In this post I want to show you how I have setup this manual transfer switch in a unique way that gives me different options to power my home with solar whenever grid power is out or even when it is working. And maybe save a little money along the way.
This is a 10 circuit Manual Generator Transfer Switch. There are automatic ones out there, but this one is manual.
I typically see that most people have the 6 circuit switch instead of the 10 like this one. I’ll leave a link below for both if you want to check them out for yourself. The purpose of these switches allow you to switch individual circuits between grid and generator power. They are very safe and cannot feed power back to the grid
Each circuit is either in line (grid power), off or Gen (generator)
It also has these watt meters to let you measure the power being consumed on each phase.
The switch has its own set of breakers also. The ones with the black around it are 15A breakers and the red ones are 20A.
Before installing it, my wife and I chose 10 circuits we found critical to our needs such as refrigerator, freezer, specific lights, specific outlets, washing machine, upstairs furnace and other things. I chose not to include certain circuits. I was thinking I could just run an extension cord in those cases.
These 10 circuits still go through the breaker box and those breakers still work. When installing you run the wires for each circuit from the switch into the panel. The switch allows you to switch between grid and generator power per circuit.
This particular power transfer switch is designed for up to 7500 watts. It has 6 – 15A circuits and 4 – 20A circuits. Out of the box when you get the switch, it is setup for 6 – 120V circuits and 2 – 240V circuits. If you want all 10 to be 120V, you just remove these little pins here and wire accordingly.
I didn’t need to power any 240V circuits and I my solar and duel fuel generators only provide 120V so I opted for all 10 – 120V circuits.
The switch came with this power inlet. It has a 4 prong NEMA L14-30 end. It is for hooking up your generator and is typically installed outside so you can easily plugin your gasoline generator.
I had the electrician install the inlet inside so I can plugin my DIY Solar Generator. I can still use my duel fuel generator by running an extension cord through this opening and plug into the switch power inlet.
Another option instead of using this switch could have been to install a sub panel and use an interlock kit to switch all 10 circuits between solar and grid at once. In a power outage situation, there is not much difference between what I have done here and a sub panel. But when the grid power is still working is where there is a big difference. It allows me to partially run off solar when I want to. If grid power is still working and I used the interlock and subpanel solution, then I would lose power to all 10 circuits when I switched over, then I would turn on the individual circuits I wanted to power with solar. The remaining circuits would not be powered. Using this transfer switch solution when the grid power is working, I can pick and choose which circuits I want to run off solar and all the remaining circuits continue to run off of grid power. This can be a way to save money and recoup some of the costs of this over time.
If I continue to build this out as planned I will save around $175 – $200 per year. Electricity is pretty cheap where I live so I’m not saving that much. But my main motivation was emergency backup power.
We can actually run our natural gas upstairs furnace off solar. We have one of the circuits in the transfer switch for that. That will only work if we still have gas. It uses around 400 watts when running
If we have several cloudy days in a row and batteries running low, I can put everything back on grid or hook up my duel fuel generator to charge the batteries. With my current small 2kwh system I typically leave 3 circuits on the solar generator full time. Mostly lights, my office and a mini-fridge. I’m trying to not just using this in an emergency. I’m trying to run part of my home off of solar full time. I eventually want to get to where I run all 10 of these circuits as close to full time as I can.
Lets talk about price and installation. I bought this switch off of Amazon for around $465. I considered installing this myself and I could have done it. But in the end I chose to have an electrician do this. The electrician installed this for $515 in about a half day. It would have taken me at least a whole day. I had one estimate from an electrician for over a $1000. So get different estimates. Before the electrician came over for the installation, I marked each circuit breaker with a small piece of blue painters tape so he could easily see which circuits I wanted to be controlled with the switch.
Remember, if you are not totally comfortable installing something like this, hire an electrician like I did.
10 Circuit Transfer Switch – https://amzn.to/3mc1pI5
6 Circuit Transfer Switch – https://amzn.to/40RHm0B
Bluetti AC200Max – Bluetti AC200 Max – https://amzn.to/42IV0UW
Generator Extension Cord – https://amzn.to/3MnzTSx
