Interesting Question!! FWIW, I live in the country on a farm and have farm tractors, as does my brother who lives nearby. We both have portable generators for the convenience of just dragging them out and starting, connecting and it's done. The only tractor mounted gensets I'm aware of in this area are used by dairies to provide power to their "milking barns" in an outage-no idea why. Does your tractor have a tach (accurate) so as to assure that you're putting out something real close to 60 cycles? Assuming you're going to run your house and we all have computers, flat screen TV's etc. and they are notorious for being unhappy with "rough" power from a generator. I've read, but have no experience with, the fact that microwaves, dishwashers, etc. have sophisticated "computer" controls and are also sensitive. Will the tractor always be available and ready to go or will you have to remove things and hitch up the genset? Also, it's a '58 is that a 6Volt system and does it start well in cold weather? I know I can get any of my tractors going, but it may take a while, particuarly the diesels. Will you always be available to do whatever is needed to get the tractor up and running or will your family be in the dark while you're at work or out of town? Do you have kids, dogs, or anything else who might wander up to the spiinning PTO shaft and be injured? PTO's have killed and maimed more folks than all other tractor accidents combined. What provision will you have to connect the tractor genset to your load? If you're talking 20KW that's some big cable or a bunch of smaller ones via a sub panel. While the tractor genset would work, you may find that by the time you buy the additonal panel, cabling, transfer switch, etc. it would be easier and cheaper to buy a Generac where all that's provided. Set the generator somewhere close to your house, wire it in and forget it. Do you have access to propane? A lot of folks in this area bought Generac units from Lowe's for around $2500 and they work really well. Auto start once a week, start when the power fails, shut down when it returns, don't have to haul gas, low oil shutoff. etc. I've included a link to a generator interlock which is pretty slick should you decide to go with something smaller and portable. Using this, you don't have to add sub panels, transfer swithces, etc. and it's legal. I suppose you could also use it with the tractor, depending on size. As I said, very interesting question! Let us know how this develops as you continue your exploration. Good Luck, Ev Here is a link that might be useful: Generator Interlock

Most discussions on generators that I find on Gardenweb are at Electrical Wiring

Interesting thread. Lots of people got generators after the 1998 Ice Storm, but without being maintained, most were useless after a couple of years. I don't know about the bigger ones being discussed in this thread. Many city homes (ours included) have a gas fireplace, so that would handle the heat issue of being without electric power. And we have several power boxes that can be used off-grid that are handle for short power failures (to plug in some lights). I wouldn't bother with a generator, myself. During the big power failure in August (2004?), we just did without power for a day, but a few people in our urban neighbourhood had generators - it just made the rest of us irritated, because they ran their AC and had all their lights on, and made a racket. Not impressed.

I would suggest just installing a 400 amp manual, non-fused, service entrance rated transfer switch with an inlet to plug your generator into. This way, you will be able to power your entire interior panel and have the luxury of using any circuit that you need. If the only objective here were to service the house main panel (interior panel?), I'd have no qualms with this approach, but it doesn't address the two-service configuration. [Also, assuming the remote house disconnect is fused at 200A, then a lower-rated transfer switch (e.g., 200A) could be used below the disconnect. Note that the OP still hasn't confirmed that the disconnect is fused, but I think he's implying that. It makes sense that it'd be fused in order to protect the 4-ought AL wire feeding the house.] **** If, as is likely, that water pump in the barn is 220V, the simple 120V extension cord option for the barn doesn't appear to be a viable option so, yes, I think you're looking at a two-transfer switch design of some sort. My hunch is that any kind of single switch designed to handle two services would put you into some really pricey industrial hardware, so it's probably a case of "two is cheaper than one". To further flesh out Option #2, you could consider installing a j-box with a 120/240V generator inlet spliced to two ouput feeds--one to each transfer switch, located immediately downstream of the discos. What remains to be vetted, to my way of thinking, is the issue of how the grounding system works with that three-wire feeder. I hope that one of the double-E's here comes along to weigh in on that because I don't feel qualified to give you a confident recommendation about how to bond (or not bond) at the generator itself.