# An observation



## Marlin (May 25, 2015)

I have made an observation over the course of several years, there are enthusiasts in every field, electricity and home wiring is no different. There are hobbyists and there are professionals, all with opinions.

If you ask a hobbyist for help during a power outage, you will have your furnace and lights back in operation in no time at all.


If you ask a professional how to hook your generator to your furnace, and a couple of lights, you will get facts.

And opinions.

If you ask only one professional electrician, and follow his advice to the letter, you will probably be ok, everything will work.

It is when you ask a second professional electrician his opinion of the facts that the first professional electrician gave you, that is when the trouble begins.

I love it when I hire a pro to hook up something for me, and later have another professional in the house doing something else for me and he sees the work the first guy did, and asks me about it.

It really shakes my faith in the world of professional electricians.

I'm beginning to think that when it comes to something they are familiar with, they know their stuff.

Problem is, it appears not many of them went to generator school.

Ask two different electricians some time about floating neutrals on a portable generator and whether it is important, you will see what I mean.

If you really want to experience frustration, ask a pro if your portable generator needs to be grounded.

Where is the word, "standardization" when I need it?

Just for grins, I told a professional electrician that I was running my furnace off of my portable 120 volt generator using a two conductor extension cord.

You'd have thought I had committed a mortal sin.

My question to him was "why?" seeing as how "the ground wire in the socket on the generator wasn't connected to anything anyway".

Hey, if I only have a two wire extension cord plugged into a portable generator, which wire is the ground?

Maybe we need to take classes, and pass a test and get a license in order to buy a portable generator.

Would that make things safer?

A few years ago, I bought a new gas furnace and hired it installed.

I told the guy I wanted power to the furnace to come through a pigtail that I could unplug from a wall outlet and be able to plug it into an extension cord coming from a generator.

No problem, says he.

But, he was going to have to have a friend of his, a professional electrician, come in and do it.

It was done exactly as I wanted, and works beautifully.

Since then, I had some plumbing updated and the plumber fella is also an electrician, and he asked me who wired up my furnace.

I told him that I did, just in case he saw something wrong or illegal, thinking that if he knew a pro did it he might clam up and not tell me anything.

Well, he proceeded to tell me that it was ok if I did it, but a pro "would never do such a thing" because it is "not legal to run a stationary furnace on a flexible (extension type) cord" and it is not legal to have a duplex outlet there that the furnace is plugged into because a furnace must be on a dedicated line from the breaker box. 

He stated that the mere presence of that second outlet on the line meant that the furnace was not on a dedicated line, making the installation illegal.

He said that if I ever go to sell this house that an inspector, "would have a Heyday with that".

I never told him that a pro did it, nope, did not tell him.

Lesson learned: Never trust a professional.

More observations later.

Marlin


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