Worst Electrical Mistake You Can Make - Backfeeding Generators

if your cable's got a plug like this on one end that's not a problem but if that plug is on both ends this thing is an accident waiting to happen and in this video we're going to talk about what makes this so unsafe and help you avoid the most common mistake homeowners make when they want to connect their generator to their house electrical safety is built into many of the things you use every single day but you probably never noticed on this regular household extension cord you've got a male plug on one end and you've got receptacles on the other and on this utility extension cord it's exactly the same and here's a huge generator extension cord that i just put together on my last video and this one is capable of putting out 30 amps but you can see on each end of the cable it's the same a male plug on one side and a female on the other power goes into one end of the cord and that's the male end and if the female end had prongs you could get shocked any time you touch them and that's just one of the problems with this double headed cable if you plug one and into power the opposite end will be energized and if you touch those prongs you would get an electric shock so why do they even bother to sell a cable that shouldn't be used in the first place well the answer can be figured out by looking at your electric panel power comes in from your electric company and then it feeds into your circuit breaker panel but before it can be fed out to your circuits it has to go through your main breaker and as everybody knows if you shut that main breaker off everything gets disconnected in your house but electricity has a dirty secret that most people don't know and that's that it doesn't matter where it comes from meaning your power can come in from the street or if you had a generator you could actually feed your panel by putting electricity into one of the outlets in your house and that's why companies are selling a cable like that because they want to promote people to back feed their panels now you might think back feeding sounds great but it's completely illegal and totally unsafe the reason it's illegal is because electricity doesn't just stop at your circuit breaker panel if you back fed your system through one of your outlets it would keep flowing all the way back up to the street even your neighbor might be able to use some of the power from your generator that same electricity from your generator could flow all the way up the line and you've got utility workers working on the power outage they think the power is off and they could get electrocuted from the power from your generator so why not just back feed your panel and turn your main breaker off well that sounds like a good idea but unfortunately during a power outage or a storm oftentimes people forget to do something or someone else in your house turns their breaker on and they can actually allow electricity into your panel causing your generated short out and maybe even have a fire but fortunately there are a couple of legal safe ways to connect your generator to your house that takes all of this worry away now the first one is to use something called an interlock you'd install an outlet like this off of a special circuit breaker on your panel and then you'd install this small metal plate and all this metal plate does is ensure that the generator outlet and your main breaker cannot be on at the same time so you either get to use your generator outlet or have your main breaker on but this prevents you doing any sort of back feeding but you might be wondering how safe can this outlet be it's got those prongs exposed but if you touch them you won't get a shock at all because there is no electricity coming from your breaker panel to this outlet it's going in the opposite direction coming from your generator to your panel so it is a kind of legal back feeding but it is completely safe now when we look at this rv it's very similar it's got the same exposed prongs because if you're camping you might plug into shore power where you'd be feeding power into this outlet and then into your van another great option to feed power into your house during an outage is to use a transfer switch i just did a video showing how to do a one outlet solution but you can also get ones that have four ten or even more circuits so this is the reason that all the electric outlets in your house have female receptacles that's because there's live power behind the outlet and that's why all electric cords are going to always have a male and a female plug they're protecting you from getting a shock from that live power and if you ever see a cord like the one i showed you with two male ends you want to run away because it's definitely not something you want to use i was shocked to see a couple of other channels on youtube recently promoting the idea of illegal back fitting this is just plain dumb it's illegal and totally unsafe make the right choice and get yourself ready for a power outage in advance and don't make a bad choice during a crisis that could cause you big trouble later on

Channel: Silver Cymbal

Views: 2,264,195

Keywords: is backfeeding legal, backfeeding, backfeed, how to backfeed a generator, generator, safe way to use a generator, safely connect a generator to house, backup generator, how to electric

Id: 9kjpS1vfGio

Length: 4min 15sec (255 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 10 2022