I placed my generator in a well ventilated area approximately 45 feet away from the house. The placement of your portable generator is critical to avoid deadly exhaust gas (i.e. SAFETY WARNING – WHERE TO PLACE YOUR PORTABLE GENERATOR When in doubt, please consult with an electrician instead. This article shows you how I did it with 20+ years of experience as a DIYer. So please be honest with yourself about your skills when working with electricity. Touching them directly (conductors) or indirectly (lug nuts) will result in serious injury or death so extreme caution is absolutely necessary. cables or “legs”) from the outside meter will remain “HOT” OR ENERGIZED. You need to remember that when you turn off the main breaker, conductors (a.k.a. Installing a generator interlock involves working inside the load center (a.k.a. SAFETY WARNING – WORKING INSIDE LOAD CENTER In this article, I am going to show you how I installed a Square D Generator InterLock kit, for my Square D QO load center. This simple, but elegant solution prevents a user from accidentally sending electricity from his portable generator back out to utility lines, where it can possibly electrocute and/or kill an utility worker. This method only allows either circuit breaker to be ON one at a time. Generator interlock is nothing more than a sliding metal locking mechanism that allows a user to either turn on the main breaker or the generator backfeed circuit breaker. I ended up going with a simple Generator Interlock kit ($~250 for parts).

I did not want choose a limited number of backup circuits in advance.

I also eliminated the dedicated manual transfer switch (used with a portable generator) because:

I wanted a flexibility to quickly change out a faulty generator (if needed).

I did not like having yet another electronic part (i.e.brain of the standyby gen) to worry about.Cost was out of my budget (average quote was around $12,000).I quickly eliminated the standby generator (comes with an automatic transfer switch) for three main reasons: minimal failure risk) to operate and maintain.

Instead, I was looking for a flexible setup that was simple (i.e. If you have used this setup, you know those windows and door gaps (where the extension cords are routed) tend to let in water and/or freezing cold air. With hurricanes coming ashore more often, I wanted a better solution than running multiple extensions cords to my portable generator whenever we experienced a power outage.

Wiring generator to panel diagram