Hypothetical Backfeeding Electrical Project Question

[Todd Rasmussen]

This is hypothetical because it is an exercise in electrical theory. No-one should actually do this because it is dangerous and could kill them or the poor lineman trying to restore power if they didn't understand the inherent dangers involved.

If you pulled your meter, shut off all of your circuit breakers, installed a 240v 30a plug to a double pole breaker and the neutral bus (instead of ground), then you could use a 110V generator with two extension cords to your new outlet (cords sharing neutral and having their respective hots in the 240v plug) in order to get 110v to both buses in your panel. Obviously the 240v circuits stay switched off since the two 110 feeds are in the same phase but you could bring all of the 110v circuits on line within the capacity of the generator and the backfeed circuit.

If you were set on using the 240v plug setup because in the future 9/10 you'd actually be using a 240v generator, how could you achieve a ground from the backfeed plug to the 110v generator you had access to currently? Keeping in mind that the outlets on the generator are GFCI's, is it as easy as landing both the grounds from the extension cords onto the box?