Anna from Rumson, NJ has been a Green Sun Energy Services client since August of 2020, and came back for a car charger four years later. The generator is the one people remember, and not for its size.
A 20 kW Generac, and a window that had to stop opening
Commissioned on 25 February 2021. The calculation asked for a minimum of 14 kW under NEC Article 220 Part IV and a Generac rated 18 kW on natural gas went in – 20 kW on propane – behind a 200-amp managed whole-house transfer switch with a smart management module. The house is 2,300 square feet with three refrigerators, a dishwasher, a washer, a gas dryer and a sump pump.
The condition attached to the job is the part worth reading. A generator has to sit a set distance from any window or door that opens, because exhaust goes to the nearest opening and a house will draw it in. At the position this machine had to occupy, that distance could not be met – so before the install could go ahead, the household had the window to its right replaced with a fully sealed, non-operational unit. It sounds like bureaucracy and it is not. The alternative is a running engine a few feet from a window somebody opens on a warm night in the middle of an outage.
A Tesla Wall Connector, outdoors beside the generator
July of 2024. The household supplied the charger – a Tesla Wall Connector, NACS – and we installed it outdoors next to the generator, on a dedicated 60-amp circuit at 11.5 kW with a management module of its own, adding roughly 36 miles of range an hour.
Two machines on one wall
The charger ended up a few feet from the generator, which is tidy and also sensible. Both are large loads served from the same 200-amp panel, and by 2024 that panel had already been surveyed once and given a module to arbitrate with. The charger got a module of its own, so it can be held back while the machine is carrying the house – a car charging overnight is the easiest big load in a home to defer, and the last one anybody wants competing with three refrigerators and a sump pump. There is a quieter connection too: the clearance rule that fixed the generator’s position in 2021, sealed window and all, is the reason there was already a settled, code-compliant piece of wall to put a charger on three years later.
Project Facts
- Location
- Rumson, NJ
- Services
- EV Charger Installation, Standby Generator Installation, Standby Generator Service
- Client since
- August 2020
Standby generator
- Manufacturer
- Generac Model # 7039-1
- Rated output
- 20 kW LP / 18 kW NG
- Fuel
- Natural Gas
- Home sized for
- 2,300 sq ft
- Electrical service
- 200 amp
- Transfer switch
- 200 amp
- Load management
- Managed Whole House
EV charger
- Charger
- Tesla Model # 1457768-02/NACS (Customer Supplied)
- Charging port
- TESLA (NACS)
- Circuit breaker
- 60 amp
- Charging stations
- 1
- Estimated range added per hour
- Estimated Range Per Hour: 36 mi / 58 km
Questions from Rumson homeowners
Standby generatorDoes the residential building code apply to a generator?
It can. For applicable one- and two-family dwellings New Jersey adopts the 2024 International Residential Code, subject to state amendments. Structural and flood-related generator installations may therefore need review under the residential subcode as well as the electrical and fuel requirements.
EV chargingWhere should a home EV charger be mounted?
Somewhere the cable reaches the car's charging port comfortably, without tension and without lying across a walkway. Worth thinking about before the location is fixed: where the port sits on the current car and might sit on the next one, whether the car parks inside or out, the cable length, how the driveway is used, and where the garage door travels.
Standby generatorDoes a house with a generator still need surge protection?
Yes. A generator protects against the loss of utility power; it does nothing about a surge. Current electrical code includes surge protection for applicable dwelling services, so whole-house surge protection belongs in a properly designed generator installation rather than being treated as an extra.