Generator Installation in Cape Elizabeth, Maine

Cape Elizabeth sticks out into the Gulf of Maine, and its lighthouses came early: Portland Head Light was completed in January 1791, and the two cast-iron towers at Two Lights replaced stone ones in 1874. The same exposure brings the town the full force of coastal storms. When the storm tide at the Portland Harbor gauge reached a record 14.57 feet on January 13, 2024, it came with nearly three inches of rain and winds near 60 miles an hour. Wind of that kind brings down limbs and lines, and a single broken pole can leave a whole road dark.

Long outages are not rare in Maine. Maine’s worst weather outage on record came with the late-October windstorm of 2017, which darkened upward of 400,000 accounts statewide, left some waiting more than a week, and outdid even the 1998 ice storm. In Cape Elizabeth, where most homes heat with oil, a power failure also stops the heat, because burners, circulator pumps and controls all need electricity. The town has been part of the Portland Water District’s service area since the district’s early years, so most houses are not relying on a well pump, but sump pumps, refrigeration and medical equipment still need power. A house that has already switched to heat pumps needs a generator large enough to start their compressors, which changes the sizing considerably.

Fuel is the first design decision. Propane already heats about 11 percent of homes and is the usual choice for a standby generator, while natural gas can be used where a main reaches the street. Placement comes next: on a coastal lot the generator and its transfer switch should sit above any mapped flood level, away from windows and doors, and with enough clearance for service and snow. The town’s Code Enforcement office provides floodplain assistance and permits the electrical work. A standby unit gets an automatic transfer switch; a portable gets a panel interlock and an outdoor inlet, and in both cases Goodnow Electric works out the size from the actual loads first. Planning the fuel line, the concrete pad and the conduit route at the same time as a renovation or heat pump project saves digging twice.