THE SET UP: When I built my home I had the electrical contractor install an emergency circuit panel to accommodate a DuroPower 8KW portable emergency generator for when the power grid fails. The emergency panel houses some circuits such as a subzero refrigerator, a freezer, the water well pump, waste water treatement plant, the master bedroom circuits, and the garage door openers. All circuits combined are within the capacity of the generator according to the electrical contractor.

The generator has a 220 V and two 110 V outlets with a circuit breaker. I use a heavy cable with double male 220 V plugs (built by the contractor) to connect the 220 V generator outlet into a 220 V receptacle wired to the emergency circuit breaker panel. This panel can be isolated from the main circuit breaker panel via a double pole 100 amp breaker. The procedure for connecting the generator to my home is as follows:

1) When I lose the grid I isolate the emergency panel for the main via the 100 amp breaker.
2) Then I connect the running generator to the panel via the cable to the emergency panel receptacle.
3) Then I close the circuit breaker on the generator.
3) Then I switch on a double pole 60 amp breaker within the emergency panel to allow power to flow to the emergency circuits from the generator.

Each circuit within the emergency panel has its own circuit breaker. Most are single breakers ranging from 15 amp (garage door openers) to 20 amp (refrigerator, freezer, bedroom), and one double pole 30 amp breaker (well and waste water).

THE FIRST PROBLEM: We had a power outage and so I followed the above procedure. The results were that some of the emergency circuits worked, but some did not. Those that did work had problems. The lights that are on the emergency circuits burned very bright and suddenly got very dim, then after a few minutes went very bright again. The lights on the garage door openers and the incandesent lights in the master bedroom burned twice as bright. A 110V floresence light starter burned out; an electric clock, a LCD TV and telephone burned out (all these items are on the master bedroom circuit). The refrigerator worked, but would go off periodically.

I contracted an electrician to fix the problem. He said the 220 V receptacle to the emergency panel only had one of three wires connected. He connected all three.

THE SECOND PROBLEM: I tested everything to verify the electrician fixed the problems listed above. To my surprise, the same problems exist and new ones occurred.

The grid has power, but I isolated the emergency panel by throwing the double pole 100 amp breaker. Then I followed the same sequence as above in connecting the DuroPower generator. The results were that the garage door openers and refrigerator would not work, but the freezer did. The bedroom lights burned twice as bright (No burned out appliances as I unplugged them all as a precaution). I did not test the well and waste treatment as I quickly disconnected the generator and restored power from the grid. All items including the garage door openers, refrigerator, well pump, etc. are working properly.

QUESTION: What is wrong? Should I modify the cable plugs to connect to one of the 110 V outlets of the generator? If I do this, do I need to alter the wiring in the 220 V receptacle?

Sorry for the long explanation, but I didn't want to leave out any facts.

Sincerely,
Mike Smith

First and foremost. You are not relying on simply shutting off the main and turning on the gen breakers are you??
If so then you MUST have installed a transfer switch or main breaker interlock. It is highly dangerous and usually illegal to back feed your service without some form of anti-backfeed device.
And just HOW are you plugging in the generator cord? PLEASE do not tell me you have a male-to-male cord. They call these suicide cords for a reason.

With that said, you have something very wrong there. My only advice is to get another electrician, one who knows what he is doing, in there to sort this out. Obviously the last guy did not know what he was doing. You are lucky that you did not lose any electronics or appliances.

Yeah, you have a few problems. First of all, check the voltage at the generator when it's not connected to anything. If the generator is operating properly, then address your connection issues. Start by installing a transfer switch which makes it physically impossible for both the generator and the grid to be online at the same time. There are much better ways to use a portable generator in this scenario, and the hook you you describe is both illegal and has the potential to cause serious harm. Secondly a 8kw generator really can't handle much more than 8 breakers (counting dbls as 2). You need to get some help from someone with experience installing generators. And the symptoms you describe indicate a failing neutral... either at the generator or your emergency panel.

msmithengr, it's been two days. Have you even checked back to see your replies?

Thank you all for your comments. I am getting another licensed electrician to check out my system and generator as well as look at adding a transfer switch.