Purchasing a generator is considered a large purchase. It's like purchasing appliances in your home. You probably won't replace a refrigerator until you have a problem with it or it just goes out. The same can be true with a whole house standby generator. You may not buy one until you lose utility power. A standby generator is permanently installed near your home with an automatic transfer switch that will transfer the load automatically from utility power to generator power. But do you really understand what a generator does and what size you need?
Sometimes generators can be more complicated than homeowners can understand. An installer was called out to see why a generator wasn't working. "Oh no, my heat is not coming on" said one homeowner. When the installer arrived at the location, he can the generator is on and running properly. The problem started from the purchase. Many times a homeowner buys a generator but only thinks about their summer air conditioning and didn't allow for winter heat. Homeowners have gotten very upset because they can't get heat when their generator is running. The solution was that they need a bigger generator.
If you want to run just an immediate load, then your electrician or factory trained installer can designate the loads for that switch. A 20 KW generator uses 83.3 amps. During a surge capacity of 125 amps, you might be over 100 amps, maybe 115 or 120 amps of your load.
The generator has to serve 100% of your load. If you designate this air conditioning unit (unit 1) and another air conditioning unit (unit 2), it must carry that load. In other words, if you have more than one central air conditioning unit, you must allow for that load already running (unit 1)and the surge of the next air conditioning unit (unit 2) when it starts running. It might take 150% to start unit 1 and then it might drop down to 50% to continuing running it. When unit 2 wants to start, you won't have 150% to start because you are already using 50% to run unit 1. Homeowners think they can go by the running amperage only and not consider the starting amperage. I have installed hard start kits on some units. If a homeowners has a 4 ton and a 2 ton and they are older units, you may not be able to run both of them.
One of my customers changed his central air conditioning unit. When his generator went to exercise, it would kill. He called me thinking there was a problem with his generator. After arriving at his house, I examined and troubleshoot his generator to see why his generator suddenly couldn't handle his load after having it for over a year. I happened to turn around and see his new air conditioning unit. So I asked the homeowner if he had it replaced. He said yes. After closer study, the new air conditioning unit was not as efficient as the one he replaced! So his generator had to struggle harder to run and would eventually kill with his whole house load.
A factory trained installer will service that generator and make sure it runs for the customer. He can make sure the oil is changed and all the maintenance is performed on a regular basis. But you know what? It could still break.
For maintenance, call the installer to perform it regularly. If he doesn't perform maintenance, you should not have purchased the unit from him.
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