Emergency electrical service, 24 hours
24 hour emergency electrician for farms, plants and businesses in Lebanon, Lancaster and Berks counties. Ventilation failures, lost phases, burned services and storm damage.
Standby generator installation for businesses and farms
Two mistakes account for almost every standby generator that disappoints its owner. The set was sized from the service rather than from the loads, and the starting load was never separated from the running load. Both are decided before anything is ordered, which makes the hour spent on the load list the most valuable hour in the whole project. The rest is installation work we do regularly on farms, plants and commercial buildings.
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- 48
- Kinds of work under this heading
- 3
- Counties: Lebanon, Lancaster, Berks
What we do
The services behind this work
Read more
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Electrical service and panel upgrades for farms, plants and businesses in Lebanon, Lancaster and Berks counties. Load calculation, utility coordination and a clean changeover.
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Infrared thermographic surveys, torque and insulation testing, and arc flash studies for plants and farms across Lebanon, Lancaster and Berks counties in Pennsylvania.
Agricultural electrical services for poultry, dairy and grain operations
Electrical work for poultry houses, dairy barns and grain systems across Lebanon, Lancaster and Berks counties: ventilation, controls, standby power and farm services.
Industrial electrical services for Pennsylvania plants
Industrial electrical contracting for plants in Lebanon, Lancaster and Berks counties: distribution, machine connection, motor control, drives and shutdown work.
What it is
Sizing begins with a load list
A 400A service does not mean you need 400A of generator. It means somebody sized a service for a building. What the generator has to carry is a much shorter list: the equipment that genuinely cannot be off, plus whatever has to move when it starts.
So we walk the site and write that list down, item by item, with nameplate data rather than guesses. Motors get their full load current and their starting method recorded, because a motor started across the line draws roughly six times its full load current for the first moments, and the generator has to hold voltage and frequency through that. Heating elements, refrigeration, controls, well and transfer pumps, lighting, and anything with a compressor all get entered separately.
That list does two jobs. It sets the size of the set, and it decides what goes on the emergency panel. Done properly it usually makes the generator smaller and cheaper than the number the owner had in their head, which is the point of the load study write up.
Starting load against running load
Running load is the easy number. Starting load is the one that strands people. A set chosen to carry the running total of a poultry house will still stall when four tunnel fans and a well pump try to start at the same moment, because for a second or two the demand is several times the steady figure.
There are three ways out, and they are worth comparing before spending money on a larger set. Sequence the starts so the loads come on in steps rather than together. Use soft starters or drives on the largest motors, which cuts the inrush substantially. Or accept the larger alternator. The arithmetic behind that choice is worked through in why a generator that looks big enough still stalls, and the cost side, including what actually drives the price, is in what a standby generator costs.
What goes on the emergency panel
Most installations here are optional standby systems under Article 702 rather than legally required systems, which means you choose what is backed up. That choice is where the money is saved or wasted. The honest version of the list is short, and everything on it earns its place.
- Ventilation, and the controllers and alarms that run it
- Milk cooling, vacuum and the parlour, or refrigeration and freezers in a commercial building
- Well, water and transfer pumps
- Heating for young stock, and freeze protection on pipework
- Enough lighting to work safely, not every fixture in the building
- Controls, networking and whatever the alarm dialer runs on
- Deliberately left off: comfort cooling, yard lighting, welders, general receptacles and anything that can wait
Transfer switches and fuel
The transfer switch is not an accessory. It is the part that decides whether the system works while nobody is there, and it is the part that keeps your generator from backfeeding a line a utility worker is holding. Automatic switches sense the outage, start the set, transfer, and transfer back with a cooldown run afterwards. Manual switches cost less and are defensible where somebody is always on site, but on a livestock building the failure mode is obvious: the outage happens at four in the morning and nobody throws the handle. Service entrance rated, open transition and closed transition switches all have their place, and the differences are set out in transfer switch types. A completed installation is shown in this generator and transfer switch job.
