Austin was incredibly professional. My electricity went out due to a faulty breaker, and even though it was after hours, Austin picked up my call. He made time to come out the next morning and worked with my insurance.
Steven Li, Orange CountyPelican sizes a Generac system off a real load calculation, runs the gas line, wires the transfer switch, pulls the permit and meets the inspector. Licensed C-10, and generator work is what the shop is built around.
CSLB #1133193C-10 licensed, bonded and insured
An electrician comes out and measures what your house draws. The air conditioning compressor, the pool or well pump, the kitchen, the spare capacity in your panel, and whether the gas meter can feed a unit that size.
You leave with the kilowatt size that fits, where the unit can legally sit, what the gas line needs, and a written price. Nothing is charged and nothing is committed.
Why there is no discount here. A generator is not a commodity you shop by coupon. Size it wrong and you either paid for capacity you will never use or you bought a unit that trips on the first hot afternoon. The assessment is what protects you from both, so that is what we give away.
That is your call, and you make it before anyone sizes anything. Here is the difference in plain terms.
The transfer switch feeds only the circuits you picked. Refrigerator, a run of lighting, the furnace blower, the router and the office, the garage door, a bedroom circuit or two, and the well or sump pump if you have one.
Smaller unit, smaller gas line, lower price. The tradeoff is that you think about what is running. Air conditioning usually sits outside this list.
Everything on the panel comes back, air conditioning included, and nobody has to remember which switch does what. The house behaves the way it does on a normal day.
It needs a bigger unit and often a larger gas line off the meter. For most Newport Beach and Newport Coast homes this is what people want once they see both options priced.
A single four ton condenser is the largest thing in most coastal Orange County homes, and it is the load that catches people out. A small standby unit will not start it. A properly sized one will, and a soft starter on the compressor often lets a smaller generator carry the same AC, which brings the whole job down in price.
That call comes off a measurement of your equipment, not off square footage or a chart. It is exactly what the on-site assessment is for.
Run on your house and your equipment. Not estimated from square footage.
With the manufacturer's clearance and sound rating for the model on your estimate.
Including a check that the meter can actually feed the unit under load.
Set up for the circuits you chose, so the changeover happens without anyone home.
We file it, we schedule it, and we are there when the inspector is.
We run it, show you the weekly self test, and leave you the maintenance schedule.
The equipment carries its own manufacturer warranty on top.
Southern California Edison runs Public Safety Power Shutoffs when wind and fire conditions call for them. Those are planned outages, announced ahead of time, and they can run longer than a day.
What changed is the house on the other end of the wire. A home with a heat pump, an induction range, a home office and two cars on chargers loses a great deal more than a fridge full of food. Standby backup is now a planning decision, the same as sizing the panel or the service.
A standby unit starts itself and transfers within seconds of the utility dropping, so it works whether or not anyone is home or awake. It keeps essentials running through an outage. It is backup equipment, not a promise about the grid.
Almost nobody installs one for all five. Most people have one reason that matters and four that are a bonus. The assessment starts by finding out which one is yours, because it changes the size.
Public safety shutoffs during wind events are planned outages. They arrive with little notice, they last as long as the weather does, and they happen on clear days. That is a different problem from a line coming down in a storm, and it is the one most Newport homeowners are actually reacting to.
Oxygen concentrators, CPAP machines, home dialysis and powered mobility all run on mains power. A standby system transfers on its own within seconds, so nobody has to be awake, home, or able to start a portable unit in the dark. Keep the manufacturer's own backup plan for any medical device. A generator is backup equipment and it is not a substitute for one.
A dropped client call, a lost trade, a stalled deployment. If the house is where the work happens, an outage is a business cost rather than an inconvenience. Whole house backup keeps the office, the router and the network gear running while the block sits dark.
A full refrigerator and freezer is a few hundred dollars. A wine room is a different number, and it does not take a long outage to become a problem, only a warm one. Refrigeration is the load people forget until the second day.
The longest outages arrive when the grid is most strained, which is exactly when the house is hottest. Whether the air conditioning runs on backup is the single decision that sets the size of the unit, and it is the question the load calculation answers.
Every photo here is a Pelican Coast job. The equipment on your estimate is the equipment in these pictures.
Austin has been doing this work for 25 years and holds a C-10 licence under CSLB #1133193. Pelican Coast Electric runs out of Newport Beach and the crew wears the name on the shirt, which is the whole reason the reviews below use first names.
