I am building new home, and line power won't be installed until November. My question is: can I hook my hot water heater to the 240v plug on my generator without installing a breaker panel.(not ready for electrical yet)? The generator is rated at 6500w. Any help greatly appreciated.

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Originally Posted by skemcis

I am building new home, and line power wont be installed until November. My question is: can I hook my hot water heater to the 240v plug on my generator without installing a breaker panel.(not ready for electrical yet)? The generator is rated at 6500w. Any help greatly appreciated.

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I don't know how happy the Elec. Inspc. Will be with that, but to answer your Q. yes.

Up here, we don't bother the electrical inspectors, and conversly... well... I was just wondering how to accomplish this. Its just a temporary setup till we get line power. How do I hook a 4 pole(at the generator 240v outlet) to a 3 pole 240v at the water heater? I understand that each of the hot wires at the generator is 120v, but how do I combine them to create 240V? There is a floating neutral on the gen, and the gen is grounded to earth as well.
Do I have to have a breaker panel to do this?

If the gen has a two pole breaker protecting the 240vac outlet then it won't need any
More protection. You only need a 3 wire cord, the 4th terminal at the gen is for the
Neutral conductor, and the WH does not need that. Use the 2 hots and the grounding
Conductor to wire the WH.