Ok, I am almost done with this project and I need an outlet, er rather an inlet.

What has gone on so far:
I have a Generac 10K portable generator with 3 and 4 prong twistlock 30A connectors and a 50A 240 plug.  Should be plenty of power.  My connectors are like this [except this is not my pic or actual generator, just an example]


I live in a mobile home that has 60A service and an external breaker/cutoff switch right next to my meter.

My home is all gas, so the biggest draw is the small central air unit and an electric dryer.  The biggest draw I would actually use during an no power event would be a tossup between my PC and my furnace blower, but even my blower is small.  Every light in my house is Flourescent.  My reefer is new, small and efficient, as is my microwave.  I don't have any single high draw appliances that I can think of.  No toaster oven, no hair dryer, no hotplate or coffee maker, no space heaters, nothing.  I thought my heat tape was going to be a big draw, but it doesent even draw 500 watts.  

My Mobile home is old and was originally wired 120V only, but I discovered that I did actually have 240 at the meter.

I inquired down at the county building with the building permit people about codes and got laughed at.  Quote:" Son there ain't no such thing as building codes for old mobile homes, but even the crappiest stuff you put in there will have to be better than what is in there now"   I know the perfessional lektricians are going to be aghast and appaled at my temerity in wiring this myself, but this is my only practical choice.  I have asked two real electricians to help me, and lets just say the results weren't so good, so it's do it myself or nothing.  

I re-wired from the meter to my breaker box for 240 [replacing my fuse box with a real breaker box, with actual circut breakers] and I did put thought into balancing the load on the lugs, but all of my loads are low....

As far as the generator, I have set this shed up so the genny can run inside without problems.  I welded a nipple on my generator exhaust port so I can install a regular car muffler and duct the exhaust elsewhere.  The Exhaust is ducted out through a chimney type exit [metal and fireproof insulation].  I also have 2 fans, one blowing on the genny itself and one set up as a fresh air intake, through a slatted hole in the wall.  During the summer, test runs with the door closed, saw the temp in the shed actually stay cooler than just sitting in the sun, closed up.  

So, now Plan A is to wire up a 50A inlet plug near my breaker box.  With this setup I would use about a 25' 8ga. 4 wire extention cord between the shed where my generator lives and the appropriate male and female plugs to connect the [weather shielded] generator to the house.   My problem is locating the house end of that wire and the appropriate plug, but this requires me to find a male receptiicle for 240/50A

Plan B is to wire up a 50A inlet plug in my back shed, near my generator.  I would prolly run 10ga solid wire in weatherproof buried conduit from the breaker straight out to the shed, but I still have the problem of the plugs.  The easy way would be to use a dryer/welder plug and make a short double ended deadman cord, but I would rather find a way to use a correct cord [male & female ends, but this again requires me to find a male receptiicle for 240/50A

The only inlet plugs I can find are for the 30A 4 wire twist lock connectors, and I would rather use the 50A plug on the Genny instead of the 30.


So, any suggestions on how to wire up the plugs and where to get them?  

Just about every year a utility lineman gets killed because someone that has no clue how to do so safely connects up a generator.

Since it is clear you really do not know how to do this safely, spend the money to hire someone that does. A transfer switch will not add a whole lot to the cost and you won't be responsible for killing some little kid's daddy.

Transfer switch is best.  You could wire it in via a breaker into the panel and make 100% triple checked for sure then check again that you shut off the main breaker before you connect the generator.

One problem that I see is that if everything you're using is on one side of the 240, that your generator might not be able to handle that and you'd definitely need a good ground for neutral, probably bonded to the house entrance panel ground as well.

Since you have a dedicated building set up for the generator, just wire it in directly on the house side and just have the plug to connect to the generator in the shed.

50 amp inlet with breaker

I think this was covered a long time ago.

Either way, you are gonna have to make your own cord.

You need a 4 pole 50 amp plug to plug into your generator, enough 6 ga wire for the length that you need to run, and one of each of these:  50 amp cord plug
Power inlet box

Oh good lord, you are just like the Cops that dont think "civillians" should have guns because they aren't professionals and someone could het hurt [note, several bits of irony in that statement].  I am not going to kill anyone, but I also don't have a "Im a sheep not a professional" mindset.  I reeeely dislike the "if you don't do it for a living you can't do it at all' attitude.  If You, ILBOB want to come over and help me do this safely, you are welcome to, otherwise either find something useful to post or, better yet, ignore my thread.  This is the SURVIVAL FORUM which is, almost by definition a Do-It-Yourself forum.  
Edit:  I had a really hot reply typed up here, but I deleted it because #1 it doesent move me forward and #2 I realized you cannot read, so it wouldn't do any good.
So, I will just point out [again] that I have sought professional advice on 2 occasions - 3 if you count the building permit people, and have been turned away on every occasion.

