August 12, 2024 • 30 mins
Ready to protect your home and family during hurricane season? Learn the essential steps to ensure your home generator is installed safely and legally with insights from City Inspector Scott Masterson and Meter Director Chip Troth. This episode promises to arm you with the knowledge you need to avoid costly mistakes and ensure your generator's setup is both effective and compliant with safety standards. Scott and Chip explain the importance of proper permitting, impartial inspections, and the role of gas meters during winter outages, making it clear why these details can be lifesavers in extreme weather conditions.
Discover the do's and don'ts of generator installation, straight from the experts. We explore new safety regulations, such as the mandatory automatic shutoff switch and carbon monoxide detectors, and discuss real-life consequences of neglecting these measures. Scott and Chip share their top tips for verifying contractor credentials and the importance of hiring licensed professionals. This episode is an invaluable resource for any homeowner in hurricane-prone areas, ensuring you make informed decisions that prioritize the safety and well-being of your household.
Discover the do's and don'ts of generator installation, straight from the experts. We explore new safety regulations, such as the mandatory automatic shutoff switch and carbon monoxide detectors, and discuss real-life consequences of neglecting these measures. Scott and Chip share their top tips for verifying contractor credentials and the importance of hiring licensed professionals. This episode is an invaluable resource for any homeowner in hurricane-prone areas, ensuring you make informed decisions that prioritize the safety and well-being of your household.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 4 (00:05):
I'm Scott Masterson and I'm Chip Troth and please
keep listening to Porch andParish the podcast welcome,
welcome, welcome to our humbleabode here at Virginia Street,
where the PNP headquarters arenow located and the Gennaro fam
now resides.
We are back better than ever inPorch and Parish's third year
life with.
In the Z, they say, make haywhile the sun shines, and in
(00:26):
Louisiana that translates tomaking the correct moves for
hurricane preparedness.
Today we're tackling a topicthat's crucial for every
homeowner in hurricane-proneareas.
With that season now upon us,many are considering investing
in home generators to stay safeand prepared.
But before you make thatsignificant investment, there
are some things you need to know, and in this special episode,
(00:48):
we're thrilled to have twoexperts who can help you
navigate this important decision.
Joining us are Scott Masterson,city Inspector, and Chip Troth,
meter Director at the City ofZachary.
They'll be sharing theirexpertise on the hidden costs,
regulatory requirements and thebest practices for installing
and maintaining home generators.
It's a lot of stuff youprobably don't know, because I
didn't.
(01:09):
Whether you're a seasonedhomeowner or new to the area,
scott and Chip's insights willensure you're making a
well-informed decision andavoiding unexpected expenses.
So grab a notebook and getready for some valuable
information.
I'm Mike G, host of Porch inParis, the podcast.
We bring you the best of ourregion and we broadcast it to
you every Monday right here fromour headquarters in beautiful
downtown Zachary.
(01:29):
This is Porch and Parish thepodcast.
(01:52):
So let's take it away.
Scott, I think you're best tolead this off.
Why are we here getting thisvery important message out to
citizens in Zachary?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Well, we've been seeing a huge uptake in personal
home generators.
You know, for a long time wewould have the people were going
to buy and the portable onesthat you get from the store,
whatever the 550s.
And now we're starting to see alot of people go and get the
standalone home generators andthey're great, we're glad to
(02:22):
have them.
But we also, I think, and Chipwould agree, we're glad to have
them.
Um, but we also, I think, andchip would agree, if, whenever
we have a storm, whenever wehave a power outage, I think we
seem to see see a uptake in inthe permitting of generators.
Um, if we kind of go through aperiod of not, they'll kind of
drop off.
But here recently we've beendoing a lot within the city of
zachary.
Uh, actually did three today,yeah, so we're seeing a lot of
(02:45):
them.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
And that's a good thing.
It's a great thing when they'repermitted right.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yes, and that's the main thing we want to try to get
across is you know, a lot ofpeople are like I'm not worried
about a permit.
This is one of those things thatyou really need to, because,
well, you do always, no matterwhat it is, but in this
situation it's very much sobecause you're dealing with
literally electricity and gasinside your house.
(03:09):
This isn't anything that youkind of want to play with.
