If you have wifi it is a waste of $$ to pay for manually operated features. With wifi, your buttons and dials are on your phone.
I guess I’m a glass half empty person because first thing I thought of is what if the WiFi went out. Now if it was Bluetooth you wouldn’t have to worry about it.
Why would wifi go out? Answer: Most likely from a power outage. In which case your sprinkler system wont work anyway. And besides, how traumatic is it to be without a sprinkler system for the length of time your wifi would likely be down? I suspect the other crap you have that depends on wifi would frustrate you more.
Atty's Law...hard wire everything.
But......you can't hardly find anything with an RJ45 jack anymore. Sucks.
So Wi-Fi it is. Groan.
But......you can't hardly find anything with an RJ45 jack anymore.
Sucks. So Wi-Fi it is. Groan.
We have welder/generators at my work that we rent and have a cord that goes from the machine to an outlet on our electrical panel so we can back feed it to power computers and lights if power goes out.
I am a dummy at electrical stuff. Sounds like I need an electrician to wire it to the electrical panel. That is what I figured.
I know people who have an extension cord they made with two male ends - one to the generator and one to a an outlet. They turned off the main breaker so that the current did not feed back into the system as power was restored, perhaps shocking a worker. That cord feeds all of the outlets governed by that one breaker .
I made one but never got the guts to use it. I cannot feature myself having a moment, when I am lucid, where I decide to plug it in and use it. If I did have such a moment, I would be over ridden by Mrs CMD, a woman whose trust in me is not exactly infinite.
If I understand your question right: If you want your existing outlets to be powered, then yes, it needs to be hard wired, unless you use CMD's method. But if you want it to only power a few things like a refrigerator, etc., it doesn't need to be connected to your existing wiring at all. But you'll need to run extension cords to directly plug in anything you want to the generator.
I don't have one, but my (great) neighbor does. When power goes out for a while and he runs his, he runs a big cord down to my place to plug in a few things.
I installed the same set up at my supervisor's house years ago. It's not hard but you're right about having someone do it that knows what they are doing. I've worked with electrical and electronic equipment for many years and have wired breaker panels or added breakers for people. If you have someone do it for you, they may recommend having an electrical disconnect switch installed also. The way I did it was I installed a 40 amp breaker and wired it to the receptacle that I mounted. The welder/generators that we have put out about 42 amps at 230vac. So one hot leg to each side of the breaker and connected the neutral and ground. The thing is you have to make sure to turn the main breaker off and it's probably better to turn off all or most of your breakers and turn them on one at a time after the generator is started and the breaker is turned on. I doubt you'll end up with a large enough generator to power everything like you normally do so you have to pick and choose what is important to supply power to depending on the output of the generator.
It kinda depends on How you are going to Use the Generator.
Here's Two Examples...
1) My Aunt and Uncle live in Oregon in an area where the power goes out when it storms. When they loose power, my Uncle wheels his Portable Gasoline Generator onto their covered Patio and cranks it up. Then he feeds a 2 Big Fat Extension Cords that are plugged into the generator thu a window and Everything they want to Power (Microwave, Lights, Portable Heater, Computer, Radio, etc) get plugged into One of the Two Extension Cords.
2) Their Neighbor has Generator that is Hard Wired to their Main Electrical Panel via a Sub-Panel. When the Power goes out, they Disconnect the Main Power from the City Service, Turn the Breaker On on the the Sub-Panel, the crank up the Generator. Now their Entire House has power. Although they Can't turn on Everything at the same time or it will Trip the Generator. But there are No Extension cords. And all the Lights and Wall Outlets work.
Then when the Power comes back on, they Turn off the Generator, Switch the Sub-Panel Breaker to Off, the Turn On the Main Panel's Breaker to restore City Service.
For most people, they are going to have a Set-Up like My Aunt and Uncle. A Portable Gas Generator that gives you Power from the Generators Outlets. Or Power from an Extension Cord that is plugged into one of the Generators Outlets. It's a Lot Cheaper. And it's hard to Screw something up.
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I've got a portable generator and put a cord going into the mudroom with a 220v plug on the gen. end and two 120v duplex outlets in the mudroom. I have a plug on the oil furnace and can run a cord to the fridge and into the family room for tv, computers and stuff, or to a window AC in the summer. Came in handy a few times.
ETA: My Aunt and Uncles Generator has enough Watts to run their Frig and Free Standing Freezer at the same time. But Not a whole lot else.
So what they do is run the Lights, Radio, Computer, etc... with the Frig and the Freezer not plugged in. And if the Outage lasts longer than about 2 Hours or so, they Switch to just having the Frig and Freezer plugged in and 1 or 2 Lights for a Half Hour or so. Then switch back to having the Frig and Freezer unplugged.
Kinda a Hassle. But Most Outages for them are resolved with 4 to 6 Hours. So My Uncles thinking was he could Save Money by not having to buy an Expensive Generator with enough Watts to run everything he wants at the Same Time.
I use the number 1 option myself. I seem to have a mental block about electricity so I've kept it simple. A fairly small generator ($400 Predator at Harbor Freight) is enough to keep lights, tv's, big and small fridges and freezers going. When we replaced the A/C, after the inspection the installer added a pigtail so I can power the igniter and blower on our gas furnace.
For the once or twice a year we see outages of part of a day to a bit more, it works fine. No A/C and a bit of running around to hook up but cheap insurance.
Rose, get an electrician. I did my own hard wiring because I know what I’m doing. But if you don’t know what you’re doing then it is too dangerous. Besides, there are codes and laws that require you to have special switches to prevent electricity from going back in the grid and frying powerline workers.
Thanks everyone, I knew I could count on you.
I think just using an ext cord would work, I just am not sure how many things could be connected to the generator safely.
I think just using an ext cord would work, I just am not sure how many things could be connected to the generator safely.
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