About this site
What Generator Handbook is
Generator Handbook is an independent reference for home standby generator owners. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or compensated by any generator manufacturer, dealer, or installer. It does not sell generators.
How information is sourced
Every generator, warranty, and cost fact on this site is backed by an evidence record naming its source — usually a manufacturer's own owner's manual, warranty document, or support publication, identified by document number and revision where the document carries one. A statement is published only after the cited source has actually been read, not merely located or linked. Where sources disagree, both figures are shown with their dates; the disagreement is not averaged away.
Manufacturer guidance is model- and controller-specific. Pages here state which models and documents a statement covers, because an instruction from one manual is often wrong for a neighboring model.
Why some sections are empty
A section that reads “verified guidance for this section has not been published yet” is intentional: no source meeting the standard above has been read for it. The section stays visibly empty rather than being filled with unverified text, and it is completed when a qualifying source is.
Safety boundary
Standby generators involve utility-voltage electricity, fuel gas, moving parts, and equipment that can start automatically. This site describes what manufacturer documents say an owner can observe or set from the controls; it does not provide instructions for opening equipment, working inside a transfer switch, or servicing fuel or electrical systems. Manufacturers direct that work to their authorized dealers, and so does this site.
Who writes this, and what that means
Generator Handbook does not employ electricians, engineers, or licensed installers, and nothing here is reviewed by one before publication. No article on this site should be read as professional advice, and none of it is a substitute for a qualified person looking at your property.
Saying so plainly is deliberate. It would be easy to add bylines and credentials nobody here holds, and the entire value of this site depends on not doing that. What it offers instead is narrower and checkable: statements traced to documents that were actually read, decisions laid out with what it costs to get each one wrong, and an explicit boundary at every point where the honest answer is that a professional has to look.
Where a page states what a manufacturer, a code body, or an authority requires, it is reporting that source rather than issuing a judgement. Where it says a determination needs someone at the property, that is not a hedge — it is the actual answer.
How contractor information is verified
Where Generator Handbook routes a request to an independent generator professional, the checks made are: that the company exists as a legal entity, that it holds the licence or registration its work requires where a public register makes that checkable, and that it has agreed in writing to how requests are handled. Each check is recorded with the date it was made, because licence status is true on a date rather than permanently.
Nothing beyond that is checked. Work is not inspected, workmanship is not tested, employees are not background-checked, and insurance is not verified beyond what a company supplies. A professional receiving a request from us is not endorsed by us, is not our agent, and is not vetted in any sense stronger than the sentence above. A company cannot pay to be listed or recommended.
The practical consequence is that you should still run your own checks. What you can actually verify about an installer sets out which ones are worth the time.
How this site is funded
Generator Handbook intends to earn revenue by passing homeowner requests to independent generator professionals who pay for them. That is a commercial interest in you contacting a professional, and you should read the site knowing it exists.
What that interest does not buy: no company pays for placement, coverage, or a favourable mention; no editorial judgement is for sale; and no page recommends contacting a professional at a point where the honest answer is that you do not need one yet. Several chapters here conclude that the reasonable next step is to do nothing, and those conclusions stay.
Corrections
If something here is wrong, it gets changed rather than quietly softened. A correction that changes what a reader would do is noted on the page rather than replaced silently. Pages carrying safety-sensitive guidance record the date they were last reviewed against their sources, and a date is only shown where a review actually happened — an unreviewed page shows nothing rather than a date implying otherwise.
Contact
Use the contact formfor corrections or questions. If a statement here conflicts with your unit's own manual, follow your manual — it is the controlling document for your model.