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Sunday, December 6, 2015

Bushman Tucks in for Winter...or does he?

Well, here we are at the onset of December.
This means holiday shopping, snow, cold, Christmas lights and loads of family and good cheer.

Damn, that is upbeat.

"What the hell has gotten into Bushman?" I hear you ask.

I do like the holiday seasons.  I like winter...for the most part.  I love hot fires in the woodstove and steaming mugs of morning coffee.

I love using the oven again and loading the crockpot before work.  Deer season is over for me.  Now it is time to nestle in for the winter and chill...or freeze. Depends on the weather I guess.

It has been a busy few weeks for me.  However, I can guarantee you it is going to be an awesome month.  Here's why...

In 5 more days, I will be on a plane, bound for Florida.  Once in Florida we will meet up with my folks.  An overnight stay at the Hard Rock Casino and Hotel in Tampa and then we board a plane destined for Cancun, Mexico.

We will be staying at the Excellence Resorts, Playa de Mujeres for 7 nights and returning to Tampa and another overnight stay at Hard Rock and from there a plane ride home on Sunday the 20th.

Once home, I will have to go to work for one day on Dec, 22nd.  Then I will be off until January 5th.

So that is why this will be a great month.

Before all the fun, of course, things need to be done.

I started Kaitlin's bed project and I have a finished picture.  She has a ton of storage now.  My son Joe wants one now!  LOL





I made up a batch of Trail Bologna out of the deer I shot.  Trail Bologna is essentially summer sausage with kicked up spices.  I make it in one pound sticks instead of the traditional summer sausage style of three pounds.

Here it is unsmoked and raw which you seen in the last blog.



And out of the smoker, cooling in the garage



I also made up a batch of snack sticks





Then I hung the lights on the house



And I installed a generator transfer switch for the house.

A transfer switch takes the electricity made by the generator and safely feeds the fuse panel in the house.  It automatically switches out the power feed without having to touch your main fuse panel.

Many homeowners (myself in the past included) back feed their fuse panel through a 240-volt dryer plug.  By shutting off the main breaker to the outside utility company, you can power up your house.

However, if you were to do this and forget to shut the main breaker off, your generator will back feed the entire wire coming into your house from the telephone pole.  Once this electricity hits the transformer, it ups the voltage and can kill a linesman, who may be working on the lines down the street.  Not only that but if the power comes back on while your generator is running, it will fry your generator.  Also in the event something is wired incorrectly or there is a fault in the line, you can burn your house down.  When the insurance company finds out you back-fed your panel with a generator through another plug they may not pay out your claim.

The system I bought cost $399 on Amazon and with the extra wire and accessories I used it was under $500.

What I did was mount the transfer switch next to the fuse panel.  From there I ran a heavy 10/3 electrical wire to the exterior of my house on the back patio.  There I installed the plug (included in the transfer switch kit).



Then I wired up the transfer switch to the fuse panel.  A lot easier than you think.



The transfer switch is capable of running 10 15 amp circuits.
I chose the things I wanted to power up like the well, the kitchen lights, the garage etc. and wired them accordingly.

In the event of a power outage, all I have to do is plug my generator into the new outlet outside (10-foot power cable included in kit) and start the generator.  From there I proceed to the transfer switch and throw all the switches on it from the line position to the generator position.  Done!  No worrying about anything.  Should the power come back on it will not destroy the generator and any unfed circuits in the fuse panel will become live again which will alert me to having power again.




There are also two gauges on the bottom of the switch which indicate how much power is being used and how it balances out between each side of the switch.
I'm glad I have this installed.  Now my wife and kids can safely operate the generator should I not be around.  I won't be worrying about anything.

So what did you do this weekend?
Stay tuned for awesome vacation pics coming soon!

-Bushman





5 comments:

  1. That's a good idea with the generator transfer switch; certainly worth the time and money to get it installed! How fun with the vacation; enjoy the warmth and the time off from work; that does seem like a great work schedule you have for the rest of the month, LOL :)

    betty

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  2. You are very handy Jeff and that's awesome. I didn't do much of anything this weekend. Read, nap, it poured buckets all day yesterday so made for a lazy day. Have an awesome trip and take lots of pictures.

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  3. Keeping busy with awesome projects? A trip to Florida? Working for only one day? Yeah, sounds like a damn good month to me. This weekend I didn't even do half of the things you mentioned. I did put on pants, though, so there's that.

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    Replies
    1. Oops, make that a trip to Mexico. Don't get your head taken off by any narcos, you hear?

      Delete
  4. Been funny if you hung the sausage on your house instead!
    You'll be off work for almost a month. Now that's a good deal.
    Safe travels.

    ReplyDelete

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