One Circuit Not Working When Running Generator?

poehere
Bronze Post Medal for All Time! 105 Posts

November 2, 20171 found this helpful

Determining your problem:

1. First off, what size of your generator? I am asking what is the watts of your unit?
2. Next we need to determine the watts of your home and if your generator will or can handle this.
3. If the generator doesn't have enough watts power to handle the load of your home some of your circuits won't work.
4. So now you need to determine the watts of your home.
5. This is a simple calculation.
6. You will add up all the loads that you know and what you want to power on simultaneously with your generator.
7. Second, figure out what electrical appliance in your home that will use the most electricity when the motor starts. An AC unit will use a lot of electricity when the unit powers on. But when the unit is running it won't use that much electricity.
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8. Now add this to your calculations.
9. Now you need to determine what you want to run with your generator. You shouldn't power up your entire home on the generator.
10. You should choose certain areas that you need power.
11. For example your refrigerator, garage door opener, one bathroom downstairs and one upstairs. Now choose only a few lighting circuits.
12. I have feeling your generator can't handle the complete load of your home, therefore one of the circuits won't come on.
13. This is very common when using a generator after a power outage or during a natural disaster.
14. Hope this has helped. You might want to take off one or two circuits that are mandatory for you to use right now. Only use the ones that are mandatory and it wil lbe fine.

trabob31

August 5, 20200 found this helpful

I had that problem with two circuits not working on my generator. It turned out to be a bad 30 amp breaker that I would turn on to let power in my panel from the generator.