I recently purchased a Champion portable 5500W generator for use with my home's existing transfer switch. It has the familiar 30A L14-30R circular twist lock connector on it, that I use with a 40ft male->female power cord. Recently when I had my local electrician over, he plugged it in for me, we test fired it and it worked well.
But now that I'm going to be using it on my own, I'm obsessed about safety, particularly the steps you take to connect it to the house. This is what the electrician did:
- Plug female end of cord into power inlet box on house
- Start generator, and let it come up to speed
- Plug male end into generator
- Go to transfer switch - make sure all branch breakers being fed by transfer switch are off (this will prevent sudden loads when moving mains to GEN position)
- Flip main breakers, one at a time, to GEN position, from LINE
- Flip branch breakers being fed by transfer switch, one at a time, to ON position
My concern really lies with steps 1-3, as there seems to be a lot of conflicting information on the net. My generator manual clearly states NOT to start the generator with loads connected. However, there is a warning in the box for the power cord that I got to connect the cord BEFORE starting the generator! So this information seems contradictory...
There is also a YouTube video here with a guy plugging in the cord BEFORE he starts the generator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_6ZpziBF-4
I'm actually starting to think either way may be OK, as long as the transfer switch mains are in the LINE position, as that will cut power off from the inlet box, right? So there would be no chance of overloading the genny at startup.
Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated. There is so much misinformation out there it's ridiculous.