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Originally Posted by TomC
Failure to do this can do more than try to power the whole grid - it can result in the electrocution of linecrews working on the wires nearby (which is not uncommon since the source of the outage can lie nearby).
This is why transfer switches have a break-before-make feature to disconnect from the grid before connecting the house to the generator.
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Couldn't have said it better, Tom. Unless you really know what you are doing by wiring your own breaker into the panel and manually shutting off the main breaker, you're better off with a transfer switch to make it foolproof. In times like the present storm when outages last several days and people hook up generators, they often don't shut off their own main disconnect and therefore, as you stated, they are putting line voltage out onto the system in the street and the potential is there for a lineman to get hurt. Most of the safety policies with public utilities call for them to ground the neutral before working on their wires, just for that reason.
Blue Thunder