Coming to a backyard near you: a kinder, gentler generator

Gentlemen, silence your engines.

Droning, gas-guzzling generators may have reached their window-rattling peak in the days after Gustav. A new generation of quiet, automatic natural gas-burning generators barely more conspicuous than your exterior central A/C unit is finding its way into homes now that their prices have tumbled to within the reach of many homeowners.

That’s right—automatic. The moment the power goes out, these gems kick in with all the noise of an idling car engine.

Fed by your home’s natural gas line, these generators provide power more reliably than gas generators, which is ensured thanks to a weekly self-test the generator performs by kicking itself on for a few minutes in the wee hours. No driving around your powered-down city searching for gasoline—and no fear of having it stolen.

Baton Rouge financial executive Richard Preis, who’s earning himself quite the rep as one hurricane-ready dude, installed a 15-kilowatt Generac Guardian natural gas generator several years ago to power just part of his house during outages. It worked so well he had a newer 25 kW model installed to power his entire house. He’s become a virtual ambassador for the Generac company along the way, spouting off power ratings and capacities with ease. “Most homes in this town you could generate for under $10,000, and that includes installation and wiring,” he says.

The dealer comes to your home, installs the generator and connects it to the natural gas supply. An electrician installs an automatic switch and hooks the generator into the house’s wiring.

The generators range from 8 kW—enough to power a very small house—all the way to big-kid industrial beasts that crank out a whopping 9,000 kW, enough to power a commercial building. Karey Authement of KWATT Electric LLC in Baton Rouge has seen the demand for natural gas generators grow during the past few years.

“It’s only been a few per year, but they’re large-ticket items,” Authement says. “The first year we sold five or six; the second about a dozen. We’ve installed about 30 in the past few weeks.”

The doubling rate of sales goes hand-in-hand with people’s fear of hurricanes. “You couldn’t give them away in December,” he says.

A 17 kW generator from KWATT goes for $7,200, which includes installation, a fiber composite pad for it to sit on, a 200-amp transfer switch and wiring.

Authement has advice for potential customers: Get ready early.

“I kid you not, we got 1,000 phone calls the week before the hurricane,” he says. “In order to do it right, it takes time. It has to be serviced and broken in properly. People will burn them up in a week.”

Manufacturer Generac seems to be seeing a booming demand as well.

We were unable to get a person on the line after Gustav. “Due to the recent hurricane activity in the South,” a customer service recording said, “our call volume has increased dramatically.”