Have you asked the POCO what transfer switch is approved by them?

That's the whole point...It now resides comfortably in it's own 4x8 raised shed (over-thought, over-engineered, over-built and over-spent....) since even moving about in the chock-full "garage" is an expedition.

The local poco has been less than helpful. I had to go up through the corporate food chain four or five levels before I got to an "engineer" who said *anything* behind the meter wasn't permitted. It would seem to me that the poco's regulauthority ends at the meter....

"Anything behind the meter" sounds to me like a bug overstep on what authority the POCO has. POCO has the right to control their supply and the meter. Within your home, the electrical code rules, not the POCO. I say take it out of the hands of the POCO, bite the bullet on one more wall penetration and do the interlock on the main breaker. No new meter base, no DPDT switch, just backfeed through a dedicated generator breaker into the existing 200A box using the mechanical interlock. The mechanical interlocks aren't cheap, I think mine was ~$55 for Square-D, but that seems to be thew only workable option, IMO.

I'm far from an expert on these issues, so I may be just blowing smoke here, but I wonder if you could have a standard exterior main panel installed between the existing meter base and your current main. The current main panel would effectively become a subpanel, and the feed to it would have to have a separate grounding conductor. All the power company would have to know is that you're installing a new main outdoors.

Once that job was done, you could install your transfer switch between the outdoor main and the indoor (now) subpanel.

I agree that this probably shouldn't be necessary, but sometimes you have to work with the plate of stinky stuff that you're handed.

Another thought occurs to me: the POCO engineer might be waving you away because you're "just" a homeowner. He might respond better to queries from one of the licensed electricians he's used to dealing with.

Just some thoughts. I'm sure the experts will set me straight on any errors in the above.

My PC sells those Generlink things and will install them. In my case, the meter is on the opposite side of the wall from the breaker panel, so there is no other option for a transfer switch. If you have separation, I've seen manual transfer switches (basically interlocks) that can handle large loads. Asking them how they handle generator and/or solar installations might give you more information.

Formulaross20 wrote:

> I say take it out of the hands of the POCO, bite the bullet on one more wall penetration and do the interlock on the main breaker. No new meter base, no DPDT switch, just backfeed through a dedicated generator breaker into the existing 200A box using the mechanical interlock. The mechanical interlocks aren't cheap, I think mine was ~$55 for Square-D, but that seems to be thew only workable option, IMO.

Yeah, I beginning to think that's the only way at this point...unless the poco suddenly feels generous enough to install something different in the way of a meter base box. I won't hold my breath....

I have a CH main panel and the cheapest interlock I've found is $79, plus the cost of the breaker for the generator and outside receptacle. I was trying to avoid repositioning 20 or so breakers on that side of the box.

Cheers

Found an interlock on line for $69, and it was a breeze to install. The interlock needed a 240v/30 amp breaker on top of the left side stack - which is where the 30 amp breaker for the dryer resided. Shazam...dryer now pulls from a new breaker at the bottom of the stack. No need to move a dozen breakers down two notches each and re-label everything. Just waiting for the outside, L14-30 receptacle/weather-proof box to arrive. It's made by Reliance Electric (available through HomeDepot) and features a bottom entry plug and a nice roomy box for ease of wiring.

But one issue surfaced. With the newly-built generator shed, I also ran a 120 v circuit for an overhead light and two outlets, one of which is a weather=proof exterior box. There's also on outlet in the utility roof before the wiring goes through the wall and into underground conduit. I bought an Eaton/CH AF/GH 20 amp breaker with "pigtail", a rare commodity these days it seems. (After Eaton acquired Cutler/Hammer, the older-style CH breakers have been dropped, replaced by the newer, snap-on neutral bus units.) This rarity costs $50....

... which keeps tripping. The "smart" function on the breaker says it is a ground fault, though the little three-LED test light says every receptacle is A-OK. No open circuits, no crossed wiring... The breaker doesn't trip until there is a load, even if that is a 3 watt test lamp. So I disconnect each receptacle in turn until there is only one left. If the duplex outlet had an internal ground fault, the breaker would always trip when energized. But it doesn't trip until even a miniscule load is applied.

Can a 'new' breaker be bad right out of the box? I don't know how to test just the breaker without an attached circuit.... The 'smart' function can differentiate between six separate faults, one of which in "internal".

Never mind...sorted it out. Since this is a 'combo' AF/GF breaker, the wiring is a tad different than the typical GF breaker., in that it needs an additional load return (neutral) as well as the attached pigtail to neutral.