whoa! looks like I opened up a can of worms. Well don't worry about me pulling the meter, I'd pee my pants in the process that would add to the danger of such an act. Thanks for all of the discussions. I thought only square D had a lock out switch for their main panels and wasn't aware a lot of other companies did also. Mine is a GE 200 amp top feed. I've found a company that makes main breaker inter lock switches for many types of panels and will likely use one of them and save a lot of time, hassle, and money in the process. This will give me the desired benifit of being able to pick and choose circuits as needed only. My reasearch has lead me to more questions than answers though. I understand that the lock out switches, and most residential transfer switch panels allow the neutral and ground going back to POCO lines. Yet this situations is one of the many arguments against back feeding a breaker or the dryer outlet. Dispite that argument, these units are code approved for residential use. At least there is not the possibillity of having the main breaker on when using the genset with these devises. I guess there could be a rare situation where the main breaker is faulty or corroded enough to allow feed back into the line in the off position. The last posts dicussing floating neutrals in generators has me preplexed also. I ran across a site from a Canadian Electrician dedicated to this issue. He is advocating that you must use a floating neutral in all generators feeding a transfer switch system and actually has directions on how to accomplish this on many models of generators. According to him, most generators ship as bonded neutral models and should not be used that way for feeding a transfer switch or you risk getting shocked incertain open neutral situations, however remote they may be. I could post the web site if anyone would like. The thing the puzzles me is that there are lot of manufacturers of generators and transfer switches and none seem to address these isssues, if indeed they are valid, but they seem to be being installed by electricians and are code approved. Also, the POCO's are well aware that this is being done and not advising against it. Infact some POCO's offer service to sell, install such equipment and to maintain it. I'm sure this will stirr up a few more posts. Thanks for all the great info I gather from this site, sorry for the long post. There's another storm out there in the Atlantic, I need to get this done. Kevin

There should be overcurrent protection on the generator itself that protects it and the circuit attached to it from shorts. The switch doesn't need to do that. I've never seen a transfer switch with breakers. I've got a fused disconnect on the grid power ahead of the switch and one on the generator itself. I'm not even sure that the disconnect needs to be fused (but it certainly makes a real satisfying clunk when you want to test the generator startup and ATS for sure.

That is exactly what you need, you're good to go. Be sure to seal the back of the box to the house very well. Some people will argue that the back of that box is considered "outside" and romex shouldn't be used there lol.

Usually the poco holds all the cards about the meter base. My generator runs to the meter base and then to a honking big disconnect switch and then to my transfer switch. I'm isolated from the utility this way.