You alluded to in ourconversation earlier this
morning about wanting animpartial person to go in there
to say, hey, this is donecorrectly.
No electrician is going to goin there and say, look, I wired
this thing up.
It's not done right, it'sprobably not going to work.
Give me my money, yeah, so youdo want someone to go in there
and look at it, especially withand I'm going to let Chip talk
(03:31):
about the gas size, which endsup catching a lot of people.
Correct me if I say it wrong,chip, but the standard size
meter that comes on a houseisn't quite big enough to run
effectively run the generatorand the gas appliance is still
in your house, and that'ssometimes that's when we catch
(03:53):
somebody that didn't have itpermitted because it wasn't done
correctly.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
Yeah, it wasn't permitted, it wasn't inspected,
so now your stuff isn't runningokay, so from a third grader
kind of level of knowledge ofthis stuff, if you don't have
the capacity to run other thingswhen you're running a generator
, that means you might not havea generator working right when
you need it.
Mike G (04:15):
Yeah, that's exactly what's going to happen if you
don't have the capacityavailable and the max capacity
typically is going to come intoplay during the winter months.
If you have an outage during awinter storm, when typically
people don't think of thewintertime being the most
critical time to have maxcapacity for gas, but that is
(04:38):
actually when you're going toend up seeing and realizing that
you don't have the capacity onthat meter unless you went
through the proper process ofpermitting having a BTU sheet
turned in so that we could sizeit correctly and also get a
regulator that will handle thatvolume of gas that's required at
(05:00):
that time.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Yeah, and so that's during winter outages.
Typically you're going toseeages.
Mike G (05:04):
Typically, you're going to see that problem where you're
going to realize, hey, I don'thave enough, uh, during the
winter, because that's when yourhot water heater is going, your
heaters are going, uh, you know, if they're gas heaters, um,
that you're going to, you'regoing to find it out then.
Uh, sometimes in the summertimeyou'll be okay because you're
only running air conditioner andthat generator is running all
(05:26):
of that stuff for you and youdon't have a whole lot of draw,
unless your wife decides thatshe wants to cook during the
storm.
Yeah, or you decide you want tocook yourself for yourself
during the storm.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
Sure.
Mike G (05:36):
You might be using a little bit of gas then.
Yeah, definitely hot bath,that's right Well yeah, come in
from yard work or whatevercleaning limbs up.
Typical real drain on the gasBTUs is going to be during the
wintertime.
Speaker 5 (05:52):
Yeah, okay.
Mike G (05:54):
So let's build a case for the gas users out there.
So I just paid for a homegenerator probably over 10 grand
, Is that about what it is 15.
Oh, my goodness, I'm out oftouch.
Oh, ouch, Okay.
So I'm waiting for a time whenthis thing is going to kick in
(06:14):
and just save me and, um, youknow that time comes and I don't
have meter capacity.
So isn't that a case where, hey, somebody needs to pay for this
right?
That's the first thoughteverybody would would have.
Why, why isn't my meter goodenough, Zachary?
Um, I can, I can kind of go intothat a little bit.
We're going to.
If you go through thepermitting process correctly, uh
(06:36):
, that uh plumbing contractor isgoing to turn in a BTU demand
sheet and we're going to size itand make sure that you have
what you need so that thatsituation isn't going to happen
to you.
You know it's not going to be agas volume.
That's your issue if yourgenerator isn't working, it's
going to be something else.
Speaker 5 (06:55):
It's going to be.
Mike G (06:56):
You need to call your generator guy.
You don't need to call the citybecause you've got enough gas
if you went through thepermitting process and if you,
if you paid for your upgrade,essentially, yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
So we're having a problem where, um well, you know
, in our pre-interview we kindof talked a little bit about the
companies that were the serviceproviders for generators were,
um, pointing the finger atzachary, you know, when the
things weren't working right.
Can we say that, yeah, I meanthat that has happened Actually.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
um, I'm touched on it .
What was it, chip?
A couple of weeks ago we hadone that it was a homeowner.
I'm not going to say it's asubdivision, but the homeowner
was calling the power companybecause their generator wasn't
working, it wasn't you know, agenerator typically when you get
it every week will kick on andrun for about 15 minutes once a
week.
And they got to do that to keepit, make sure everything's flush
(07:49):
, everything's working.
