Residential Electrician in Henniker, NH: Generator Installation and Backup Power

A Town of Hills, Trees and Overhead Lines

Henniker is not flat. It sits in the Contoocook River valley with hills rising on all sides, and Craney Hill alone reaches 1,402 feet. Much of the town is wooded, and much of the electrical supply reaches houses on overhead lines running through those woods.

That combination is the usual cause of an outage in this part of New Hampshire: a branch or a tree across a line on a road that climbs, in weather that makes it hard to get to. A house at the top of a hill road, a mile from the next, is a house where an outage may be a long one.

This business is based in Henniker, so these are roads we drive regularly. The generator question is one we are asked about here more than almost anything.

Water, Heat and a Ski Area on the Hill

What a generator protects in a country house is the same short list in every case, and the order matters.

Water first. A drilled well runs on an electric pump, and no power means no water, no flushing and no way to run a washing machine. In winter the same outage can freeze a pipe. The well pump is the first circuit on almost every generator we install, and it shapes the sizing, because a pump draws far more to start than to run.

Heat second. Most heating systems need electricity to run controls and circulation pumps whatever they burn, and a boiler that cannot circulate is a boiler that cannot protect a house in January.

Then refrigeration, lighting and a few outlets. Henniker also has a ski area on Craney Hill, and a winter storm that takes down the lines for a day is a good illustration of how much of the town runs on one supply.

Student Houses and Rentals: a Different Case for Backup Power

A landlord thinking about a generator is asking a different question from a homeowner.

A house let to students is occupied by people who will not read a manual and who may not be present when an outage starts. What the owner wants is that the heat stays on, the pipes do not freeze and nothing in the building fails in a way that becomes a claim.

For a rental that usually argues for a smaller, simpler installation: a transfer arrangement that carries the heating controls and a few essentials, and not the whole house, because the point is to protect the building and not to preserve a normal evening. A critical loads panel is built for exactly that, and costs a good deal less than backing up everything.

Gas in the Street, or a Tank in the Yard

The fuel question decides the whole installation and should be settled before a unit is chosen.

A standby generator runs on natural gas or propane. Where piped natural gas runs to the street, it is the simplest supply. Where it does not, the generator runs from a propane tank, which has to be sited, sized and connected to its own rules.

A house through a three-day outage uses more fuel than anyone expects, and a tank sized for convenience can run low in the middle of one. We establish what is on your road at the first call, because the answer changes both the cost and the equipment.

Where It Goes, and Where the Snow Goes

On a hill property the siting is a real decision, and it has two halves.

The standard half is the same everywhere: a level pad, clear of the house, of openings and of anything combustible, by the manufacturer's distances, with exhaust pointed away from windows and doors.

The Henniker half is the slope and the snow. A level pad on a hillside can need a retaining edge. A unit placed where the plow banks, or under a roofline that sheds, is buried in February, which is when it is needed. We decide siting by walking the property and thinking about where the water and the snow go, and not from a drawing.

Portable, Standby, and What Each Costs

A portable generator is the lighter option. A proper portable hookup, with an inlet and a transfer arrangement, is about $650, for a household that can start a machine in the cold and feed it by hand.

A standby unit starts itself and runs the house automatically, which is the case for a household that is away, elderly, or simply does not want to be doing it at three in the morning. Installed, typically $10,000 to $20,000 depending on size and location, with the unit included.

Both go through a transfer switch, which disconnects the house from the line before the generator connects, so that power cannot flow back out onto wires someone may be working on. An extension cord through a window is not an installation.

The generator sizing tool gives a first answer. The calculation at the house, from the real circuits, gives the right one.

Servicing, and Who Repairs It

A generator needs looking after, and who does that is the question to ask before you buy and not in five years.

Scheduled servicing and everything electrical is ours: oil and filters on the manufacturer's schedule, the battery, the load test and the transfer switch. When a fault is genuinely inside the engine it goes to a generator specialist we work with, who sells and services these machines as their trade and administers the warranty.

That is deliberate and it is a benefit. One call, the electrical side handled here, the engine covered by somebody who does nothing else. Generator servicing explains what a visit covers.