Your last generator Maintenance Run

[Gale Hawkins]

I know our 25 year old Coleman 7KW has the grounding lug and we drove a 4' grounding rod. I will have to look at the similar size I bought for my birthday last Feb. The one 1800/1400 that I bought last week has a thin grounding wire bundle tied to the generator frame but I forget what the manual said about its usage. Now i am wondering if I will get another generator next Feb.

 

[TheMan419]

Actually, depends on the generator. Most whole house generators are not supposed to be connected to ground rods, and share ground with house system. Portables do not require grounding but it can be done. Most portables are gfci protected so it isnt required. My 6500 watt newer briggs doesnt even have a ground lug

As a result of this conversation I checked mine. It is 6500 watt bought 5 or so years ago. Powerstroke with a Honda engine. No grounding lug either.

 

[buickanddeere]

Grounding is a peculiar topic . It is difficult to keep everything at a similar voltage potential during faults or lightening strikes when ground rods typically won’t even trip a 15amp breaker if connected to 120V . Unless bolted to something like a deep well casing with short straight direct ground cable . A typical ground system won’t hold fault voltage down to near earth potentional.

 

[frugalangler]

Also, grounding for safety is significantly different than grounding for lightning, safety looks for common bonding where possible, lightning is sinking high current to ground and not into the power systems.

 

[grsthegreat]

ok..current generac generators do not have grounding lugs because frame and neutral are bonded and transfer switch does not switch neutral. older versions of generac generators did not have this jumper and thats why they were grounded.




some portable generators have ground lugs and some do not. also, some portable generators that are gfci protected will trip when hooked into a house that have neutral and ground combined on main panel. i hooked up a honda to a house manual transfer switch recently that would trip whenever i flipped on the generators main breaker even if no breakers on house panel were on. i called manufacturer and they told me to open side access on generators rotor and unbond neutral to ground jumper. that did it. im not even sure if you have to ground this generator if the jumper is removed or not, and neither did the tech on phone. this is truly a grey area. i would assume that the 4 wire feeder to house would effectively ground the generator seeing as its hooked into the house ground system....but im not sure.

 

[grsthegreat]

a little off subject....but one needs to admire the homeowner at work on their own electrical system. this was a photo from another website. he needed 110...i guess this is one way to do it

 

[Peter 315]

a little off subject....but one needs to admire the homeowner at work on their own electrical system. this was a photo from another website. he needed 110...i guess this is one way to do it

View attachment 541950

:thumbsup:...

 

[ultrarunner]

a little off subject....but one needs to admire the homeowner at work on their own electrical system. this was a photo from another website. he needed 110...i guess this is one way to do it

View attachment 541950

The only time I come across this is people stealing electricity...

Either from the power company bypassing the meter or from another unit in a multifamily building.

 

[MossRoad]

a little off subject....but one needs to admire the homeowner at work on their own electrical system. this was a photo from another website. he needed 110...i guess this is one way to do it

View attachment 541950

Yikes! :laughing:

 

[daugen]

that might even be called risking a catastrophe by your homeowners insurer and they would say so sorry when it all burned...
they'll cover most stupid things but this is pretty bad.