Six steps, and you’re only present for about three of them. That’s the shape of a well-run generator install: a site visit you host, paperwork that happens without you, one to two days of crew noise, and a commissioning walkthrough that ends with you holding the folder. Here’s each step from your side of the driveway — the full installation picture covers the why behind them.
Step 1–2: What happens at the site visit and sizing?
Someone walks your property with a clipboard and actually earns the word “assessment”: HVAC nameplates read, panel opened, fuel supply checked, pad location scouted. You should hear questions about how your household actually runs — what’s electric, who works from home, what can’t ever lose power.
Sizing follows from those numbers, not from the visit’s vibes. What you should receive: a specific unit recommendation, an itemized plan, and a pad location you’ve agreed to. If the “visit” happened over the phone in eleven minutes, you got a pitch, not a plan.
Step 3: Why do permits own the calendar?
Because they’re the step nobody can hurry from your driveway. Electrical and gas permits get filed with your jurisdiction, and turnaround is theirs to set. Crew time is measured in days; permit time is measured in whatever the county says it is — and jurisdiction is real: a Decatur address files with offices no Huntsville habit covers. A written timeline at signing — and a heads-up when it slips — is the professional standard you should expect.
Use the wait productively: this is when pad prep gets scheduled, HOA paperwork (if any) gets submitted, and equipment gets ordered against a real date.
Step 4: What do the install days look like?
Day one is the loud one. Pad work if it wasn’t pre-poured, the unit set and anchored, the fuel line run, and your panel opened for transfer switch wiring — which means planned power-down windows, announced in advance, mercifully short. Day two finishes connections, pressure-tests the fuel side, and brings the system up for the first time.
Weather can stretch this; concrete and trenching answer to rain. A crew that pours the pad ahead of install week is quietly telling you they’ve done this before.
Steps 5–6: What do inspection and commissioning prove?
Inspection is the jurisdiction verifying the permitted work — a pass you never see, or a correction list your installer owns. Commissioning is the part you should insist on witnessing: the house transferred under real load, the unit running everything it was sized to run, the weekly self-test scheduled, and the documentation — permits, report, warranty registration — handed to you as a folder, not a promise.
From that afternoon on, the machine maintains a rhythm: a weekly self-test you’ll hear for a few minutes and eventually stop noticing, and an annual service visit. The install is over when the folder is in your hand and the first self-test is on the calendar — anything less is a delivery with extra steps.