Before the question is which generator, the question is what your existing electrical service can actually support. That is the part most quotes skip, and it is where this page starts.
Will Your Existing Service Support a Generator?
Usually yes — but the honest answer is that your service size determines how the generator is connected, not whether you can have one.
A generator does not draw from your service; it replaces it during an outage. What your existing panel and service determine is three things: how much of the house the generator can realistically carry, whether the transfer equipment can be fitted to the panel you already have, and whether there is physical room for the changes.
On a 100-amp service, a whole-home standby unit is often the wrong shape of solution. Not because 100 amps is unsafe, but because the panel is frequently already close to full, and a service-rated transfer switch sized to the whole house is a bigger intervention than the outcome justifies. The usual better answer on a 100-amp service is a critical-load subpanel: the circuits that genuinely matter during an outage are moved to their own panel, and the generator carries that. It is smaller, cheaper, and it does the job people actually wanted.
On a 200-amp service with room in the panel, whole-home coverage with an automatic transfer switch is straightforward.
Either way this is settled by a load calculation, not by a rule of thumb. If it shows the service or the panel has to change first, that is an electrical panel upgrade in Fort Smith, and it is better to know that before the generator is ordered than after.
Sizing: What Actually Determines the Number
Generator sizing complaints almost always trace back to a skipped conversation rather than a bad product. Before quoting, we work through:
- What you actually need running during an outage — which is usually a shorter list than people expect
- The major loads: heating and cooling, well pumps, ovens and ranges, water heating, EV chargers
- Motor starting, and whether a soft-start on the AC compressor changes the required size
- Whether whole-home coverage or a critical-load subpanel is the better fit for the house and the budget
For scale: a smaller home with gas heat and ordinary loads may be well served by a unit around 14kW, while a larger all-electric home with central air conditioning and a well can need something in the 22–26kW range. Those are illustrations of the spread, not a quote — the calculation is what produces the number for your house.
The goal is the correctly sized generator. An oversized unit costs more to buy and runs inefficiently under light load; an undersized one nuisance-trips the moment the air conditioner starts.
The Transfer Switch Is the Part That Makes It Legal
Every permanently installed generator needs a transfer switch. It is not an accessory, and it is not optional.
A transfer switch is the device that disconnects your house from the utility before it connects it to the generator, so the two supplies can never be present on the same wiring at the same time. There are two kinds:
- Automatic transfer switch (ATS) — sized to your service and load, senses the outage, starts the generator, and transfers the house over within seconds without anyone being home. This is what a standby installation uses.
- Manual transfer switch — used with a portable generator and a generator inlet box. You roll the generator out, connect it, and transfer the selected circuits by hand. Far cheaper, and entirely legitimate, as long as it is a proper switch rather than an improvised connection.
Why Backfeeding Is Dangerous
Backfeeding means energising your house wiring from a generator without a transfer switch — most commonly with a double-ended cord run into a dryer or range receptacle. It is worth being blunt about why it is not an option.
Without a transfer switch, nothing isolates your house from the utility. Your generator's output travels back out through the service, and the utility transformer that steps power down to your house steps that voltage back up on the line side. A line a utility crew or a neighbour has every reason to believe is dead can be lethal. The same missing isolation means that when utility power returns, it arrives while your generator is still running, which can destroy the generator and anything connected to it.
There is also nothing protecting the cord itself: a plug with exposed live pins on one end is a direct contact hazard for anyone in the house. A correctly installed inlet box and manual transfer switch solve all of it for a fraction of what the failure costs.
Whole-Home or Critical Loads?
The two workable approaches, plainly:
Standby, whole-home. Permanently installed on a pad, fuelled by natural gas or propane, starts automatically within seconds of an outage and transfers the house over with no involvement from you. Higher up-front cost, nothing to do when the power goes out. Most whole-home standby installations in Van Buren and Fort Smith run roughly $7,500 to $15,000 depending on the size of the unit, the transfer switch, the fuel run, and any panel work the install turns out to need.
Portable with an inlet box and manual transfer switch. The most affordable way to back up the essentials, installed for a few thousand dollars. You supply and start the generator, connect it at the inlet, and transfer manually. It covers a selected set of circuits rather than the house.
Neither is the right answer for everyone. The deciding factors are how often you are home when outages happen, whether anything in the house cannot tolerate an interruption, and what you are prepared to do manually in bad weather.
What Tower Handles — and What We Don't
Being clear about the boundary saves everyone time.
We handle the electrical installation: the load calculation and equipment sizing, the permit with the local jurisdiction, setting the pad or verifying an existing one, installing the transfer switch and integrating it with your panel, the service-rated wiring from the generator to the transfer switch, any panel or subpanel work the install requires, startup, the transfer test, a walkthrough with you, and the final inspection.
We coordinate but do not perform the fuel work. Natural gas and propane runs are gas-side work; we coordinate with your plumber or gas fitter so the two halves land in the right order.
We do not offer generator repair or maintenance plans. Tower Electric installs generators. If you are looking for ongoing service contracts or repair of an existing unit, that is not something we provide, and we would rather say so here than after a call.
If you have already bought a unit, we will install it, provided it is properly rated and appropriate for the application — we will confirm that before scheduling rather than after.
Permits and Inspection for a Generator in Fort Smith
A generator installation is permitted, inspected electrical work, and the fuel connection has to be coordinated and signed off on the gas side as well. The electrical permit and the electrical inspection are ours to pull and request.
What is specific to Fort Smith:
Two codes apply to one installation. The City enforces the 2020 National Electric Code with its own City of Fort Smith Electrical Code Amendments on the electrical side, and the 2018 Arkansas Fuel Gas Code on the gas side. That is the practical reason a standby install has two trades and two sets of sign-offs rather than one.
The electrical inspection is requested by the electrical contractor. Fort Smith is explicit that electrical subcontractors must request their own electrical inspections, and the City staffs a dedicated electrical inspection line for it. Final electrical inspections are made once the system is installed and ready for use.
Scheduling is same-day and it is worth planning around. Inspection requests received before 9:00 a.m. are scheduled for that morning; requests received before 2:00 p.m. for that afternoon. On a multi-trade job like a generator, that timing is what keeps the electrical and gas sign-offs from slipping into separate weeks.
Fort Smith administers this independently of Van Buren and of the county, so a generator install here does not follow the same schedule as one across the river.
