Standby generator cost dataset

Size, gas demand and price together

⚠️ The gas figure is our estimate — approximately 13.6 cubic feet per hour per kilowatt on natural gas — and not a manufacturer specification. We publish it with that caveat rather than leaving it out, because it is the number that decides the answer and because omitting it would make the price look more certain than it is. Ask your installer for the figure from the data plate. The point of the column is not its precision: it is that a large generator is a gas supply question before it is a wattage question.

The line people find after signing

When the existing supply cannot deliver that flow on top of the furnace and the water heater, the pipework from the meter has to be enlarged: $12,824 against $12,174 on the reference installation. And beyond our side of it, if the meter itself is too small the utility replaces it — their equipment, their schedule, sometimes their charge, and excluded from every figure here because it varies too much to average honestly. This is a five-minute phone call to the gas company before collecting quotes rather than after, and it is the most valuable thing in this dataset.

Fuel, transfer switch and base

The essential-circuits switch forces a useful conversation about what actually has to work at three in the morning — heating, refrigeration, a well pump, a sump pump, some lights and the internet is a short list. The whole-house switch buys not having to remember which sockets are live, and comes with a controller that sheds the air conditioning while the range is on, because a 22 kW machine cannot run everything a 200 amp service can.

Where the machine sits

The gas run compounds rather than scaling: pipe diameter is decided by the flow needed and the distance travelled, so the same machine needs a fatter pipe further away. ⚠️ Where the machine may sit is not always your choice — many jurisdictions apply noise limits and setback distances from property lines to standby generators, which can dictate both runs. Worth establishing before anyone quotes a location.

Why not a portable

Ready.gov, Power Outages states that “Generators, camp stoves or charcoal grills should always be used outdoors and at least 20 feet away from windows”. That sentence is the entire argument for a permanently installed machine: a portable asks somebody to go out in the weather, start it, keep it twenty feet from every window, run cords back inside and refuel it through the night. CPSC, Carbon Monoxide Information Center covers what carbon monoxide means for a household. ⚠️ If a portable is the answer for you, the component that makes it safe to connect is an interlock kit at the panel — a few hundred dollars, priced on our electrical panel page, and it exists to stop backfeeding the grid, which is what kills utility line workers. Both retrieved 2026-08-23.

Line items

87% of the reference total comes from estimated rather than official figures — the highest share of any dataset on this site, because the machine itself dominates the bill and there is no public price series for generators. The labour half is official and regional.

The reasoning behind each figure

Standby generator, weather enclosure and controllerestimated, ±29%

• Priced per kilowatt, so a 22 kW unit lands around $5,100 to $9,200 for the machine, its enclosure and its controller.
• The band is brand tier and enclosure quality rather than geography — these are manufactured goods shipped nationally. It also spans air-cooled units at the bottom and liquid-cooled ones at the top, which is a real durability difference at the larger sizes.
• This page does not compare brands and does not name any.

Transfer switch, essential circuitsestimated, ±41%

• A small automatic transfer switch feeding a sub-panel of selected circuits. It is the component that makes this a standby system rather than a machine in the garden: it senses the outage, starts the engine, waits for it to stabilise and then transfers.
• It is also what makes the installation safe for the people repairing the line outside, because it physically cannot connect the generator and the utility at the same time.

Service-rated transfer switch with load sheddingestimated, ±42%

• Carries the whole service, plus a controller that drops the largest loads when the generator cannot run them all together. On a 22 kW unit that typically means the air conditioning waits while the range is on.
• Roughly $350 to $900 more than the essential-circuits switch. That difference buys not having to explain to anyone which sockets work.

Natural gas pipe from the meterestimated, ±42%

• Pipe, fittings, a sediment trap and a shutoff at the machine. Priced by the foot along the route it really takes.
• ⚠️ The diameter is decided by the flow the generator needs and the distance it has to travel, and both matter: the same generator needs a fatter pipe at fifty feet than at fifteen. This is why a quote made over the phone from a model number is not a quote.

Propane pipe from the tankestimated, ±44%

• Around a quarter less per foot than natural gas, and that is physics rather than a discount: propane carries roughly two and a half times the energy per cubic foot, so the same generator can be fed through a smaller pipe.
• It runs at a different pressure too, which is why the regulator on the next line exists and why the two fuels are not interchangeable without changing hardware.

