In the States the new standard is 240V @ 200 amps, split phase. Most circuits are half of a phase (120V) but there are 240V circuits for load-heavy appliances like stoves and air conditioning. I've heard some people have an extra 240V socket in their kitchens just for tea kettles.

...the kitchen?

This is also why solar inverters in most countries MUST be able to 'island' (logically disconnect from grid) in order to run a battery.

We don't have a battery yet, so our inverter shuts down on grid loss. Frustrating as hell when there's an outage on a sunny day, but i get it.

yes, it would (possibly) work, but you're likely to run into quite a few safety-related issues outside of using the suicide cord. the fact that you're probably injecting power downstream from any RCD units or even any basic current breakers, leaving you open to electrocution, or worst case, fire. the other issue is if you dont isolate your home from the grid before doing thus, then when the grid comes back (and your generator is still.. generating) there's likly to be a loud bang and a dead generator, let alone the risks you put on any workmen who are working on the lines they are expecting to not be carrying current.

TLDR; unless your hourse is specifically wired for this, and you have the necessary protections in place, just use an extension cord and plug your fridge directly into the generator. 🤷

I did it last week. We were out of power for about 30 hours. But I actually have a degree in Computer Engineering, and I did it with a friend who is a professional Electrician.

It is indeed EXTREMELY dangerous. If you don't know what you're doing, or make a mistake, best case scenario, you fry your generator. Worst case, you electrocute a lineman from the power company, who isn't expecting lines to be live when there's an outage, because yes, if you feed power into your house, that will flow OUT of your house onto the main lines (to some extent), if you let it. You could end up trying to power your whole block on your little gas generator.

We made sure both the indoor and outdoor main power shutoffs for the house were turned off, as well as all breakers. Then we unplugged the oven, and used that for the feed from the generator. Then we gradually re-activated breakers so as not to add too much load to the generator at once. Ultimately, we were able to run the whole house, except for the AC compressor, which the generator actually would have had enough power to run, but not to kick-start.

The proper way to hook up a generator to feed your house is to install an "inlet" which is both nominatively and physically the opposite of an outlet: instead of holes going into a box, you have prongs sticking out of a box. Generally, it'll be one of the big fat 4-pronged round cables, like what your oven might use. That'll feed down to a large double-breaker, in the top-right slot of your breaker panel. That breaker stays off until you want to run a generator, and, to meet code, you have to also install a special bracket that prevents you from turning this breaker off without turning off the primary feed for the whole house. Still kinda dangerous, but they make those brackets surprisingly foolproof.

It does, but it's super dangerous to do unless you have it wired up properly. Proper installations will use a special connector so you can't plug anything else into that receptical, and will have it interlocked against the main breaker - you can't plug anything in without disconnecting from the grid. The dangers of doing it amateur-hour are:

• You now have a cable that you can unplug and have live ends exposed - which if you don't realize is connected to an active generator is super dangerous, and even if you do one slip and you are now the ground conductor
• If you connect the generator while still connected to the grid, your generator is almost certainly going to be out of phase. This will probably cause damage to your generator and anything else plugged in at the time
• If you don't have an interlock and run the generator while connected to the grid (say during a power outage) you will be back-feeding power into the grid. This is super dangerous for anyone coming to fix the outage, as things that they've isolated to fix can still end up being live

Note that this interlock is also required if you have solar - although it's usually in the form of an automatic breaker that will disconnect and put the circuit into "island mode" if it detects a loss of grid supply