I am looking for advice on the easiest way to wire up a modified electrical distribution panel here at home, to allow a generator to be fired up and take over power supply to the house during one of our fairly frequent mains failures. Ideally I would like a self powered contactor to isolate the mains input to the board and make available a socket into which the generator output is left plugged. Once power is re-established from the mains this socket would be automatically isolated and the mains takes over the running again. I need to (obviously...) avoid the scenario where both mains and generator are connected at the same time! I would like it automated so if I am not here the wife only has to check no excess loads in the house are still on, albeit not working due to power outage, go outside and start the gennie, with no switches to fiddle with. I intend to have an LED on the inside fuse box to allow her to see when the mains is back, so she knows when to turn off the generator. Possible? Schematics? Web site showing this? I am sure it must be a fairly common thing for people living with iffy mains supplies.
Thanks. I am in the UK. Mains is normal 240v single phase.