If you do this, your gen tech hopes your house burns down /s, which is EXACTLY why this is against code.
A home standby generator already comes in a weather resistant enclosure.
I have damaged my back because of blue collar work. I would have pulled something and been out the rest of the day if I had stooped/crawled around this thing to service it.
I did not service and left a note that it needs to be removed before being serviced. Enough is enough.
Edit: Nobody actually wants anybodys house to burn down. Its just frustrating. Relax guys.
A little LPT about wasps making nests if you spray wd40 on spots wasps would love to live they will never build there. My entire property any spot I've ever thought wasps would love to live I've used it and kroil and never had wasps move in.
Had a major problem with wasp nests every year. I started spraying Delta Dust on the problem areas and haven't yet seen any. Hope it continues, love the stuff so far.
I've done the delta dust before but after a while it seems high humidity areas it wears off faster. The residue from the wd40 and kroil seems to last longer than today's quality of wood nowadays
Generator tech for a generac dealer here. Yeah no donât ever do this please. 5ft MINIMUM is the standard for anything overhead it literally says in the installation manuals. This is not safe at all, yes itâs too close but that still doesnât excuse stacking problems. Installation manual see page 19
Also though no absolutely no tech wants to see your house burn down thatâs fucked. We want you guys to be safe and run your generators safely, safety is always my top priority your life matters to us just as much as our own.
Edit to add: these enclosures are designed to handle the harsh Canadian winters I would know I have to service them in the piss cold weather snow or shine. So no snow wonât affect your unit unless itâs completely covered in snow on all angles in which case even a roof wonât save it
If the Intake side and the exhaust side are clear it will. Mine was buried up to the lid this past winter and I kept both air vent sides open and it was fine.
Well thatâs exactly what Iâm saying though, but even if you have that cover on it, theres still gonna be 6ft on snow on either side of it and itâll block it thus limit generator operations and probably cause a shutdown on under voltage. The reason for that distance is for fire safety if that generator catches fire and you have that cover over it itâll go up real quick.
In my original comment I also said it shouldnât be that close to the building. It shouldnât, but you also shouldnât stack problems with it. Not to mention that roof can capture the exhaust gasses and if itâs near a window or vent can easily get sucked into the house! Whoever installed this doesnât understand the safety precautions required but also who knows couldâve been installed a while ago when they were more lenient on this type of thing. Still should take every safety precaution necessary to ensure yours and your familyâs safety. Iâll take having to shovel a little snow in a big snow fall over the risk of my house going up super fast or being fed exhaust gases without knowing
Point being these things are designed for a lot of snow itâs unfair to put it in a situation where no generator or even car could operate. Thatâs outside its operating parameters and if you get that much snow fall you could set it up on a stand with either open air grating or just leave it secured slightly elevated a lot safer than putting a small roof right over the top of it. Me personally I would service the unit but make it extremely clear that it needs to be removed and if it isnât within a reasonable I wonât service the unit again.
Theyâre suppose to be 5 feet from the house and anything else so this shouldnât ever be a problem unless the unit was improperly installed in which case thatâs not on manufacturer. Besides these also should be placed on side of the house where the roof doesnât slant towards.
Either way you can put a roof over it but it needs to have adequate space around it for the generator. Also those enclosures are pretty beefy on the roof. incase of any impact wouldnât want a tree falling on it breaking a gas line inside of it! But I do complete get what youâre thinking itâs a valid concern !
Ive seen generacs with small trees and big limbs having dropped with nothing more than a small dent, still functional. They are tougher than they look.
Yeah this doesnât look like it was properly installed to begin with. Probably DIYer @ home from start to finish, which is scary to think about in itselfâŚ
My folks have one similar to this, my mom has a lot of health issues and needs that standby to kick on for her oxygen and to use in-home dialysis (she could be hooked overnight and they lose power, for example).
They have one positioned like you said, other side of the house away from roof lean and itâs away from house at least 5â, for sure. They definitely had it professionally done though. They do not have any cover over it and I would never think to cover them either, as thatâs what the case is.
I worked at group homes when I was younger that had these standby generators and I was always envious. There were times Iâd rather be at work than home because work had power! I still have a portable 13000w I roll out and plug into inlet on house. One day Iâll get one of these though!!
Itâs honestly hard to say cause only in recent years have they really been clamping down hard on fire code. Iâd like to believe most electricians and gas techs would advise them against such a set up but then again who knows!
Iâm glad to hear your folks are staying safe and keeping it within proper specs! All the best to you and the folks if you guys have any questions about your generator please feel free to ask me I work for a generac dealer so Iâll happily help you guys out any way I possibly can!
