Every autumn we get the same call in a rush: freeze-up is coming, the generator in the shed has not run since last year, and there is no safe way to connect it to the house. Here is how to think about it properly, ideally in August rather than October.
Start with what must stay on
Most people start with generator size. Start instead with a list. In an Alaska home the circuits that matter during an outage are usually:
- Heating - boiler, furnace controls, circulating pumps or the blower
- Well pump, if you are not on a community system
- Heat tape on water lines
- Freezer and refrigerator
- A handful of lights and a couple of receptacles for charging things
That list is often under 5kW of real running load. Once you know it, sizing is arithmetic rather than guesswork, and you are not buying and fuelling a machine twice the size you need.
Starting loads are the trap
The number that catches people out is not running watts, it is starting watts. A well pump motor can draw several times its running current for a moment at startup. A generator sized on running load alone will stall or brown out when the pump kicks in at 3am. We measure the real loads at your place and size with starting surge accounted for.
Extension cords are the problem we get called to fix
The common setup - a portable generator outside, cords run in through a cracked window or door - has three problems. The cords are usually undersized for what is on them. The window they come through is a heat loss and a security issue for the whole outage. And the things that matter most, your heating system and well pump, are hardwired, so they get nothing.
There is also the serious one: anybody tempted to backfeed a generator into a dryer outlet is energising their own service conductors, and potentially the line outside. That is a danger to you and to anyone working on the utility system.
What a proper setup looks like
For a portable generator: an exterior inlet box, a cable rated for the load, and either a manual transfer switch or a small critical-load panel. You start the generator outside, plug in one cable, flip the transfer switch, and the circuits you chose come alive. Nothing runs through a window and nothing can backfeed.
For a standby unit: a permanently installed generator, an automatic transfer switch, and a fuel supply - usually propane here. Power goes out, the unit starts itself, the transfer switch changes over, and you may not notice until you see the neighbours' lights are off. More money up front, nothing to do when it happens.
Either way the transfer switch is the non-negotiable part. It physically prevents generator power and utility power ever meeting. We cover both approaches under generator installation.
The pre-winter test that people skip
A generator that started fine in May may not start in November. Before freeze-up:
- Start it and run it under real load, not just no-load idle
- Check and change oil and filters per the hours run
- Confirm fuel supply and, for gasoline, that stored fuel has not gone stale
- Test the transfer switch changeover both ways
- Confirm the critical-load circuits are the ones you actually want
- Check battery condition on electric-start and standby units
We do this as a scheduled visit, and it is much cheaper than the alternative, which is finding out during the first real outage.
Battery backup as an alternative
For smaller critical loads - heating controls, a freezer, communications - a battery system can cover short outages silently and with no fuel handling, and can be paired with a generator for longer ones. Worth discussing if your outages tend to be hours rather than days.
To get backup power sorted before it is needed, call (888) 633-7804. Local pages for generator install in Wasilla, generator install in Homer and generator install in Delta Junction.