[Frank777]

Originally Posted by Kickaha The electrical grid in general is a godawful mess of a shitshow that more closely resembles the screamings of micro-encephalitic bonobos suffering from late stage syphilis than an engineered system. And on *top* of that... Texas. Deregulate the shit outta it, some dumb sumbitch down the way will invest *THEIR* money instead. The wind turbines were not weatherized. The wellheads (petroleum) were not weatherized. The natural gas pipeline valves were not weatherized. The *refineries* were not weatherized. The *water treatment plants* were not weatherized. (North Dallas / Fort Worth is under a 'boil water' edict.) Apparently nobody bothered to ever contemplate freezing weather, and it all came to a grinding halt at once.

Yes, our grid is bubble gum and duct tape.
A really strong solar flare or a fallen tree branch can send us on a brief trip to the dark ages fast.

What's amazing is that Conservatives want to secure the grid from EMPs and China, Moderates want to build out infrastructure, and Liberals want to convert the country to electric cars and clean energy.

And we still, for some insane reason, can't get this done. The Philippines managed to put most of their electrical infrastructure underground a few years back, and North America is stalled on a renewed electric grid.

Originally Posted by Anonymous Coward The "pass through" outlet should absolutely not be in the code. The average person is not an electrician and cannot be relied on to made sure that what he or she is doing is safe. This is an example of a transfer switch for use with an emergency power supply. (I did not do a comparison search, but from past experience, there are models available for 3/5 of the price of this unit or less.)

Just to be clear, I'm asking about a simple electrical outlet that runs inside to outside. Your furnace and other appliances would be unplugged from the house wiring and plugged into the generator outlet. Something like this.

I'm aware that always-on generators require you to disconnect the breaker panel, and most people aren't messing with that. I don't think any integration with the home electrical panel would be necessary for this. You could just plug in a generator or Car Generator outside, and be safely limited to the four powered outlets inside.