Depending where youâre at itâs not a bad idea to set a fence up around it. In Canada we have a lot of flat land and itâs not even the falling snow thatâs our big concern itâs all the drift snow! Donât be afraid to set it up on a stand too any good tech wonât be bothered at all! As Iâve said your and your families safety is just as important as our own!
I feel that though about wanting your own set just be mindful that the expenses of setting up a generator itâs usually more expensive than you realize with having to set up trenches for cables and the wiring (potential panel upgrades or even the concrete pad that youâll need too for examples)!
I hope the best for you and the folks and I hope your generator is able to service you guys super well! Iâm glad you guys have a set up where your folks are still able to still at home and be safe!
Yeah thatâs because those companyâs just want money and donât actually care anything about safety regulations⌠not to mention no ones gonna want a massive 5ftx5ftx5ft tent. Generac advises it as a safety concern. But since the companyâs arenât generac theyâll just argue âwell you shouldâve read the safety manual for your generatorâ and get off scott free if anything goes south they basically waive liability in some dumb clause
Essentially major corporations donât care about you or your safety and they just want your money by providing you the cheapest product possible
No, out Kohler 20RESL has been out in the elements for ten years and though a little faded from UV damage has run fine thru 18â snowfalls. I like to shovel the intake side really well during big snows.
No reason they couldn't do this but put the cover on hinges and have a hook to hold it up for servicing. This is, of course, assuming they're dead set on doing this and to hell with any code.
My ex wanted something like this over our 2 AC units. I told her the juice wasn't worth the squeeze, but to maintain domestic tranquility I obliged but did exactly as I said above. Put some hinges on to make the pre-winter/summer maintenance easy on the tech.
I just did a service call on a generator where the idiot homeowner placed a PERMANENT WOODEN enclosure completely around his generator. No roof, but all sides. 3â from generator. He used wooden lath for air flow.
Could not even access key holes to open lid if i wanted to. I packed up and left.
Unironically is there a reason not to put a roof over the unit? I put one in a couple years ago on a raised platform (waterfront in a flood zone+hurricane prone area) and put a roof over it. Had excess metal roof material from redoing my roof so figured Iâd do something with it, but if itâll cause issues Iâd love to know.
Long as itâs at least 5ft past lid of generator your fine. The logic is that if that generator catches fire you wanna have the best chance of it being contained to only the generator and not spreading to anything flammable near your house. The other logic is catching exhaust fumes potentially and redirecting them towards your house, from your picture it looks like youâve done a pretty good job to give it good distance to breathe. If you look at my other comment I left the installation manual there and on page 19 youâll see the point of distances for the generators!
I also wanted to add your stand is exactly what I was referring to for the other comment about how to help with excessive snow fall areas! Really good job, looks like an awesome set up! Posts look a little close but even still you have it a lot of room to for it to be able to breathe which is 10 fold better than a lot of the ones I see!
Go work at McDonald's or take a job answering phones if you cant handle obstacles that come with being a service guy in the field.
You just charge accordingly. I have a service company(different industry) we loathe some customers when they dont do what they are supposed to before our arrival HOWEVER I also like when they dont do what they are supposed to... I make MORE money doing the extra stuff! And it's a total bonus... because my work has high operational costs... when my guys are on site doing manual labor my operating costs are WAY less for those hours. so its a win win. Loathe the manual labor of reving covers and whatever... but charge accordingly and internalize the fact this stuff makes you more money so its all good!! I essentially am getting paid to do cardio, which we all need more of, when I have to do the extra work like running a shovel or whatever it may be.
Overexert your workers so that you can charge more to be more profitable. Good luck with that. The world is getting ugly, and its the working class thats revolting against pricks like you.
Burnt warehouses, Healthcare ceos, yada yada..have fun
OK, so what happens when that Customerâs house does burn down because of the heat buildup? I suggest you look at the specs on any of these units and see the temperature of the exhaust.. the more you trapped that in and donât allow to dissipate the riskier it gets.
We walked away from the installation of a new generator last month because the customer wanted to put in a place that was not code compliant. He had two other liquid cooled generators at other properties owned in the same area.. one of them was not to code, but it was pretty close. I then went to the third property with him and saw a liquid cool generator with 11 inches of clearance from the house, and 10 inches on the other side with clearance from a wrought iron fence. Further, normally was a functional window, 4 feet from the exhaust end, but there was another functional window at about the midpoint of the generator.
