Generator Installation in Ellensburg & Cle Elum

Power goes out here. Winter storms bring wind and ice down on lines across the county, upper-county outages at elevation can run long, and if you're on a well, losing power means losing water at the same time you lose heat. A properly installed generator turns a multi-day problem into an inconvenience. An improperly installed one can kill a lineman. Standby generators are permanently installed outside, wired to your electrical system, and fueled by propane or natural gas. Paired with an automatic transfer switch, the unit senses the outage, starts, and transfers your loads over, typically within a minute, whether or not anyone's home. When utility power returns it transfers back and shuts down. That last part matters more than people expect — half the value of a standby unit is that it works while you're at work, or out of town, in February, with a house full of pipes. Portable generators cost far less and require you to be present, awake, and willing to go outside and start them. Connected properly through an inlet and a manual transfer switch or interlock, they'll run a defined set of critical circuits. That's a legitimate choice for a lot of households — it just isn't the same product. We install and wire both. Which one is right depends on how long your outages actually run, whether you have a well, whether you're regularly away, and what your budget is.

A generator must be connected through a transfer switch or an approved interlock — a device that makes it physically impossible for generator power and utility power to be connected at the same time. Without one, generator power can push back out through your service and onto the utility lines. That's called backfeed, and it energizes lines that a utility crew has every reason to believe are dead. It's a known way to kill a lineman working to restore your neighborhood's power. It can also destroy your generator and start a house fire when utility power returns. The workaround people find online is a suicide cord — a cable with male plugs on both ends, run from the generator into a dryer outlet. It backfeeds the entire service with no isolation whatsoever. We will not connect one, and we'd ask you not to use one. A proper installation includes an inlet box, a transfer switch or panel interlock, and correct grounding and bonding. It's permitted and inspected work. It isn't expensive relative to the generator itself, and it's the difference between a backup system and a hazard.

Undersized generators are the most common complaint we're called out to fix, and the mistake is almost always the same: adding up running watts and forgetting starting loads. Motors — well pumps, furnace blowers, refrigeration compressors, heat pumps — draw several times their running current for the moment they start. A well pump that runs at 1,500 watts can spike far above that on startup, and if the generator can't absorb it, the unit stalls or the pump doesn't start. For a whole-house standby unit, we do a load calculation. For a critical-loads approach, we work out which circuits genuinely need to stay up — usually well pump, heating controls, refrigeration, a few lighting circuits and communications — and size to those. The critical-loads route is very often the better value, particularly on rural properties where the well is the real priority. Fuel matters too. Propane is the common choice on rural Kittitas County properties without gas service, and tank sizing needs to account for how long outages actually last here, not a manufacturer's optimistic runtime figure. Rural properties in the upper county, around Cle Elum, Roslyn, Ronald, Easton and toward Snoqualmie Pass, see both the longest outages and the highest consequences — wells, electric heat, elevation and winter access all in the same place. Ellensburg proper generally sees shorter outages, but a well-served town still loses power to wind events, and businesses with refrigeration, servers or scheduled operations have their own reasons for standby power. Electrical work in Washington requires a permit and inspection, and generator interconnection is exactly the kind of work an inspector should see. We handle it. Call 509.264.5678 for a written estimate.