Ten questions to ask a generator installer

Ask for: Ask for the TECL number and the name it is registered to, then search it at tdlr.texas.gov.

In Texas an electrical contractor works under a licensed master electrician, and the license is issued to a specific legal entity. The company on your quote and the company on the license are not always the same.

What goes wrong without it: You sign with a sales company that holds no license, the work is done by whoever it hired that week, and your recourse runs against a business the state has no record of licensing.

Us: TECL 40628, held by UTS ElectricPros, LLC. That is the same legal entity that sells you the generator.

Ask for: Check the manufacturer's own dealer locator, not the seller's website. Cummins, Generac and Kohler all publish one.

Factory warranty claims on a home standby unit are handled through the manufacturer's authorized dealer network, and equipment from an unauthorized reseller may not be covered.

What goes wrong without it: Equipment bought through a third party with no dealer behind it. When something fails under warranty, nobody authorized is responsible for the claim.

Us: Authorized Cummins Residential and Light Commercial dealer, confirmable on the Cummins dealer locator. We open and manage the Cummins claim ourselves.

Ask for: Ask directly: are your crews employees, and is the installing company the same legal entity as the selling company?

A generator install is an electrical job and a gas job on a permanent piece of home equipment. Warranty on the machine and warranty on the workmanship are different promises, and they are often made by different companies.

What goes wrong without it: In year three the unit will not transfer. The seller points at the installer, the installer points at the manufacturer, and the subcontractor who actually ran the gas line is no longer trading.

Us: One company. UTS ElectricPros, LLC is the dealer and the license holder, and its own electricians install under its assumed name Clements Electric; we do not subcontract the electrical work. The one exception is the gas line, which a licensed plumber runs (question 7).

Ask for: Ask for the installed price over the phone and see what happens.

Installed cost is driven by things nobody can see from a desk: distance from the pad to the panel, gas meter capacity, line length and sizing, service and panel condition, and what the city wants.

What goes wrong without it: A confident phone number becomes a change order once someone measures the gas run. The quote you compared against was never the price.

Us: We do not quote an installation sight-unseen. The survey is free, and the number you get afterwards is fixed and in writing.

Ask for: Ask to see equipment priced separately from labor, materials and permits.

Cummins publishes a minimum advertised price and a suggested retail price for each home standby model, so the equipment line is easy to check against those figures. Most of the difference between two quotes is usually in the installation.

What goes wrong without it: One number for everything. You cannot tell whether you are comparing installation scope or a markup on the equipment, and you cannot compare two bids line by line.

Us: Equipment at the Cummins suggested retail price published on each model page, with no checkout fee, and installation quoted as its own line after the survey.

Ask for: Ask whether the permit is in their name or yours, and who stands in the driveway when the inspector arrives.

Texas Local Government Code § 229.102 limits what a Texas municipality may impose on the installation and inspection of a residential backup system at or under 50kW, but the permit, the inspection and the utility release are still how a job gets legally closed out.

What goes wrong without it: "Permit by owner" on the paperwork. You are now the responsible party for an electrical and gas installation you did not perform, and an unpermitted generator is a problem that surfaces when you sell the house.

Us: We pull the permits and meet the inspector. If anything is flagged, we correct it and re-inspect at our cost.

Ask for: Ask what the existing meter delivers, what the unit needs under load, and whether the line will be pressure-tested.

The gas work is one of the biggest swings in an installed price. A 20kW air-cooled unit burns up to 268 cubic feet of natural gas an hour at full load (Cummins spec sheet), usually more than any other gas appliance in the house, and an existing meter and line are sized for the appliances already there.

What goes wrong without it: A quote that assumes the existing gas line is adequate. It is not discovered until install day, and meter upsizing runs on the utility's timeline, not yours.

Us: Meter capacity and line sizing are part of the free survey, before you have a number. The gas line is run by a licensed plumber, pressure-tested and inspected: one we hire and stand behind on a turnkey job, or your own if you prefer to arrange it.

Ask for: Ask whether the handover includes a real transfer test with the house on the generator, or only a start-up.

A generator that starts proves the engine runs. The failures that matter are the transfer switch not transferring, or the set not holding load when the air conditioning restarts.

What goes wrong without it: It ran fine on install day. The first genuine outage is when you discover it will not carry the house.

Us: Commissioned under actual load, with a walkthrough of the controls, the exercise cycle and the maintenance interval before we leave.

Ask for: Ask what the maintenance interval is, who performs it, and when parts coverage and labor coverage each end.

On the Cummins air-cooled range the 5 year / 2,000 hour limited warranty covers parts for the full term but travel and labor for a shorter one. After labor coverage ends, service is paid for, so it gets skipped.

What goes wrong without it: An unbudgeted service bill, or no service at all until the machine fails to start during a storm. A weak starting battery is the most common cause of a no-start.

Us: Published maintenance scope, performed by our own electricians on genuine Cummins parts, and Cummins factory extended warranties in 5, 7 and 10 year terms.

Ask for: Ask how long the installing company has operated in the Metroplex, and go and read its reviews rather than the testimonials on its website.

A workmanship warranty is only worth as much as the company that wrote it, and a standby generator is a long-lived piece of equipment.

What goes wrong without it: A young company writes a long workmanship promise and is gone before the promise runs out.

Us: Clements Electric has traded in Dallas-Fort Worth since 1982 and shows 4.7 stars from 500+ reviews on its Google profile. UTS ElectricPros, LLC bought the Clements Electric business, including its reviews, and runs it as a dba.