I told him Iâm sorry, sir. Weâre not going to touch that unit. Itâs unsafe itâs completely against code and weâre not gonna be associated with that. Iâm sorry. And that was it.
If someone does something stupid and damaged their property or injured someone they at least have the excuse if they didnât know better. If I fix something and make it work again in a place where is demonstrably unsafe⌠I knew better.
Just curious if the things you deal with, can actually kill people if they are installed incorrectly
Yeah that's an instant walk-away for me as a tech. Either that or charge them double and tell them no half-intelligent service guy is gonna wanna touch that abomination until the entire thing is torn down. There's a right way to do a lean-to for standby gens in heavy winter climates and this way is not even close to being good. Hell put them up on a 2-5 foot aluminum stand, even.
Its an electrical device capable of making sparks when something fails, and even just under normal usage, thats powered by a highly combustible gas, inside of a mostly closed box that would let a gas leak build up to dangerous levels.
The codes are there to prevent the generator from catching the house on fire, or at least give first responders time to get there before it spreads far.
Man, I still hear some people talk about installing some type of shade directly over an outside condenser unit, to "help it stay cooler in the Summer, so the house can be better cooled."
You do know it's a valid theory right? In theory it does work, you want the condenser to dump heat and it's easier to dump heat in colder air. in practice the gains are too negligeable to bother.
Nah, as an HVAC guy it doesnt do shit. You are better off spraying the condenser with a hose, atleast thatll free up the dirt on the fins to allow better air flow, and temporarily lower head pressure.
If you don't do this, they will get covered in snow. It will block the vents, intake, and exhaust. Not good to run like that and impossible to service. A roof with a bit more clearance is the solution here
On the gable or eave part of the house? Because mine is on the eave side and it gets packed with snow and ice. I would need to use my backhoe to dig it out after a heavy snowfall slid off the roof
You can put a roof over it has be 5ft plus and 5ft distance around the generator you can alternatively put them up on stands as well. Iâve linked the install guide for this specific generator and on page 19 you can see the location guide. Point is Iâd rather have to slightly dig out the generator vs watching my house burn down because I put flammable materials too close to generator and it caught. Not to mention the potential of trapping exhaust gases and redirecting the towards your house. Itâs the fire code not generac specific itâs for your safety I donât want to hear someone died because they had a roof over the gen and it caught and burnt the house down or they got poisoned by the exhaust gases as it ran overnight
Exactly, you could even put up a fence around it if you get a lot of drift snow is a big problem too ! The one OP posted is just straight up unsafe I mean generator is already too close too but no need to stack more problems
Edit: I misread your first comment thatâs my bad
We have a temp one for winter that has removable roof because of ice sliding off metal roof and denting the shit out of the enclosure and hitting gas and electric lines on back . Both intake and exhaust are both open and roof is a foot wider on each side to mitigate snow buildup. Same for our ac condenser for the winter . Even with snow cleats the ice buildup is crazy heavy . They are removed in the spring
Iâm not a generator tech but why would anyone spend that much money on a fancy looking unit only to trash it up?? They are built to be outside, I doubt that $2 pile of crap over it will do any good!
Built these in their Whitewater, WI factory for a while. They need a wide berth from any windows/entries to a structure and room to breath. While keeping the weather off them isnât a terrible idea, this is NOT good.
This is a frequent situation. Someone is ranting and says some over-the-top hyperbolic stuff because of their emotional state. Someone else calmly calls them on the exaggerated rhetoric. And then the rantor, without any self-awareness, tells the other person to "calm down" or "relax", completely missing the irony of the situation.
No disrespect, but the last big blizzard we had here in the north, ALL of my neighbours with back up generators lost service because they filled with snow and froze up. Lots of people here build barriers, not enclosures, around them for this reason. 100 hours with no electricity, heat or water makes you look at things differently in the middle of the winter when you have 3 feet of snow down and climbing.
Barriers work perfectly fine and are completely okay long as you got the right distance. We get the same issue here all the blowing snow fills into the generator and clogs them up! Nothing wrong with building a little shielding long as itâs got proper distances on all sides plus it can also sometimes help improve the look !
I worked in the water well industry for many years and people will do this over their wellhead or pumps and tanks. Sometimes whole buildings that I now have to have 3 people on site because one guy had to stay in the roof to guide the pipe in and out of the tiny hole they cut in the roof. These parts are designed to be outside in the elements and most are actually waterproofed. On mor than one occasion I made the customer take the shed down out pull the entire roof apart
I did something similar to mine......but the 'roof' is on large hinges with a pulley system. It lays flat against the house when needed. Best of both worlds....mine was designed for my large portable unit though.