Second-stage regulator and tank connectionestimated, ±45%

• Propane leaves a tank at a much higher pressure than a gas main delivers, so it is stepped down in two stages before it reaches an appliance. This is the second one, at the generator.
• ⚠️ It also has to be set for propane rather than natural gas. A generator plumbed on the wrong fuel setting either will not run or over-fires, and the second of those is the expensive one.

Gas fitting, pressure test and purge

• Six hours: run the pipe, make the connections, pressure-test the whole thing and purge it. Priced at the pipefitting wage because that is the skill, whoever the company sends.

Reworking the gas supply to the meterestimated, ±51%

• The line people find out about after signing. When the existing supply cannot deliver the flow the generator needs on top of everything else, the pipework from the meter has to be enlarged.
• ⚠️ And the part beyond that is not ours at all: if the meter itself is too small, the utility replaces it, on their schedule and sometimes with their own charge. That is excluded here and it is worth one phone call before you get quotes rather than after.
• Priced as our side of that work: the pipe and fittings from the meter into the house at a larger diameter.

Feeder and conduit from generator to transfer switchestimated, ±49%

• Power conductors plus the low-voltage control pair that tells the generator to start. Both run together, outdoors, in conduit.
• Band spans a surface run along a wall at the bottom and a buried run across a garden at the top.

Electrical installation and transfer switch wiring

• Twelve hours for an essential-circuits installation and sixteen for a service-rated one, where the switch goes between the meter and the panel and the whole house comes off for part of the day.
• The service-rated case is also the one where the utility may need to be involved to pull the meter, which is scheduling rather than labour but lands on the same calendar.

Compacted gravel bedestimated, ±45%

• Excavate, fill with crushed stone and compact. Cheapest of the three and permitted by most manufacturers, provided it drains and stays level.

Moulded composite padestimated, ±45%

• A one-piece pad sized to the unit, set on compacted stone. The commonest choice and the one that goes in fastest.

Poured concrete padestimated, ±43%

• Form, pour, and wait. Required by some jurisdictions and worth it where the ground heaves.
• ⚠️ It is the option that adds days rather than money: the pad has to cure before the generator can sit on it, so the installation becomes two visits.

Cold weather kit, battery and first fillestimated, ±46%

• Block heater, battery warmer, the battery itself and synthetic oil. In a cold climate this is not an accessory: a generator that will not crank at minus fifteen is a very expensive garden ornament, and it will be minus fifteen the night it is needed.

Start-up, load test and exercise programming

• Three and a half hours: first start, a load test with the utility deliberately dropped, and setting the weekly exercise run.
• The exercise run matters more than it sounds. A standby generator spends its life not running, and the thing that kills it is not use, it is sitting. If nobody sets that schedule the machine will be untested on the day it is needed.

Electrical and mechanical permitsestimated, ±52%

• Usually two permits, sometimes three where gas is separate. Fees are set locally with no national schedule, hence a band.
• ⚠️ Some jurisdictions also apply noise limits and setback distances from property lines to standby generators, which can decide where the machine is allowed to sit and therefore how long both runs are. Worth checking before choosing a location.

Not included in this dataset

A larger gas meter or utility service

If the meter itself cannot deliver the flow, the utility replaces it. That is their equipment, their schedule and sometimes their charge, and it varies too much to average. One phone call before getting quotes rather than after.

A propane tank

Buying or leasing a tank, and the slab or the burial it needs, is a separate job with its own economics. Leased tanks usually come with a fuel contract attached.

Electrical panel upgrades

Assumes the existing service and panel are sound and appropriately sized. Where they are not, that is a separate job on our electrical panel page.

Fuel and maintenance

A standby generator burns gas every week when it exercises and needs an oil and filter service roughly annually or after a long outage. Real money over a decade, and not in this figure.

Portable generators

A different product at a tenth of the price with an entirely different risk profile. If that is the comparison you are making, the interlock kit on our electrical panel page is the piece that makes a portable safe to connect.

Battery storage

Increasingly the alternative to a generator, silent, and priced completely differently. Not modelled here.