For the record, so anyone else that reads this doesent get incorrect information, my process will be:
power out
turn off cutoff switch
attach "lockout" lock to switch
turn off breakers in the house
attach wire to house side and run to generator
set up and start generator
plug in wire from house
turn house breakers back on as needed



Yeah, I am sure the process has been covered, but my search fu is weak, and I am specifically asking about the inlet box/connector.  That looks like it will work, but...
What reorx posted does look like the hot ticket because it also has a cutoff switch...  I guess what was messing me up was I was looking for an inlet for the female version of  the NEMA 14-50R as I need for the genny.  
I already knew I am going to have to make the wire, but I had only found 20 and 30 amp twistlock plugs locally and I was searching for the wrong thing when I got on the internet...

I have no doubt you are sincere in believing that you can do this safely, and if you follow a procedure step by step that is safe, in theory, you would be OK. The problem is that there is no way to know just who is going to be around when the power comes back on, or when it goes off, and that person may not be quite as safe as you think you are. Or even how distracted you might be when the time comes and at 2am some morning in a storm when the power goes off, you miss a step.

I don't have a problem with DIY. I do have a problem with people who apparently just don't understand the issues involved bulling ahead with an inherently unsafe approach to save themselves $100. Is that all a life is worth to you?

BTW, if we were close, I would be more than happy to help you do this safely. It really is not that hard. Plenty of information out there on how to install a proper transfer switch.

In Theory?  No way of knowing who will be around?  Distracted?
Dude, you need to be more condescending, I am not quite getting it...

anyway, the comment about helping...not buying it, no self respecting electrician will come near an old mobile home, so either you are pretending to know more than you know or you don't really intend to help.

...this is worse than talking to an anti gunner...

Geez, I used to do a lot of work for just beer and pizza.....  guess that makes me a slut!

Course on the mobile  home thing it was cause I didnt want any money trail......  

not an electrician.

the point is you can do this safely for not a whole lot of extra money. why would you do it in an unsafe way?

and its not as if the information you need to do it right is not readily available. and the amount of work to do it right is not all that much more than a hack job.

Fuck it.  Just do it however you want to.

Don't ask for help if you don't like the answers.

Well stated!

I love people that ask for help and then whine when they don't like the answers.  Its like they are asking for support to do it the wrong way....

Disclaimer:  Not necessarily  meant for the OP, more agreeing with Coltrifles excellent point!

No, I get it.  Along with the useful answers, I have to put up with people assuming I am a retard that has no idea what I am doing and am going to KILL someone with my stupidity, just because someone else, somewhere else did a stupid thing.

Here on this site there is alot of stock put in personal responsibility and our collective ability to safely handle potentially dangerous guns.... yet if this same logic applied to my guns, I wouldn't be allowed to have guns because somewhere, someone else had at some point shot something on accident.

I *liked* the answers, I just don't appreciate being told I am too stupid to follow a safety procedure..

No you appear too stupid to listen to but you could try listening to a better/more experienced option however... Your trailer will most likely have a pole and meter detached from it, you'll have your utility power here and the meter, you need to add a transfer switch to your load side from the meter either on the side of your trailer where power comes in or near the meter and just run the underground conduit from there back to your genset, and in no situation should you be running #10 for a load that wont trip until 50 amps unless it's a motor bigger than you have for startup purposes. In theory and plenty of times in practice your plan to flip switches works. But at the same time many many linemen have died from people thinking that setup will work and it in some way fails, can you 100% guarantee your kids or wife wont accidentally throw a breaker? kids love to play in stuff they shouldn't and it's someone like me who's life is at risk. You talk personal responsibility now step up to the plate and do it right. The listing criteria for circuit breakers dictates that they should be replaced after two faults. Can you guarantee that your breaker will work every time? I personally have seen circuit a breaker disconnect two legs and not disconnect the third. The risk to benefit ratio of your method is not appropriate vs. just installing a transfer switch ahead of the lugs on your panel. The transfer switch would be a fairly simple installation virtually anyone could do with one day of the local utility disconnecting your power and it'd give you a chance to test your setup before they plug your meter back in. Once you pick up the transfer switch open it and it'll be pretty self explanatory.



