What is the easiest and/or best way to hook up Pro Power to your house ?

[DanielG]

I have seen a lot about it on here but would like to start from the beginning. Please give me ideas of what would be easy and safe way to power my home with my truck in the event of a power outage. It would be nice to be able to just hook up a cord and throw some switches in the event that lightning takes out my power for several hours. It’s never easy pulling out generators and setting up cords and as soon as you are done, the power is back on.
just give me your ideas of how this can be done without breaking the bank but still staying safe.

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[Kodiak]

Your options for a safe way is to either use extension cords (cheap and fast) or install a transfer switch to your electrical box. A transfer switch (TS) is the safest way to use the 30 amp plug and power a lot of circuits with one cord. TS cuts off any chance for back flow to the grid and you pick what you want to run off of it. This does take some electrical knowledge or you can pay an electrician to do it. I hired licensed electricians to put mine in properly and paid about $1600 for it about 5 years ago. I did this for gas generator back up. The guy made me a 50 foot 4 prong 30 amp cord too. Very nice and clean and will be a small selling feature when I sell this house. Good luck.

 

[JoeWpg]

There are many folks who want to implement a main breaker interlock kit on their main panel (~$50) to allow them to connect their PB to power their entire house. Ie instead of hard-wiring a few selected circuits into a new panel as above, they could simply turn off a few breakers to power hungry things (like a dryer, infloor heaters, water heater etc.) and power every light/plug in the house (the PB has enough power to do this).

The problem (as discussed in numerous posts) is that the PB is a neutral bonded generator - if you connect the 2 hots, neutral and ground (as per code) to your main panel (through a 40A breaker with interlock so only one of the main breaker or this new feed can feed your house) the truck GFI trips immediately. Some have done tests to remove the bonding screw in the main panel (or to not connect the ground to the PB) to prove the concept, but it is not recommended.

The above post is bang-on to describe the proper ways to do this at this time - it would be ideal to find an inexpensive fully rated (ie 200A) manual transfer switch that switches the 2 hots and the neutral - but so far no such animal exists at a reasonable cost.. Or even better would be if Ford could include a switch to remove the neutral-ground bond in the PB inverter - it needs to be bonded when powering at a remote site (ie creating its own local grid) but needs to be removed when connecting to a house (which already has the bond). Many gas generators have this capability (ie to remove the ground/bond) but the PB inverter does not allow this (and I am not aware of anyone that has disassembled the inverter to find the discrete bonding location and to add a switch).

 

[Gros Ventre]

Well, you need four things: An interlock of some kind to prevent reverse powering the grid power system outside your house. A cable or extension cord rated at 240 VAC & 30 Amps. This cable has to have 2 hots, 1 neutral and 1 ground wire. This cable cannot have two male ends. Finally an input box with a male connector. The interlock for various panels is available from electrical supply houses, the 240VAC extension cord and the input box are available at Home Depot (call ahead on the extension cord as its not a high turnover item). The discussion of bonded neutral versus floating neutral is key here. The PB is a bonded neutral setup and thus it will sense your neutral-ground bond in the house and see it as a ground and will shutdown the generator. I have approached Ford via my dealer. Ford doesn't care and will avoid doing anything like providing a method of changing it into a floating neutral... They need more motivation. Had I understood this I wouldn't have split for the $750 for the 7.2 kW mod. Opening the ground between the house and the truck is not safe although it will work if you do that.

 

[Hullguy]

The easiest and best way is to have a neutral switching transfer switch installed.

 

[Gros Ventre]

I remain vastly disappointed with Ford on this one: My Powerboost will not "run my house." They advertised that in Texas when power was out that the Powerboost ran peoples homes. Well it will power four extension cords that you can run into your house and plug in individual things, but when it comes to "running the house" it won't do it because it is not set up properly to account for the NEC neutral-ground bonding inside a house. In my case my house is set up to receive a generator in accordance with NEC requirements, but my Powerboost won't run it because it shuts down on sensing the neutral-ground bonding. Ford is arrogant on this one and won't even address the issue.

 

[Mosey]

Gros Ventre,

What Ford claims is 100% correct. The pro power generator is no different than any other bonded neutral generator. It will run your house, you just need to install the correct transfer switch. Reliance and Winco are two companies that make such a transfer switch. Ford has to make the propower bonded neutral to meet OSHA regulations.