Fuel usually decides itself by what is at the road. Natural gas needs no storage and never goes stale, but much of the countryside here has no gas main, and sets are typically rated slightly lower on natural gas than on LP. LP means a tank, and the tank has to be sized for vaporisation in cold weather rather than just gallons, because a small tank in January cannot deliver what a large engine wants. Diesel stores energy densely and starts strongly, but fuel ages, so it needs treatment, testing and a tank you can actually fill in a storm.
The farm case, and the maintenance that keeps a set startable
On a farm, standby power is not about convenience. Ventilation is the load that decides whether the barn still has stock in it by morning, and that is a different level of urgency from a dark office. It also changes the specification: the set has to pick up fan motors, the transfer has to be automatic, and the alarm has to reach a person. A farm standby installation and the ventilation power arrangement behind it show how those pieces fit together.
A generator that is not exercised is a decoration. Batteries are the most common single reason a standby set fails to start, followed by fuel condition and coolant. An automatic weekly exercise cycle, a battery checked rather than assumed, filters and fluids on a schedule, and a transfer switch that has actually moved this year are what separate a working system from an expensive one. The intervals are in what a generator needs and how often, and it can sit inside a wider maintenance programme. We also repair and service sets we did not install, including transfer switches that have stopped transferring.
What this covers
48 kinds of work under one heading
If what you need is not on the list, it is still worth asking. This is what we are asked for most, not the limit of what we do.
Sizing and design
The part that decides whether the rest of the money is well spent.
- Site survey and written load list from nameplates
- Starting against running load calculation
- Emergency panel contents agreed item by item
- Load shedding and step loading schemes
- Soft start and drive options to cut inrush
- Siting, clearances, noise and exhaust direction
- Fuel type comparison for the site
- Written proposal with the assumptions marked
Generator installation
Everything from the pad to the first supervised run.
- Concrete pad and mounting preparation
- Air cooled and liquid cooled set installation
- Generator feeders, conduit and cable runs
- Grounding, bonding and neutral arrangement
- Battery, charger and block heater circuits
- Remote annunciator and status panel wiring
- Enclosure, weather and rodent protection details
- Commissioning under real load with a simulated outage
Transfer equipment
The part that works while nobody is standing there.
- Automatic transfer switch installation
- Manual and roll up transfer switches
- Service entrance rated transfer equipment
- Open and closed transition switching
- Transfer switch replacement on existing sets
- Generator inlet boxes and interlock kits
- PTO generator connection points for farms
- Exercise timers, retransfer and cooldown settings
Fuel and mechanical coordination
Work we coordinate rather than do with a wrench.
- Natural gas connection with the gas supplier
- LP tank sizing for cold weather vaporisation
- Diesel tank, fill point and containment coordination
- Fuel line routing and protection
- Exhaust routing and clearance checks
- Ventilation and cooling airflow for enclosed sets
- Sound attenuation where neighbours are close
- Permits and inspections for the installation
Alarms and monitoring
So a failure to start is known before it costs anything.
- Power failure alarms and autodialers
- Generator running and fault signalling
- Low fuel, low battery and not in auto alarms
- High and low temperature alarms in livestock buildings
- Controller start signal wiring
- Remote monitoring and network connection
- Alarm testing and who it actually reaches
- Documentation of what each alarm means
Service and repair
Including sets we did not install.
- Failure to start diagnosis and repair
- Battery, charger and starting circuit faults
- Transfer switch repair and contact replacement
- Controller faults and settings corrections
- Annual exercise, transfer and load testing
- Load bank testing where the set is oversized
- Filters, fluids and scheduled service intervals
- Retrofit of automatic transfer to an existing set
Buildings we do this in
- 01
Poultry houses and livestock barns
- 02
Dairy parlours and milk cooling
- 03
Grain dryers and handling systems
- 04
Food processing plants and cold storage
- 05
Restaurants and retail with refrigeration
- 06
Offices, server and comms rooms
- 07
Water, well and pumping stations
Who we do this for
01
Poultry growers who cannot risk a still house
Here the generator is not a convenience, it is whether the barn still has stock in it by morning. That changes the specification: it has to pick up fan motors, the transfer has to be automatic and the alarm has to reach a person who is asleep.