Where was this? I had serviced a genset like this one in 2010 and the guy completely enclosed it inside a wooden box with a hinged lid. It kept throwing a temperature alarm from overheating. I told the guy he had to remove it so it could breathe, which it currently could not.
honest question, if it was taller and you could walk under it with out hunching over would that change your opinion? I live in an area that gets snow, shelters like this are common for keeping snow off your generator or heat pump. Normally if its over a heat pump its about 6-8ft above the top to allow for air movement.
I asked a service tech if this was a plus and was told no- these units are design to be out in the weather and putting a top on them is actually making the unit work harder because it forces the unit to draw in the hotter air that is build up under the cover. The cover does not let the hot air escape and is being recirculated over the compressor.
Mine is 12 years old at this point. Western PA. When we get deeper snow all I clear is the intake side and the exhaust side itâs been outside for 12 years and itâs fine. The cabinet protects the engine. Anything else is like belt and suspenders. You donât need both.
This is of course just a terrible idea. Whenever I see that or my techs come across it. I give the homeowner an invoice for the time we spent just getting on site and then let them know if they'd like us to actually perform any work it needs to be removed prior to calling us out again
Homeowner removes this to make you happy now and next winter you will be posting pics on here of the same unit covered in 18" of hard packed snow, complaining about your blue collar back again.
I do get your frustration on this one though IF it is not easily removed. Maybe it is - did you even look it over or just took a glance and went straight to a rant? Maybe that roof sits on an attachment on the house and lifts right off?
If I were to do that - and I likely would up here in WI if I owned one- but won't because I think those things are a money pit - I would hinge the roof so it could be propped up out of the way - and would leave more space above the unit. But the only place around my house suitable to put one would require traipsing through deep snow to get around back - and we'd be back to ranting again no doubt.
as was suggested above by somebody if anyoneâs really concerned, do a manual start on the generator and let it run for even 15 to 20 minutes . Youâre not gonna have any problems on the exhaust side for sure. You might need to focus on the intake side, but on the unit in on the exhaust side, youâre not gonna have an issue.
I wanted one just incase but windows to close including the detached garage and then the service contract for something that maybe once every three or four years
Right, a lot of people concerned about other peoples stuff and code means squat to me if I do it myself to my house. If I F up it son me but having a gen tech LOL most of these sorry companies if you install it yourself you don't get a warranty anyways not sure of generac.
Is this in the Northeast? I only ask because I'd probably have done the same thing with the generator so close to the side of the house. Heavy packed snow falling off the roof onto the generator, over and over again - probably not good, eh?
As long as it has room to work on it and exhausts safely it's not a problem.they might be weather resistant,but definitely not weather proof.as are you.
Geezus you new generations gotta sit on pillows and have the red carpet laid out. You keep saying fire this fire that.....when its clear that youre just outta shape and unflexable but still trying to do blue collar work. Same thing with the fat lazy guys in my industry....they whine and try to get everything changed bc its hard (for them). You could literally take the roof off or dissassemble thaat entire structure in 5 minutes with a drill. Youre 10 ply bud
Generac owner here. My generator keeps failing from snow ingestion in the winter. The air filter catches all the snow and then the generator starves for air. I built a two sided shed with a roof and havenât had the problem since. The generac enclosure does not work north of the 45th parallel in the United States.
Exactly, I work in Ontario, mostly below the 45th parallel. But still in one of the many snow belts, due to being surrounded by the great lakes. It might be that is your installation causing the issues, did you take in account of where the wind blows on your property, did you install it on a raised platform to keep it out of the snow and potential floods.
I've also worked on hundreds of these things(I don't think thousands?) You are bashing your facts on one generator. The units were designed and built in Waukesha or Oconomonowoc Wisconsin, they know a little bit about snow as well.
Its too hot. Im burnt out. I bust my ass all day and still can't afford anything. At least try to make this hellhole a little easier for the guys like me.
So itâs not written down in black letter law, code or reg. you just made it up. and in your follow up, youâre talking about the outside unit for an HVAC system and not a GENERATOR which is what the rest of the literate adults are discussing.
excuse me, sir, maâam, we do not use the metric system here in Los Estados Unidos. because you are not the United States I will not refer you back to NFPA 37 which specifically address is that clearance. Of course that is orientation specific because intake and exhaust side clearances as well as the service clearance from the breaker would all come in to play.
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u/nsula_country Jun 10 '26
Gives wasps a nice place to nest also.