 

The problem is that your "safety" procedure has been proven to be unsafe. Its not about being stupid or being a retard. it is about just not having the correct information upon which to make an informed decision.

Every year over 400 people are killed by electric shock in the US. Many of these people are electricians who have years of training and experience. You would think they would be safe.

You also might think that 120/240V as is common in most residences in the US being a relatively low voltage would be safer. In fact most of the deaths occur from contact with that level of voltage, likely because it is the most common lethal voltage people are exposed to.

The thing is that doing this in a safe way is not a lot harder or more expensive than doing it in a way that has been proven over time to be unsafe.And it is not as if the information you need to do this in a safe way is hard to come by. So why do you persist in doing it unsafely? Just stubbornness? Some kind of misplaced pride?

No wife, no kids.
The cutoff switch is the old style mechanical disconnect with a padlock tab so you can put a lock on it in the closed position, so unless some miscreant comes equipped with a big set of boltcutters, it ain't gettin turned back on by accident.  
And let me get this straight, you spend several sentances explaining how failure prone and unreliable breakers and switches can be....and then say I have to have an internally complicated transfer switch..that, I presume, is somehow magically less failure prone?   With my plan there are 2 breakers, a mechanical switch and a padlock between me and an accident... with the transfer switch, there is one, double pole switch.  If the transfer switch fails in the manner you describe, I am electrifying the grid [bad].  With my system, 4 separate things have to fail, all at once, in 3 different places, before there is danger...  Granted, it's not impossible, but damn.  This is a glock trigger vs series 80 colt 1911 safety argument now...
Point of fact: on a conventional house, the first disconnect happens at the master breaker, inside the house, so in order to work on the master breaker, the power company shut's off the power.  On a Mobile home, I have [in order] the meter, a mechanical cutoff switch, an outside circut breaker, and an inside circut breaker, so I can turn off my own power at the pole, before it even gets to my outside master circut breaker.

While I am all for the do-it-yourselfer, and will offer all the advice I can.... even if you want to do things in a "not proper way", you really shouldnt berate someone for trying to get you to do it the correct way.  Mobile home wiring is usually not that great, but you can make it worse.  

People get themselves hurt or killed cause they think they know what they are doing.... you know, the old "here, hold my beer and watch this shit".

If you really think your way is superior than you should go to the next meeting of the NEC and tellt hem why they are FOS.  I think they hold the meetings in Vegas so it could be a fun trip.

One question for you... not picking or trying to trip you up...  you probably have plastic water pipe, right?  so that does not need to be bonded, but have you made sure the frame of the trailer is bonded and grounded?

I've got a transfer switch that I wired myself into my house. Best thing I ever did.

The procedure to use it and if you are my wife, these are in no particular order:

Plug in gen set
Start gen set
Randomly flip switch until something happens.

Right on barry…..

Although not code, it looks like you have a workable plan and understand the big picture. Should work.


Transfer Switch Only Guys -

How many hours a year do you think the generator will be hooked up?

There is nothing in my house that needs power at 2AM, especially in a storm. If the big earthquake comes, I’m going to be shutting off the gas and electric - not hooking it up!
All my friends around here have the same plan: run the genny long enough to pump up the well tank and cool down the fridge. Limited run time also limits potential hazards.

Every year over 400 people are killed by electric shock in the US.
Ok…
How many of the 400 were killed in a generator related incident?
Then how many of those were killed because a transfer switch was NOT used?
With electricity ubiquitous in our society, one can only assume that the NON transfer switch deaths were really really low.

Depending which website you hit the numbers are a little different but this is a basic overview of accidental deaths.
Electrocution doesn’t even make the list. As barry pointed out, guns are a far bigger risk than ‘death by non-transfer switch.’


Cause of Death/Age Range––––––––-All Ages
Total Number of Deaths––––––––––––-97,900
Motor Vehicle––––––––––––––––––––-43,354
Unspecified nontransport accid'ts ––––17,437
Falls––––––––––––––––––––––––––––13,322
Poisoning and Noxious Subst's––––––-12,757
Drowning–––––––––––––––––––––––-3,842
Exposure to Smoke, Fire, Flames––––3,377
Other Land Transport Accidents––––1,492
Complications of Med/Surg Care––––-3,059
Accidental Discharge of Firearms––––776

Smoking related deaths are 500,000 - 700,000 a year. I wonder how many of you smoke?


