Generator - bonded neutral connecting to house

Question

I have a bonded neutral generator that I plan to hook up to the whole house using a 50A cable which includes a ground wire (Conntek TES1450-20). I understand that in theory I should first modify the generator to remove the neutral bond, but I was wondering if since it's connected using a cable with a ground in it and the neutral is bonded to the ground anyways, does it really hurt anything to leave it as is?

The generator would not be connected to a ground rod as it would be connected to the home's ground (though please advise if this is not correct), and the frame has rubber feet under it so there shouldn't be inadvertent grounding of its own.

As a side note unrelated to the question, it's a low THD inverter generator to help avoid damage to any electronics (Sportsman GEN85KIDF).

Answer 1

You need to use an interlock or transfer switch in any case, as I'm sure you know.

I know that "separating neutral" seems trite when you don't know why it is important. But it is. Without that rule, a simple wire break can cause neutral current to take unexpected routes, and massively overload those routes. A lot of the electrical code is to make sure that if a common failure occurs, something else doesn't fail catastrophically. Because that stuff does happen.

Your safe-and-legal options are:

• Separate neutral and ground at the generator
• Use a "knife switch style" transfer switch that throws over neutral, e.g. a 3-pole transfer switch, or alternately supply only 120V to the house and use a 2-pole switch.