Read an article about home generators in Coop Power and the one important point I remember is that it has to be wired so that no electricity is allowed to go out of the house and through the power lines. If the company men are working on a dead line leading to your house and you fire up the generator making that line hot you could very well injure the working on the lines.

That's called backfeed Gpa, If properly wired with a main cutoff switch, and you're good to go. But it needs to be done RIGHT !

After hurricane Rita, I fed a 6500 watt gen into the dryer breaker of my friend's house....to make one side of the panel hot. But we also switched the mains OFF beforehand.

Generators not hooked up properly are a major issue for Power Companies restoring power outages. Make sure you have it done right so it doesn't feed to the grid.

Lots of bad advice out there on this. Licensed electrician should know how to do it properly.

I remember a bad ice storm in 99 or 00 that left us with out power in NE Texas for over a week. The number of home fires, homes with burnt up appliances, and back feed issues were too numerous to count.

Although you could do this install your self, and if you're an electrician by trade (or your father/son/brother/lesbian-sister-in-law[that's supposed to be a joke in this serious topic]) then sure go ahead. If you just go down to tractor supply on a Saturday and impulse buy a generator... Please please please think about the risk involved and where would you rather place that risk.

On the shoulders of someone who's license/business insurance requires error free work or your home owners policy.