Randall's Blog

While Debbie is in Florida I have been busy with a few projects. I am making another work bench for the pole barn. This one will be on wheels. I am re-using some of the lumber that was in the basement as a shelving unit. A couple of people told me that the shelves would have to be moved anyway. They were too close to the electrical panel and the GroSolar folks wanted the wall for the inverters. I took apart the shelves and saved the lumber. It was a bit dirty and so I planed the edges to get at the nice wood underneath.

I used the table saw to rip them into the correct width and the miter saw to cut the angles. This is the top while I am assembling it.

I'll work on the legs next.

Another project I have been working on is wiring the house so the next time that the power goes out for an extended period of time we can use the generator to run the vitals. This has to be done so that the generator power does not feed back into the electrical grid (in case workers are repairing the lines). I selected several circuits that we would want to run on the generator; the water pump, furnace, refrigerator, sump pump and water purification system. Each circuit is wired so that power can come from the panel (normal grid power) OR from the generator. The switches select which power source the circuit will be connected to. The power from the generator comes in on a special cable that I fed through the basement wall. I wired a small electrical panel for the generator circuits as well.

Here are the before & after photos:

The next thing is to test out the job I did and see if the generator can handle all the loads. (I did calculate the amps but the real output of the generator might not be as claimed.)

R