Generators are the part of the business that grew fastest, and the reason is not marketing. Pelican also does medium and high voltage and transformer work, which most residential shops in Orange County do not touch. Sizing a standby system against a real service, a real gas meter and a real panel is the same muscle.
Estimates are free and on-site, and there is no commitment attached to one.
Thanks for installing the Generac generator. They were informative, on time, courteous, knowledgeable, hard working and a pleasure to do business with. I would highly recommend for your electrical needs.Brenda Williams, Orange County
Austin was incredibly professional. My electricity went out due to a faulty breaker, and even though it was after hours, Austin picked up my call. He made time to come out the next morning and worked with my insurance.
Steven Li, Orange CountyChallenging technical situation, well analyzed and thoroughly addressed. Excellent service, very professional, prompt, and courteous. Reasonable pricing.
Andrew Durkovic, Orange CountyI called Austin out of desperation on a Sunday. He came next day promptly, traced the wiring and fixed it. He returned and fixed everything. Austin is the best and has a great personality to boot.
Arnold Reznick, Corona del MarI manage a building in Newport Beach and had a great experience. Austin arrived right on time and got straight to work. Their pricing was better than another local company. We will definitely be using them again.
Kristine Tran, Newport BeachAfter a horrible experience with another company, I went with Pelican Coast. Joshua came out and fixed the issue in under an hour. Very professional and polite. I will definitely be using them for any future jobs.
Rachel Dostart, Orange CountyGreat job by Austin and the team. Good attitude and quality mindset! Panel upgrade, new breakers, whole home surge protector and installation of the level 2 EV charger.
Tyler Blake, Orange CountySend the form or call. We book a time that works and confirm it by text if you asked us to.
Load calculation, gas meter check, placement and clearances. You get a written price with the model on it.
Permit filed, unit set, gas and transfer switch wired, inspector met, and a walkthrough of the self test.
Generator work reaches further than our repair radius, so if you are north or inland of this list, ask anyway.
The size decides the price, and the size is a measurement rather than a guess. An essentials system on a small unit and a whole house system that carries air conditioning are different jobs with different gas lines, so a number quoted before anyone has seen your panel and your meter is a number that will change.
You get a written price with the model on it after the on-site assessment, and the assessment costs nothing.
A correctly sized one will. The compressor's starting draw is the deciding load, not the running draw, which is why systems sized off square footage so often fall short. A soft starter on the compressor drops that starting draw and often lets a smaller generator carry the same air conditioning, which brings the price of the whole job down.
We measure it on site and put the answer in writing.
The transfer switch watches the utility feed. When it sees the power go, it starts the generator, waits for it to come up to speed, then transfers your circuits over. It happens in seconds and it happens whether or not anyone is home.
You get the exact transfer timing for the model we size, from the manufacturer's specification.
Natural gas off the meter is simpler when the meter can supply it, because there is no tank to fill and no fuel to run out of. Part of the assessment is confirming your meter and line can feed the unit under load, since an undersized supply starves the generator exactly when it matters.
Propane works where there is no gas service, and it produces slightly more output from the same unit. Either way we size the fuel side with the electrical side.
At normal load it is in the same range as a central air conditioning condenser. Every model has a published sound rating and we give you the number for the one we specify rather than a general reassurance.
Placement follows the manufacturer's install manual and the fire code: a set distance off the wall, and further from any window, door or vent. We mark the spot during the assessment so there are no surprises on install day.
It runs a short self test on a schedule you can set, which is how you find out about a problem in advance instead of during an outage. Beyond that it is an annual service with oil, filters and a load check, the same as any engine.
We walk you through the test schedule at startup and leave the maintenance intervals with you.
Yes, and yes. A standby generator install is permitted work in every city we serve, usually on both the electrical and the gas side, and it gets inspected. We file the permit, schedule the inspection and meet the inspector.
An unpermitted generator is a problem at resale and can be a problem with a home insurer, which is a bad trade for the few days it saves.
Yes. Pelican is a Generac installer and the same crew handles service afterwards. Emergency service runs 24/7, so a fault at two in the morning during a storm reaches a person.
The workmanship carries a lifetime warranty and the equipment carries its own manufacturer warranty on top of that.
A licensed electrician measures the load, checks the gas meter, marks the placement and writes you a price. It is free and there is nothing attached to it.