Ocean Isle Whole Home Generator Service 

Whole Home Generator Installation and Repair

Power outages often last hours, days or weeks and can handicap your daily tasks if you’re not prepared. Inclement weather such as tornadoes, hurricanes and ice storms are a major cause of lengthy blackouts. Animals, vehicle accidents, human errors and system failures can also trigger power outages. You, therefore, need to prepare for these outages by installing a whole-home generator.

A permanently installed automatic whole-home generator by a certified Ocean Isle Beach electrician not only provides power backup but also peace of mind to your family or business during a blackout. Most of these standby generators run on natural gas or liquid propane. Such a generator turns on automatically when the power goes off and turns off when the power is back. We work hard at A+ Heating & Cooling – Electrical to ensure you get quality installation and repair services to keep your generator running.

You can get different sizes of generators, depending on the size of your home or business. Whole-home units should create enough power for almost all your needs such as lighting, cooking, heating and cooling.

How Generators Work

Whole-home generators are permanently fixed to your home’s wiring together with a transfer switch. The switch quietly monitors your building’s connection to local utility power. There are two types of switches: automatic and manual. An automatic switch does not require you to turn the power on manually.

For generators with the automatic switch, their systems are always ready. When they sense that utility power has stopped, they seamlessly transfer your Ocean Isle Beach, NC, home’s electrical appliances and circuits to the backup power. Once the utility power is back, the system transfers your home back to the utility power, and the generators turn off until the next time the same happens. The process of transfer of power is seamless, as it takes less than 30 seconds.

Our experts at A+ Heating & Cooling – Electrical will help you solve any problem with transfer switches or other parts of your standby generator. Call us to help today! 

Call Us Today

At A+ Heating & Cooling – Electrical, our friendly team are always ready to help you find a generator that suits both your needs and budget. We’d love to help you fulfill your heating and air conditioning installation needs for your Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, home! Contact us today to learn more about the services we offer!

Choosing Your Whole House Generator

The type of generators vary depending on various factors such as the size, the number of electrical appliances you have, the fuel source of the generator as well as its transfer switch options. We have created a list of factors that affect the type of generator to help you purchase the right model.

Size of the Generator

Generators are typically rated by kilowatts, which measure the capacity that the machine can handle. If you are looking for an entry-level, whole-house unit, it’s advisable to consider one that has a capacity of 22 kilowatts.

If you want to replace about 75% of the 200 amps that flow into your electrical panel, you need to choose a standby generator rated 27 to 36 kW. These types of generators are equipped with advanced load-managing hardware such as A/C shedding. The advantage of such a system is that the A/Cs start at different times to protect the system from an overload.

At A+ Heating & Cooling – Electrical, we recommend the 48kW generator in case you want a system to back up your entire house. Such a system can produce 220 amp of power at 240 volts, which is nearly the amount of energy that comes from the utility.

Power Requirements in Your House

You need to look at your house and the number of appliances you use to determine the amount of power the generator should supply. The appliances that drain most of the energy are the air conditioner followed by kitchen appliances. It’s also vital to consider the number of people you live with. If you have more people, the power demand is going to increase. Once you determine the total wattage the house requires, you can begin looking at appropriately sized generators.

Fuel Source

Most generators use natural gas or liquid propane, which can be a bit problematic to find. Luckily, some of the whole-house units come with a diesel option, which is more accessible. Both liquid propane and diesel-powered generators require large fuel tanks. This ensures the system runs for days without requiring refills. The natural gas meter, similarly, must be the right size. We advise our clients to ensure they have a reliable source of fuel before buying a generator.

Type of Switch

During our many years of operation, we discovered that the type of switch in a generator matters a lot. Getting the right switch is as essential as choosing the right one because they work together to restore power. Consider getting a generator with an automatic switch.

An automatic switch is always on standby to come into action whenever there is a power failure. These generators make the transfer of power source seamless because the process only takes a few seconds.

Manual switches that require you to physically turn the generator “on” or “off” when there is a blackout can be time consuming and an inconvenience. Say if your family is on vacation when there’s an outage, you could return days later to a fully defrosted freezer.