You don't want to let it justsit there idle for two years and
all of a sudden then it triesto work.
Right, so it'll kick on.
Well, apparently when thisperson was kicking on, it wasn't
working.
Okay, they called the generator.
Generator people of, of course,are saying, well, you got to
meet a problem becauseeverything's done correctly,
(08:10):
okay.
She ends up calling the powercompany who goes over there and
looks at it and then immediatelycalls me because they didn't
have a record that there wasever a disconnect, got it.
So when you do a generator, thethe generator people actually
have to get in your electricmeter and you can't just do it.
So you end up calling the powercompany.
Power company comes, removesyour meter, then the power
company.
Power company comes, removesyour meter, then the generator
people tie in from your meter toyour panel and all that stuff
and there's a sensor in therethat when there's a disruption
(08:33):
in the electric meter that itdies.
That's what kicks yourgenerator on, okay.
Well, when the power companywent there, they saw that it
wasn't hooked up correctly.
They looked through theirpaperwork and saw that the city
of Zachary never sent usanything, which means it was
never inspected.
So then they called me.
Of course I didn't have apermit.
Yeah, we go over there, andthere were some wires crossed.
That's why it didn't work.
(08:54):
And, sure enough, at that momentunfortunately I don't think the
homeowner was able to get tothe generator people she
actually had to call anothergenerator company to come in and
fix it, got it, and so thatthat's the thing.
And you know it's about $15,000.
Your permit is going to run youabout 50 bucks, um, and while
not to make a lot of $50, $50,$50, but it's still for that $50
(09:18):
, you're going to get chip, isgoing to verify everything on
your gas meter, and I'm going togo out there and do the
inspection.
We're going to make sureeverything's done correctly and
safe and that everything will berunning, and we're that
independent party.
But I will say that's not theonly fee you have.
Typically, when you have to,when you upsize that gas meter,
(09:40):
you have to buy it.
You have to buy the gas meter.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
And I can kind of speak to that.
Chip's the cost guy.
I'm a purchasing director on topof being a meter operations
director, so I can speak to thisfrom firsthand knowledge.
Typically, 95, I would say 95 to99 percent of the BTU
applications that we get forthese generators are going to
(10:07):
require an upgrade.
You know, very few homes areset up from construction to
handle the capacity needed torun these generators, because
these are whole house generatorsthat, if you think about it,
you're essentially asking yourgas company to replace the
electric grid, right, okay, soyou're going to need more gas
(10:30):
capacity than you needed whenyou originally were just
planning for your lights andyour lanterns out front and your
fireplace light and that kindof thing, your stove, even one
or two heaters.
You're going to need thatadditional capacity because
those things do require a lotand, from a cost standpoint,
(10:51):
typically most homes will fallinto the range of a 400-series
meter with a two-pound regulatorthat the city requires by
ordinance.
And that's for us to be uh, beable to properly uh meter that,
uh, that gas that's goingthrough there and also provide
the customer uh an extra littlebit of capacity in the pipe of
(11:15):
pressure when that thinginitially starts and kicks off.
So how many ounces of naturalgas is that capacity for our
details, people.
Typically in a house you'regoing to have seven inches of
water column or four ounces ofpressure.
That's going into a residence.
Got it, and that's still goingto be the.
What's going to happen is thecity is going to provide two
(11:39):
pounds is going to help provideextra capacity for the generator
, which typically is downstream10 feet to as much as 100 feet
downstream of where the meterlocation is.
And in rural areas, which wehave, several, what I would call
rural areas, like, say, theplains or little farms area the
(12:00):
meters are actually located atthe road.
So it may be 200 feet, so thatpipe capacity with the
additional pressure, um, youknow, allows the customer, uh,
and that generator contractor tonot have any worries about what
the city is providing.
And then, um, the contractor isgoing to cut that uh, two, two
(12:23):
pounds of pressure down back tothe four inches of water.
I mean seven inches of watercolumn, or four ounces that go
into the house.
From a cost standpoint and Iadded it up the other day for
Sharon just so that she wouldhave an idea of what that cost
would be it was $1,056 is whatthe actual cost of the material
(12:43):
is to upgrade the meter.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
Yeah.
Mike G (12:46):
And the city charges and I'm going on the 400 series
which most of the customers aregoing to fall into that range.