02
Dairies protecting cooling and the parlour
Milk that cannot be cooled is milk that cannot be sold, and a parlour that cannot run pushes the whole day. These usually need less generator than the owner expects once the list is honest about what is really critical.
03
Plants measuring downtime by the hour
Where the question is not whether to have standby power but which part of the plant it covers. We price the short list and the whole building where the choice is genuinely close, so the decision is made on numbers.
04
Businesses with refrigeration or data to protect
Restaurants, stores, cold storage and server rooms. Small sets, carefully chosen panels, and enough lighting to work safely rather than every fixture in the building.
05
Owners who already have a set that disappointed them
It stalls when the fans start, or it was never able to carry what they assumed. Often the fix is sequencing and soft starts rather than a bigger machine, and that costs a fraction of replacing it.
06
Anyone whose generator failed to start when it mattered
Almost always a battery, fuel condition or a controller left in the wrong position after somebody worked on it. We service and repair sets we did not install, and set an exercise schedule that makes the next outage boring.
How a job runs
How a generator project runs
From the first visit to the labels left in the panel, this is the order it happens in.
- 01
A site visit and a written load list, taken from nameplates, with starting methods noted next to the motors.
- 02
A size and a proposal, with the emergency panel contents agreed item by item so nothing is assumed.
- 03
Location, clearances, exhaust direction, noise and how the fuel gets there, settled before ordering rather than after.
- 04
Fuel and utility coordination: the gas supplier, the LP tank or the diesel tank, and the meter or service work if the service itself needs upgrading.
- 05
Installation: pad, set, feeders, transfer switch, grounding and bonding, controls and alarm wiring.
- 06
Commissioning under real load, with a simulated outage, transfer, retransfer and cooldown watched from start to finish.
- 07
Handover with the exercise schedule set, and a service interval agreed so it stays able to start.
Why this work comes to us
We size from the loads, not from the service
A 400A service does not mean 400A of generator. It means somebody sized a service for a building. The list of what truly cannot be off is usually far shorter, and the set is usually smaller and cheaper than the number people arrive with.
Starting load is treated as its own number
A motor started across the line pulls roughly six times its full load current for the first moments. Ignore that and you buy a set that runs the building perfectly until the day four fans start together.
We prove it with a real outage, not a start button
Commissioning means opening the utility supply and watching the whole sequence: start, transfer, run under load, retransfer, cooldown. A set that has only ever been started on no load has not been tested.
The alarm is treated as part of the system
A generator that fails to start silently is the same as no generator. Not in auto, low battery, low fuel and failure to transfer all get signalled to something that will wake somebody up.
We service sets other people installed
Including transfer switches that have stopped transferring and controllers left in the wrong position. You do not have to have bought it from us to get it working again.
We tell you what it will really cost to own
Exercise cycles, batteries, fluids and a transfer that actually moves each year. Those numbers belong in the decision, not in a surprise three winters later.
Call (717) 821-9166
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Jobs of this kind
Questions we get
- Nobody can answer that from the service size or the square footage. It comes from a list of the loads that must keep running, with the starting current of each motor included. That list is free to make and it decides everything else, including whether the answer is smaller than you expected.
Read first
Standby power
Starting load against running load: why a generator that looks big enough still stalls
The generator is rated well above our load, so why does it stall when the compressor starts?
Standby power
Transfer switch types: manual, automatic, open, closed and delayed transition, and how to choose
What is the difference between a manual and an automatic transfer switch, and which one does our building need?
Standby power
Standby generator maintenance: the real schedule, and why a set that sits is a set that fails
What maintenance does a standby generator actually need, and how often?
Standby power
What a standby generator costs: the components of the price and why two quotes are never the same
What does a standby generator actually cost, and why are the quotes so far apart?
Power distribution
Three phase against single phase: what changes, what it costs you to go without, and when the answer is no
Is it worth bringing three phase to the building?
Tell us what the building has to run
Anatoly runs the crew and usually answers the phone himself. Based in Myerstown, working across Lebanon, Lancaster and Berks counties, open 24 hours.