Many of these people are electricians who have years of training and experience. You would think they would be safe.
Humm… Electricians work around electricity. Wouldn't it stand to reason their risk factor is a little higher than the normal population?
Being a ‘trained’ electrician only means you knew (memorized?) enough to pass the test. ‘Use #12 wire on runs longer than xxx....’ It does not mean you have good understanding of electricity or WHY you need a bigger wire.

So…. isn’t possible that barry understands more about electricity than a trained electrician?

Switch off and padlocked, plus main breaker off seems pretty safe to me.

Sorry Barry, this isnt meant for you.....  but  the average handyman can do a lot with electriciity if he is willing to ask questions and listen.  However, 4 years of night school and 8,000 hours of field experience to qualify to take the Journeymans test, plus another 4,000 to get to be a Master Electrician is way above and beyond the scope of most handymen.  Its not so much in knowing what to do, but knowing what questions to ask thats important.  IE.... what do I need to do different after the first means of disconnect for a service?  Where do I drive my ground rods?  How many conductors do I run?

ETA:  It aint rocket science.... but staying i the Holiday Inn dosnt qualify ya either!

Its is quite possible, and even common for the average handyman or DIYer to safely undertake some wiring tasks. In fact, I would guess that most residential wiring tasks can be completed by the average DIYer safely. The skills necessary to do most wiring tasks are not especially difficult to learn, but do take years to master. But as a DIYer you really don't care much how long it takes, or how pretty it looks. just that it is done in the right way, and the end result is safe.

As for generator accidents, I seem to recall two people died during Katrina from generator accidents, and several more during the big hurricane in Fl a few years back.

Its one thing to have to do a cobbled up job of something because circumstances require you to do that. Say you had no power and went and bought a generator and never had the time to install it right. Thats a different situation than doing it improperly when you have the time and means to do it correctly ahead of time, especially when you know the correct way to do it.

Most of us know the three rules of safe gun handling (or maybe you prefer the four rules). Its not likely any of us would make up a set of "safety" rules that says its OK to put your finger on the trigger and wave a loaded gun around in the direction of people just because you put the safety on. The electrical code exists to put into place rules that define the minimum acceptable level of safety that actual experts in the field have determined is appropriate. Most of it is not just wild eyed speculation. Changes to the code are often the result of people getting killed or injured. The changes are made to prevent those kind of deaths and injuries in the future.

This is like people who store gasoline in their garage in substantial quantities. They think because they have not had an accident with it that what they are doing is "safe". Its not really safe, it is like playing Russian roulette with a revolver that has a thousand cylinders. Eventually these kind of things get someone. The odds are with any individual that they will not be the one, but someone eventually will be.

Prepping is all about reducing your risks. Not adding to your risks.

Hey Barrysuperhawk, too much stuff to read thru, did you ever get your question answered?

I tried to do it the safe way (Transfer switch)  and was told by the city they would not give me a permit to put it in and that if I did it without one  they would red tag the house.  So no transfer switch for me.

I didn't go into detail above, but that's essentially what I got told too [after they laughed at me, of course].  If I understand it correctly, they look at mobile homes like they do cars - that they only have to conform to the safety standards in place when they were built.  Technically, I was wrong to have replaced my screw in fuse box with a real breaker box, etc.

Perhaps the city does not issue permits to DIYers for this kind of work.

I have access to electrical inspectors across the country that I can ask why this would be. What city was this?

In Vermont and New hampshire you need to be a Master to pull a permit.  You can do your own work on your house however, altho that may be more closely regulated by your local AHJ.

I went over this with several electrical inspectors.

They came to the conclusion that the reason the poster was unable to get a permit has nothing to do with it being a trailer. In trailer parks, the service (outside) wiring actually belongs to the park, rather than to the owner of the trailer. You can't get a permit to work on someone else's electrical system unless you are a licensee of some sort.

Some have run across this in the past. The people at the permit desk only "know" that HO's can't get HO permits for service wiring on trailers. Even if the trailer is on a lot owned by the HO they probably still think its not allowed. The suggestion was made to take it up with someone a little higher up than the permit desk clerk.

.

They let me do all the work when I finished my basement including the work in the panel but not let me put in a transfer switch.  All he would say is he felt it was unsafe and so he would not give me the permit.  Home owners can do all work on a house that they own.  But city code also states that they can red tag or refuse permit for anything they feel is unsafe.