Plan Your Generator Installation Before Winter, Not After the First Outage

The easiest time to want a generator is the day the power goes out. It is also the worst time to start installing one.

An installation is a project, not a delivery. The equipment has to be chosen, the permits pulled, the wiring run, and the system tested and signed off before it can carry anything. If that work starts after the first winter outage, the building rides out the rest of the season the same way it rode out the first storm. Here is what the project involves and why fall is the time to begin.

An installation is a sequence, and every step waits on the one before

PECO manages the whole installation. It starts with an evaluation of your power needs and a recommendation for the right system, then moves through equipment selection, permitting, wiring and final integration.

The transfer switch is part of that plan from the start. In most cases a building needs an automatic transfer switch, and PECO includes its setup in the standard generator installation package. None of these steps can be skipped, and most of them cannot begin until the one before it is done.

The size of the job and the permits set the schedule

How long a commercial installation takes depends on the size of the project and on permitting. That is why a finish date cannot be promised over the phone, and why the start date is the one part of the schedule you control.

A project that begins in the fall simply has more room before the weather turns than one that begins after the first storm.

Decide what stays on while the building is calm

The biggest decision in the project comes before any equipment is chosen: which systems the generator has to carry. That list sets the size of the equipment and the kind of transfer switch you need. See how to build that list in What Your Backup Generator Actually Has to Carry.

That list is much easier to make on a quiet afternoon than during an outage, when every system in the building feels like it should have been on it.

Testing belongs before the first storm, not during it

A generator that has never run under real conditions is a hope, not a plan. Equipment testing and startup are part of every PECO installation. Every system is installed to code, and no installation is finished until it has been fully tested and signed off.

When that testing happens in the fall, the first real outage of the winter is not also the generator's first real test. Any question the testing raises gets answered while there is still time to act on it, before anyone depends on the system.

PECO installs both Kohler and Generac

PECO is an authorized Kohler installer and puts in Kohler and Generac generators for commercial, industrial and residential properties across Massachusetts. The brand follows what the building needs, whether that is a data center, a server room, a lab or a manufacturing floor.

Start the walkthrough while the weather is mild

The first step is a visit. PECO will walk the site, look at the systems that have to stay on, and then put the installation in a quote. See PECO's generator installations.

Call PECO at (781) 938-6000 to schedule a generator walkthrough before winter.