Reminder: Never connect a generator to home wiring without transfer switch

Thu Aug 26 04:55:32 UTC 2021

On 8/25/21 21:09, Warren Kumari wrote:

>
> ... and my "funny" story.
>
> We used to live in San Jose. There was a large heat-wave, and much of 
> SJC lost power because of A/C load, etc. Anyway, my wife and I go and 
> camp in one of the office conference rooms for a few days because the 
> office still has power and A/C.
> Eventually PG&E claims that power is back on our street, so we drive 
> back to San Jose and... no power. I flag down a passing PG&E truck and 
> ask if they know when it will *really* be back. Lineman says that it 
> is. I say it isn't. He says it is. I say it isn't.
> He gets annoyed, opens up the pedestal box and sticks a meter in it, 
> and agrees that I have no power. He then sticks the meter across the 
> 800A fuse, and discovers that the fuse blew.
> "Ah. I can fix that fer you..." he says, and goes to the back of the 
> truck... "Doh. I'm out of 800A fuses. Um.... er.... well, here is a 
> 6,000A fuse, that'll do..."
>
> I briefly question the logic of this (presumably the lines in the 
> ground are sized somewhere around 800-1,200A), but he says that 
> this'll do, and he'll come back in the next few days to replace it. I 
> lived there for another 8 or so months, and it was never replaced, 
> but, well,... not my wires, so, um ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I guess...

You annoyed him enough to give you a larger fuse, and be done with you :-).

Obviously, a safety hazard all on its own.

Mark.
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