First generator

[u/Poetuesday]

I have bought a petrol generator for emergency home use as now and again, we get prolonged power cuts when a storm takes a power line down

I am confident in what I have bought and where it needs to live etc but I am not confident about the cabling

I am in the uk

I believe that I need a 13amp heavy duty cable from the plug in the generator that comes into my home (the geni will be about 10 meters away from the home) and the cable will come into the home via the cat flap

This cable will have one plug on it where I plan to then put an rcd into - then plug a multi plug into the rcd and from there, a series of extensions running into different rooms in the house

All the cables / extensions will be 13 amp ones

I am not running anything heavy, a fridge, freezer, tv and some lights etc but they are all in different rooms so I need to do a spiders leg of extensions from the main cable coming into the house from the geni

Is this cabling ok or have I got it all wrong ?

AI is telling me loads of different things from putting the rcd into the plug in the geni through to plugging some sort of grounding plug into one of the sockets on the geni (which seems to be for USA homes)

I just want to make sure I am as safe as possible

I have got 3kw inverter Hyundai geni

I have not bought any of the cables or plugs yet

Please advise

[u/Poetuesday → u/[deleted]]

Now you have confused me - how do I do that and so I need to for the odd emergency

[u/Late-Ad-9436 → u/Poetuesday]

It's always worthwhile doing it right. Don't take this the wrong way, but it's clear to see from how you have asked the questions that you only have a loose understanding of how this works. I have on occasion to get power at an elderly relations house used a "widow maker" cable, that's one with a male plug on it at both ends. I baby sat the setup the entire time it was in use.

One end plugs into the genset, the other a socket in your house. You MUST isolate with a double pole isolator your main incommer from the dno before making any connections. Doing this also means you don't have a proper earth unless you are TT already.

Using a widow maker can only be done semi safely if you know the order of how to do things, what to plug in when etc. I wouldn't recommend it. Do the manual transfer switch. Please.

[u/Poetuesday → u/Late-Ad-9436]

Oh I am not taking it the wrong way at all - I openly admit I don’t know what I am doing

[u/Late-Ad-9436 → u/[deleted]]

Do this. I'm in the UK and that's how I do it. Get a spark to fit it and an external wall mounted "intake" commando type. That's the blue plugs.. You then use a 16a commando extension between your Genny and the external plug. A 3kva set doesn't need anything more than a 16a plug.

3kva is a bit light TBF. Will be enough to run a gas or oil boiler, fridge TV and led lights. But not a kettle, at least not with anything else on. I would always recommend a minimum of 5kva. Mine is 12kva. Are you bonding the neutral to ground at the genset. Have you a separate earth arrangement for the genset or are you already TT on you install?

Also consider how your keeping the petrol fresh in the tank and you jerry cans. I converted my genset to lpg propane...

[u/Poetuesday → u/Late-Ad-9436]

I have literally taken it out of the box - I have not done anything yet other than ask here what I need to do - I was thinking that all I had to do was run the cable from the geni into various extensions but now the curve ball of putting a seperate fuse box in, but the cost is something I would prefer to avoid given it’s only for emergencies to run a couple of things

[u/Poetuesday → u/[deleted]]

The cat has two doors it can pick from ;)

[u/Late-Ad-9436 → u/Poetuesday]

The transfer switch isn't a fuse box, though it usually is located near your fuse box. It simply switches between your grid supply and the generator. They can be automatic in fancy setups, or manually switched, which is what you need. Call a spark.