 

[Gros Ventre]

You state the key thing: OSHA. There is no reason for a properly set up house, meeting the NEC, to not be run by a Floating Neutral Generator. When I bought my PB, the expereience of Texas powering homes was in my mind. I had not reason to wonder. My house os already set up to be run by a floating neutral generator, so my expectation was that when I got home, I'd plug it in and be up and running. Only I discovered that the trucks software won't let it run.. The fix is simple: Ford provide a procedure for converting it to a floating neutrl generator. I should not have to put as much money, or more, into my hosue than the PB Generator itself cost... That's why I'm disappointed. Oh, and byt the way, Ford only responds to inquiries with half answers and here's how you can convert your house... Vastly disapponted.

 

[FrankThompson]

We know the intent of the PB was to be for work trucks. Yes they took the opportunity during the Texas freeze to say the pb could help, and it could, but that is not what they made it for.

This is why it follows OSHA, not the NEC.
Like others have said, you could have it connected to your house, you just have to have the correct transfer switch. You may not like it, but it's the way it is.

They technically did not lie, and you could have researched the type of generator it was prior to buying. One could argue you both are at fault.

I also would like to hook it up to my house and the thought of putting in the proper transfer switch is daunting, but it is what it is. I'm also fine just running extension cords if the need arises until I do. I'm still glad I have the option.

 

[Mosey]

The installation of a transfer can look like a big job indeed. The key to the wiring is you must bring both the hot and neutral over to the transfer switch, not just the hot with the neutral bars cross connected. The grounds can cross connect.

The hardest part for me will be running the feed out of the house.

 

[FrankThompson]

The installation of a transfer can look like a big job indeed. The key to the wiring is you must bring both the hot and neutral over to the transfer switch, not just the hot with the neutral bars cross connected. The grounds can cross connect.

The hardest part for me will be running the feed out of the house.

For me, the biggest issue is that it appears they want you to do this per circuit. I wish I could have a transfer switch between the meter and my electrical panel. Our house is a remodel and the Master is now where the panel sits. Adding more boxes next to it is a huge PITA and of course makes it harder to cover it up.

(Yes I've investigated moving it to the tune of $2k and that was years ago I'm sure its more now)

 

[Mosey]

Older homes can be challenging.

 

[Gros Ventre]

As to OSHA vs the NEC... they followed the NEC first. Then since they set it up for a job site generator they made it a bonded neutral generator (OSHA). They had an option. The issue is simple: they could have included a method to convert it to a floating neutral generator. Did they lie? Well, who lies in advertising. The Generac Panels you see here are nice but you do not need to limit the number of circuits for a single family residential house. Except for a few large loads (electric dryer, electric hot water heater, Electric oven, & A/C unit) you simply do not have much load in a typical house (maybe 1 to 1.5 kW at most), thus limiting the number of circuits is non-sense. So why not be able to run the whole house? I expect Ford to be up front, they said you could run your house off the PB. There was no mention of needing to modify the house in order to do so. So tell me again, why should I have to do detailed electrical engineering research to figure out Ford's advertising shtick? They said I could run my house, my house conforms to all NEC requirements for a generator, so tell me again why I should break out the textbooks?

 

[codyj24]

I have a 2022 Powerboost and ended up buying a Transfer Switch panel from Reliance Controls, a 30 or 40' extension cord and the power inlet box and misc parts. I was going to wire up my house - but things changed personally - so I have all these items sitting in my garage if anyone is looking to purchase for their homes.
thx

 

[SouthernGuy]

Easiest and best don't usually turn out to be the same way. Consider the SAFEST method too.

My setup:
Generac 6852 Manual Transfer Switch
Power Inlet Box and 40ft generator cord from Amazon.
Some 10/3 w/ground, a couple of tandem breakers, misc (conduit, fittings, wire nuts, etc)

Total installation time was about 8 hrs spread over 2 days ($1,200).

From time of power outage to 'up and running' on the PowerBoost .... 4 minutes.
Take the cord from the wall hook, plug it into the truck an Inlet box, start the truck, flip the Transfer switch.

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