John from Colts Neck, NJ has been a Green Sun Energy Services client since October of 2024, and both jobs on this page were done within five weeks of each other.
A 22.5 kW Generac on thirty circuits
Commissioned on 6 January 2025. The house is 8,037 square feet on a 400-amp service, and the whole-house calculation under NEC Article 220 came to 32 kW. The machine that went in is rated 22.5 kW on natural gas – 26 kW on propane – which is not a shortfall but a different question answered. Rather than back up the whole of an eight-thousand-square-foot house, the generator feeds a thirty-circuit subpanel through a 200-amp transfer switch, with three smart management modules arbitrating between the largest loads on it.
Thirty circuits is a great deal of house. It is not the refrigerator and a lamp. But it is a decision about what has to keep running, rather than an attempt to make an outage invisible across eight thousand square feet – and the load survey shows why somebody had to make that decision: an electric range and oven combination, a separate double electric oven, two dishwashers, two refrigerators, a freezer, a washer, a gas dryer, a sump pump and a well pump. Backing all of it at once would have meant a machine half as large again, running mostly to be ready for a coincidence. The well pump is the entry that settles the priorities: on a well, no power means no water at all.
A ChargePoint on a 60-amp circuit
10 February 2025, five weeks later. The household supplied the charger and we hardwired it within ten feet of the panel – J1772, dedicated 60-amp circuit, 11.5 kW, roughly 36 miles of range an hour. With the charger counted in, the calculated minimum service came to 276.78 amps, comfortably inside 400, which is why no upgrade was ever in question.
The question a big house has to answer twice
Both jobs here turn on the same decision, taken five weeks apart: what has to keep working, and what can wait. On the generator it produced thirty circuits instead of eight thousand square feet. On the charger the same logic points the other way round – a car charger is the largest single load most homes ever add and among the easiest to do without for a few days, which is exactly why it is the wrong load to size a generator around. A house that tries to charge a car through an outage buys a machine twice the size it needs and runs it at a fraction of its capacity for years to be ready for the occasion. Answered honestly, on 400 amps and eight thousand square feet, the list of things that genuinely cannot stop is still shorter than the house is.
Project Facts
- Location
- Colts Neck, NJ
- Services
- EV Charger Installation, Standby Generator Installation, Standby Generator Service
- Client since
- October 2024
Standby generator
- Manufacturer
- Generac Model # 7290
- Rated output
- 26 kW LP / 22.5 kW NG
- Fuel
- Natural Gas
- Electrical service
- 400 amp
- Transfer switch
- 200 amp
- Load management
- Essential Circuits/NEMA-3R
EV charger
- Charger
- Customer Supplied ChargePoint Model # CPH50-NEMA6-50-L23
- Charging port
- CCS (J1772)
- Circuit breaker
- 60 amp
- Estimated range added per hour
- Estimated Range Per Hour: 36 mi / 58 km
Questions from Colts Neck homeowners
Standby generatorWhy do outages last longer on some Colts Neck streets than others?
Mature tree cover over overhead lines is the usual reason. Limbs coming down in wind, snow or ice take the lines with them, so heavily treed streets tend to see both more frequent outages and longer restoration times than open ones. It is one of the honest arguments for standby power rather than a portable generator.
EV chargingWhat is a ChargePoint Home Flex?
A Wi-Fi connected Level 2 residential charger with an adjustable output. Current Home Flex equipment can be configured for 16, 24, 32, 40, 48 or 50 amps depending on how it is installed, which is what makes it useful on a house whose electrical service cannot support the highest setting.
Standby generatorDoes new gas piping have to be pressure tested in Colts Neck?
Yes. Gas piping subject to the adopted fuel-gas code must be inspected and tested before it is accepted. New Jersey adopts the 2024 International Fuel Gas Code, which governs the inspection, the test pressure and how long the test has to hold.