Hurricane Heading Your Way? How to safely run your Generator

If you are in an area that is affected, or about to be affected, by a Hurricane, we have a bit of crucial safety advice for you:

1) ) Do not run generators indoors or in garages etc. attached to houses or buildings, and position away from vents and windows. Only run outdoors in a well ventilated area that is separate from buildings to prevent CO poisoning. Generators are the leading cause of death from CO poisoning. It is a odourless killer! See what ESFI has to say about the dangers.. http://www.esfi.org/…/electrical-safety-think-outside-the-h…

2) Do not plug your Generator into the home as Electricity Backfeed causes Fires and Explosions! When the grid electricity comes back on it will feed back into the Generator alternator. This will cause a fire in the alternator, which considering it is sat underneath a tank of fuel, is a very bad combination! (This can only be done if you have a professional Transfer Switch installed in your home to isolate the supply.)

3) Do not place Generators where they can get wet from rain or rising water. Electricity and Water do not mix!! Keep portable Generators covered from rain but be sure not to restrict air flow as this creates a fire hazard and will damage your engine and alternator as they will overheat. Raise the generator on pallets to prevent rain splash and rising water from entering your alternator. A wet alternator will not run and the particles in the water can damage the alternator windings. Ideally, do not run the portable Generator until the storm has passed, unless the situation is dire!

4) Always Earth Ground your Generator before use. If there is a fault or water gets into the generator it could make the whole generator live with electricity. The metal components and frame conduct the electricity, effectively making the whole generator one big electricity connection between the generator voltage output and whatever it can find to ground the power. If someone were to touch the generator while it was live, and the generator is not earth grounded, the electricity will discharge through the person electrocuting them! Much like when you get hit by lightning, but in this case the electricity will keep flowing until the generator is turned off.

It is easy to ground the generator. On the front of all generator control panels there should be a grounding connection pin. You can identify it by a symbol that looks like an arrow pointing down with lines.

Using electrical wire, connect this grounding pin to a metal object that penetrates the ground (i.e. metal rod or piping that goes into the ground.) This will earth ground your generator.

If you require parts we have over 730,000 parts available on our website. We have shipping offices in New York, Toronto and London, so you will get your order quickly!

We hope this information is helpful and we are all wishing you all the best of luck! Please, be safe!

Regards
The Generator Guru Team
www.GeneratorGuru.com