hard wiring

jumper

Both custom and code is to hard wire furnaces and boilers. But in case of electric outage homeowner has an easier and safer time plugging his heating appliance into a generator than rewiring it.

Jean-David Beyer

I took the simplest, most expensive way out.

My boiler is hard-wired in. This makes it difficult to use a UPS or even a power strip with a surge protector in it. As a stop-gap, I had a whole house surge protector installed in my main power panel.



After storm Sandy, when I lost power for 6 1/2 days, I resolved "Never Again" and got a back-up generator hard wired in. When the power fails, the backup generator waits 7 seconds to see if it is more than just a short-term dip, and starts up. If power returns, it waits about 10 minutes to be sure it is going to stay up before it shuts off. So I do not have to unplug my boiler, go to acme rent-all to get a gasoline backup generator just when everyone else is doing the same thing, and trying to find a gas station with any gas for sale and power to pump it up from the tanks. And I do not have to listen to those damned things either. They are much louder than my natural gas powered one.



And the natural gas one will power almost my entire house. It automatically sheds my electric clothes dryer and my electric stove, but I can turn either one on (but not both) if necessary (but not use the oven or the self-cleaning feature of the oven).



The unit was commissioned on a Wednesday and on that Saturday, the power company failed for an hour or so. It worked just fine, but of course my UPS devices kept the computers running over the 7-second drop out. They could actually run much longer. But not 6 1/2 days.

SWEI

If they want to use a portable genset

they need a transfer switch.  If they don't want to spring for a dedicated subpanel, a 3-way switch and a flanged inlet will take care of the heating system.

jumper

laymen

SWEI, that's fine for people in this conference. My question is why most places don't allow plug in furnaces and boilers?

SWEI

I believe

it has to do with whether it's listed as a "cord and plug connected appliance" or not.

Zman

Ground

I quizzed my electrician about this a while back.

He thought that it had more to do with maintaining the building electrical ground.

If that is the issue, it seems like it could be worked around. It still would not meet code.

I think it is a fine idea.

Carl