2015 Hurricane season is here!

[MarkP]

I put in a transfer switch at my parents' house. The kind we put in was such that you mount it beside the regular power panel. You re-route the circuits that go out to the house over so that they are fed from the transfer switch breakers instead of the original panel breakers. You also route new conductors from the original breakers over to the transfer switch to feed the original circuits, that is when the switches are thrown that way. The new breakers in the transfer switch are three-way breakers that have two inputs each, from the grid side or from the generator. Usually the transfer switch comes with these new conductors on the input side so you can just mount the transfer switch tight against the power panel, connect the two with conduit or fittings, and re-route the wires without having to buy anything additional. You have to decide which circuits are going to be hooked up to the transfer switch since usually with this kind of transfer switch (small, manual) it doesn't carry the whole capacity of the original panel. When the need arises you go out, connect and start the generator, then switch over each circuit manually. There is a sort of reverse receptacle in the transfer switch that accepts the female end of an extension cord.

Someone would definitely say that you should have had an electrician do it but we did it ourselves. Just do it right.