pure sine wave inverter/battery hook up into whole house

[spockmckoy]

Hi, I have 1 of these http://gentran.net/eshop/transfer-switch-vintage.asp that I have had on my house for years. There is 1 ground and a large neutral that is connected from the gentran switch box to my main house breaker panel neutral/ground bars. I plug my generator into the gentran receptacle and fire up the generator, then manually turn on/off any of the gentran switches for whatever load I want to energize. It works perfectly. My question is this: If I have a battery bank hooked into a pure sine wave inverter and plug it into my gentran receptacle, is there going to be any issues with the neutrals being tied together? For example, 'sparky' issues and magic smoke coming out of the inverter box? The reason I want to do this is because of noise at night. IF I don't have to draw attention to myself or disturb my neighbors at night during a power outage, the batteries give me 'quiet' power til the next day. thanks!

[inetdog]

Hi, I have 1 of these http://gentran.net/eshop/transfer-switch-vintage.asp that I have had on my house for years. There is 1 ground and a large neutral that is connected from the gentran switch box to my main house breaker panel neutral/ground bars. I plug my generator into the gentran receptacle and fire up the generator, then manually turn on/off any of the gentran switches for whatever load I want to energize. It works perfectly. My question is this: If I have a battery bank hooked into a pure sine wave inverter and plug it into my gentran receptacle, is there going to be any issues with the neutrals being tied together? For example, 'sparky' issues and magic smoke coming out of the inverter box? The reason I want to do this is because of noise at night. IF I don't have to draw attention to myself or disturb my neighbors at night during a power outage, the batteries give me 'quiet' power til the next day. thanks!

As long as you are using a PSW inverter, and as long as its instructions do not include any caution about grounding the AC neutral, you should be OK.
Whether or not it meets the requirements of the NEC is another question, and the answer to that will depend on how you connect to the output of the inverter, whether the inverter has its own internal ground to neutral bond and whether the inverter has GFCI protection on its output.
If the inverter has output GFCI and you do not bypass it, you will probably trip the GFCI when you put load on the inverter because of current through the main ground/neutral bond in you service panel. A transfer switch that switches the neutral too would be one way of dealing with that, but not compatible with your Gentran box.

[spockmckoy]

gfi

thanks for the response. I have defeated the gfi protection on gensets before, so I could probably do so on the inverter. remove the gfi receptacle and insert a leviton decora receptacle in its place should do it. my biggest concern is the neutral. I have no use for gfi nor arc fault protection on emergency equipment. too much nuisance tripping for my tastes. You want equipment to function in an emergency, not keep tripping due to motor surges, etc.

[russ]

thanks for the response. I have defeated the gfi protection on gensets before, so I could probably do so on the inverter. remove the gfi receptacle and insert a leviton decora receptacle in its place should do it. my biggest concern is the neutral. I have no use for gfi nor arc fault protection on emergency equipment. too much nuisance tripping for my tastes. You want equipment to function in an emergency, not keep tripping due to motor surges, etc.

Do not tell people how to do it here. Outlaw and shade tree mechanic stuff are not allowed.

[SunEagle]

Nuisance tripping from gfi and arc fault protection may be a PIA to some people but it saves lives.

Bypassing these safeties is akin to cutting off the ground lug on an extension cord so it can be plugged into an old style 2 wire receptacle. Stupid is as stupid does IMO.