Generator installation

Nova Scotia loses power to weather often enough that generators here are a practical purchase rather than a luxury one. Generator installation is where one either becomes genuinely useful or becomes a hazard.

The part that is not optional

A generator connected to house circuits must be isolated from the utility supply, every time, without depending on anyone remembering to do something. That is what a transfer switch or a mechanical interlock does.

Back-feeding a house through an appliance outlet does not do this. It sends power back out onto the utility line, where somebody is working to restore your service. This is the single most important thing on this page.

Standby generator installation

A standby generator sits outside on a pad, runs on propane or natural gas, monitors the utility supply, and starts itself when the power fails. The electrical scope is the transfer switch, the circuits it will carry, the wiring between the unit and the house, and the load calculation deciding what it can realistically run.

Portable connections

Far more common, and far cheaper. An inlet on the outside wall, a cable to the generator, and an interlock at the panel so the main breaker and the generator breaker cannot be on together. You choose which circuits matter: usually the furnace or heat pump, the fridge, the well pump and some lighting.

Standby or portable, and the honest difference

The electrical difference is above. The difference that decides it is who has to be there.

A standby unit does the work itself. It is the expensive answer, and for some households, particularly with a well, medical equipment or a business at home, it is the right one.

A portable needs somebody home, awake, and willing to go outside in the weather that caused the outage. The limitation is not the generator, it is that requirement.

Most houses in this region are better served by a good portable and a proper connection than by a cheap standby.

The well pump question

Outside the serviced areas this is often the real reason people buy a generator. No power means no water. If you are on a well, tell us at the start, because the pump is usually the number that decides the size of the unit.

A standby unit that will carry a whole house often needs the service looked at too, which is where a panel upgrade comes in. If the power is already out and something has failed, that is emergency service.

Sizing, and the mistake people make

Generators are sold on running watts and houses fail on starting watts. A well pump, a fridge compressor and a heat pump all draw several times their running current for the moment they start, and if two of them start together on an undersized unit the generator stalls.

Tell us what you need to run and we will work back from the starting loads rather than the sticker. The arithmetic for a well is worked through on what size generator a well pump needs.

GenerLink, and the other way to do it

The question we get more than any other after a storm is about GenerLink. It is a transfer switch that fits behind the meter rather than beside the panel, and it is approved for use in Nova Scotia. You plug the generator into an inlet on the outside of the house, and the device disconnects you from the grid before it connects the generator, so there is no way to backfeed the line.

Where it wins is simplicity: no sub-panel, no interlock, no decisions about which circuits matter, and the install is short. Where it loses is control. A GenerLink puts your whole panel on the generator, so you are the one managing load, and if the generator is small you will be doing that by walking around turning things off.

The alternative is the sub-panel and interlock described above, where the circuits that matter are chosen in advance and nothing else can draw. It costs more and it takes longer. For a lot of houses it is the better answer.

Either way the meter has to come off, which means coordinating with Nova Scotia Power, and either way it is permitted work. Ask us which one suits your house before you buy hardware.

What never to do

The specific object to get rid of is the double ended cord, with a plug moulded on each end, sold for feeding a house through a dryer outlet. There is no correct way to use one: whichever end is plugged in first, the pins on the other end are live and exposed in somebody’s hand.

Every legitimate connection has something in it that makes it physically impossible for the generator and the grid to be joined. That is the whole point of the hardware.

Permits

A generator connection is permitted work whichever route you take, and in Nova Scotia only a certified electrician can pull that permit. On a GenerLink the meter also has to come off, which means the utility is in the schedule. The process is on the electrical permits and inspections page.