question on wireing furnace, legal or not

[Roy D. Cooke, Sr]

Not legal and I would not tell some one on here how to do it .
Would I do it sorry I do not have a furnace.
I have electric heat and a gas fire place .
We electricians can get in trouble with out trying .
Sorry go and buy the proper switch.
Every year we hear of Power outages and some poor person gets hit with a back feed .


Roy Cooke

[Richard L. Bennett]

Good transfer switch are less that $100.00 -- cost of doing it correctly is probably less that doing it wrong

rlb

[Charley L. Bottger]

Originally Posted by pabernathy

Sorry Charley...just figured he would want an opinion from an electrician and an electrical educator on why he should not do it that way.....hell I get PAID for that advice......sorry if it was misguided.

Sorry Charley thats The Tuna Commercial

Paul I wasn't looking for an apologize You were absolutely right in your advice and I was just stating what I do in a crisis.
If you have never lived through a Hurricane, Tornado or Major ice storm you would have no clue as to the true devastation a person can feel and to what extent or even risk that you might be willing to endure for a little normallicy in ones life. My hat and a little sympathy goes to the gentleman for at least trying to prepare in advance of a crises thats more than most folks do.


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[David A. Andersen]

Doesn't the ground and any neutral have to be broken, as well as the line? If not, a back feed into the municipal grid could kill someone working on the line.

And a double pole breaker on a 120vac furnace doesnt cut it either. No fused neutral allowed.

Now, if the furnace is a plug in type (I see these in condo's a lot and R Ray talks about them in CA), would a separate generator line to an outlet at the furnace be OK?

[Greg Fretwell]

You can put O/C protection on the neutral if it also opens any ungrounded conductors. That can't be a "fuse" but it can be an internal trip breaker with sufficient poles. The only problem with using the DPDT switch is it's listing. It is not listed as transfer equipment. In the grand scheme of things that is not the worst violation you can have with generators. The other idea, cord and plug connected blower/thermostat is a source of discussion from time to time. It is, again, a technical violation but perhaps the safest alternative for a homeowner since there will be no connection to building wiring when the generator is used. You should be using a hard service cord, not Romex.

There is no requirement that the equipment ground ever be switched and better not to be. The only issue is the neutral and the possibility of parallel paths. This can get pretty complicated in language but the end result in a properly wired installation is that in any configuration of switching that there is only one bonding jumper point where neutral and ground connect. The easiest way is to unbond the generator and do not switch the neutral. Then the building electrode system and main bonding jumper is still your grounding path. You may still be driving a local rod at the generator but it will only be connected to the equipment ground. That grounding conductor musty be 6ga or larger to satisfy article 250 "bonding of electrodes".

[brian winkle]

I always hear about plug and cord furnaces being wrong from people in other parts of the country, but here in Tucson literally ALL furnaces located indoors are plug and cord. They are required to have a fused receptacle, but plug and cord is the norm. I don't see where this is a violation. This setup can easily be plugged into an emergency power source, although we seldom have need for that. Usually the problem here is summer outages with no cooling.

[Greg Fretwell]

The problem usually gets down to the installation instructions. You can say you are using cord and plug so it can be easily removed for service or for vibration 422.16(A) but that goes on to say "the appliance is intended or identified for flexible cord connection." which most furnace blowers are not.
That will be the violation.
(B) goes on to specify the appliances that are allowed to be cord and plug connected.

[smcarthur]

Right on, Paul. Electrical work is not for amatuers. While there are some non-electricians that are were capable of doing their own wiring, most are not and if you have to ask a DIY website or the guy a Home Depot for advice, you shouldn't be attempting the job. In the case of generators, you put not only yourself and family at risk, but also the poor lineman who's working his butt off trying to get your power restored. Sorry if this offends, just my opinion.

[Paul W. Abernathy]

lol....don't worry Steve.....lately I seem to offend people often..lol....I ignore them.....and Rock On my brother

[phinsperger]

Originally Posted by rbennett

Good transfer switch are less that $100.00 -- cost of doing it correctly is probably less that doing it wrong

rlb

That's pretty good. Up here a 60A transfer box is about $282.00 Can.

[Bill Hathaway]

Ok, then how about a circuit interlock? I believe then I could use all my house circuits safely.

[Greg Fretwell]

Bill, there are listed interlock devices for some panel that will allow the main and top breaker to be interlocked and that qualifies as transfer equipment. The problem is they tend to be very expensive bits of sheet metal.
The little toggle that interlocks 2 adjacent breakers is fairly cheap but the one that does a regular "main" and a load side breaker are $75-100.