on concrete. The house is in Florida (no basement).



How do I run electricity to the island?
      

OK, I took everyone's advice and ran a separate 6/3 w/50A male inlet receptacle back to the panel area so my RV generator can feed the transfer switch.



I'm ordering a Reliance 51406C (50A, 6 circuits).  The generator (Onan 5500) puts out 45A, but my house only needs a small number of circuits because it has mostly natural gas appliances and gas furnace with radiators.



I was wondering if anyone has hardwired one with 6/3 Romex?  The small compartment the unit has for hardwiring looks pretty tight for 6/3 plus the wire nuts.
      

Greetings all.



This is my first post here, I hope it goes well.



My name is Joe and I have searched Google. and this forum for my answer but have not been able to find a definitive answer to my question.  I have seen many replies talking about getting a tone generator or a line tracer but my experience is that tone generators are for Data and phone cables rather than electrical cables and the line tracers I've found online all seem to be about tracing the line back to the breaker panel so without knowing more I'm hesitant to purchase a line tracer in case it cannot do what I want.

My dilemma is very likely very simple to anyone with electrical experience so I hope it's not too trivial for this crowd.

I have recently purchased a house that is over 120 years old and have a motion sensor light on the porch that is supposedly connected to a switch inside but does not turn on.  I've opened the wall plate and used a voltage indicating pen to see where the electricity is.  In this case there are two light switches, one that has lines that have been spliced and another that supposedly leads to the porch light according to a long time tenant in that unit.  It all looks like a bit of a mess and the connections don't make sense.  In this scenario the black cables have the electricity and the white cables complete the circuit.  The switch to the porch light has a black cable coming from the top of the box going to the switch and a white cable connected to the other screw that comes from splitting the white cable from the other switch.  What I would like to do is know which cables in that wall box correspond to the cables to the porch light.  Can anyone give me an idea what I should do?

Do I need something like the Amprobe advanced wire tracer (http://www.professionalequipment.com...0/wire-tracer/) and can it do what I need, or is there something simpler I can do?

All help is appreciated.

Thanks



Joe
      

Been thinking I need a generator. Most likely a propane stand-by with electronic transfer switch. These things cost a bundle is it worth it?
      

I'm getting ready to dig a trench to run electricity from my house to my garage.  Along with an electrical line, I would also like to run a line for my air compressor.  I would like to keep my compressor in my basement and have a line for it in the garage.  Does anyone have any tips for how to properly bury an air compressor hose?  I searched on Google a bit, but couldn't really find exactly what I was looking for.  Thanks.



Jesse
      

I'm buying a 12 lead Stamford generator, engine driven, and have a question or two about over current protection and ground fault protection.  I will normally have it wired for single phase 120 and 240 in the double delta configuration.  I may occasionally rewire it for 3 phase 240 in the series delta configuration.



For the single phase setup, what I've read so far leads me to believe I should have a main circuit breaker of about 125% continuous ampacity; it's a 10 kw generator.  Is that correct?  What kind of breaker do I need?  Should this main be a GFCI?  Do I bond neutral and ground?  This is a portable unit so I need to package a load center on the generator frame.  Can I wire one 240 receptacle directly to the main and two or three 120 volt GFCI's on it as well?  Or do I need another 240 breaker downstream of the main?  What should I be thinking about for swithching back and forth between single phase and three phase?  Alot of questions, trying to get smart and be safe.  Thanks.
      

We want to run 110V service to a portable building 95' from the breaker box at the house. It will run a 110V 8000 BTU AC (dedicated breaker), two single bulb light fixtures and 2 additional wall outlets. Our breaker box at the house is full, but I am being told I can remove a single breaker in the box and replace it with one that contains two breakers. What is the name of this type of breaker and where can I get one? What size breaker should be used for this amount of power requirement? What size breakers should I have in the load center on the portable building?
      

My brother-in-law has a Coleman 8750 Watt portable generator with a 13hp Honda engine.  Worked fine for a couple of years and then all of a sudden it wouldn't provide any voltage at the outlets.  So he called up Coleman and they said the problem was probably a $50 control board.  So he ordered one and installed it.  This temporarily fixed the genset but after an hour or so the electric quit again.  So it appears something is causing the control boards to go bad.  Any idea what could be causing this?