About a month ago, I asked dealers/reps/installers for Generac, Kohler and Cummings to come out to my place for a site survey and estimates, installed, for a whole house/back up generator as advertised on their manufacturers sites.
About a week or so later, the Kohler rep showed up and did his thing. I got his estimate two weeks or so after that, last Monday. If I were to contract with them today, would be able to get a Kohler installed by winter or maybe early spring, they guessed.
Cummings rep took longer to get here. Maybe two weeks after I called. I'm still waiting on his estimate. If memory serves, he said that once I signed a contract, install would be eight to 12 weeks. (I think he was being optimistic.)
Generac, whose rep called me maybe a week after the Cummings guy was here, said best they could do would be to schedule me for a site survey at the end of December...
Would be a great business to be in nowadays. Not a good time to be a customer though.
For the interim, I would like to share my prior work experience and my experience in getting a generator installed. Back in my working days, I examined a tremendous number of Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions (CC & R) for residential developments, where uses of properties were controlled and a Homeowners Association (HOA) was set up to enforce the CC&R. Since I had a copy of the CC&R from back when I bought my house, in an abundance of caution and years of experience I figured that before I spent a small fortune for a generator I'd better check to see if I needed to get approval for a generator from the HOA. After examining the CC&R, I determined that it was too close a call and contacted the HOA. Initially the HOA manager opined that I could install a generator but would have to put a screen around it.
Happily the managing agent of the HOA was good to deal with. I got the necessary forms, and since I didn't have much guidance as to what to do, I filled out the forms as best I could and printed off the entire Generac web site and attached the printout to the forms. I then informed the managing agent of a web site called "Showmystreet.com" which brought up a picture of my property and allowed the agent to visualize where the generator would go. The end result was I got a piece of paper that said my generator was approved and I didn't have to put a screen around it.
With the current wait for delivery of home generators, I wanted to bring this up to everyone so that they can take care of these issues ahead of time.