Okay, our charge is $1,120 forthat and you know Scott's going
to go out there a couple oftimes.
I usually go out there at leastonce before I send our guys out
to actually do the fiscalupgrade and there is reams of
(13:10):
emails and paperwork that's sentand phone calls that are made
to the contractor, you know, bythe city, to you know, to get
that customer what they need inorder to when power goes out.
They have, they have somelights.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
All right, so I could touch on that just a little bit
.
That's what a lot of I wouldventure to say a lot of our
homeowners will get a little youknow kind of upset when they
pay 15,000 to get a generatorput in and then all of a sudden
they were getting hit withanother $1,100 for the size of
the new meter.
We have to do that.
I've heard it where some peoplesay my buddy in Baton Rouge
(13:47):
didn't have to do that.
Baton Rouge isn't their own gascompany.
They get their gas from Inter-Gand, I'm sure, some other
places.
Those are private companies.
They're allowed to do thingsthat we as government cannot do.
We can't take and I'll use theGineros as an example that wants
to put a generator up there.
We cannot take the taxpayermoney of John Doe and just give
(14:11):
Mike Gineros a new generator,because it cost us that money to
buy the generator or a newmeter.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
Or a new meter.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Sorry, Sorry, I said generator.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
I'll take a generator too.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
It cost us that to buy the meter.
We don't get them for free.
Some places and some of thosecompanies you're still buying
the meter.
It's just maybe written into acost thing on your bill, right?
We can't do that State law, weon your bill, right, right?
we can't do that um state law.
We're not allowed to putanybody on payment plans because
again it's all taxpayer money.
(14:40):
So we don't.
We don't have that luxury, likeother private companies had,
that can put you on a paymentplan for the generator or stuff
like that right, but then whenyou you need somebody, when you
need a local expert, y'all arethere.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
So that's the benefit yes but all right, so we made
the cost argument for the city.
There.
There's another argument thatyou were expressing about just
general safety.
Can you give us some kind ofhorror stories about safety If
you don't get your systeminspected prior?
Speaker 2 (15:15):
what could happen.
So a lot of people and that'smore of what I do is the safety
standpoint, the inspection pointof it, and not only am I going
in there and making sure thatyour wires are hooked up
correctly, the right size, andall that.
There are some things that thestate has recently passed, one
of them is being that if yourgenerator is not an eyesight of
(15:38):
the transfer switch, you have toput a sticker on that transfer
switch telling where thegenerator is.
A lot of people don'tunderstand why.
Until you explain it.
Then they say that makes senseand I'll do it real quick is
when the fire department goesout there.
If your house catches on fire,the fire department or the power
company is going to go outthere and they're going to pull
that meter so they can go intofights or fire.
(15:59):
They're running in with axesand all kinds of stuff.
They don't want to be pokingaround not only with fire, but
an electrical issue too.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
I never knew that yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
So they will actually pull the meter.
The thing is with a generatoronce you pull that meter, it
throws the sensor on there tostart the generator, Right.
So now the house is back hotagain.
Okay, so it's in the NationalElectric Code that every
generator has to have anautomatic shutoff switch and
it's located right there on theback of generator.
It's a little toggle switch andit's for a fireman or whoever
(16:32):
in case of emergency to go inthere and hit that switch and
that will kill the generator.
Yeah, the reason for thesticker is there is pandemonium
going on.
A house is on fire.
If the fireman cannot seeexactly where the generator is,
that sticker says it's on theother side of the house, it's in
the rear of the house and whenit comes to fire safety, seconds
matter.
So that little sticker is thereto tell them exactly where to
(16:53):
go to shut that generator off,and they're not running around
all over the property trying tofind it.
Yeah, got it.
The other thing that I look atis carbon monoxide detectors,
and that's a requirement now.
Before there wasn't any.
At one time there wasn'tanything that pertained to
carbon monoxide detectors whenit comes to generators because
they were so new carbon monoxidedetectors when it comes to
(17:14):
generators because they were sonew the last time I was told.
I don't know if this is stillthe case, but about a year ago I
was told by some generatorpeople that the state of
Louisiana sells more whole housegenerators than the rest of the
country combined.
And it makes sense.
Except I was floored aboutFlorida.
I would have thought Floridawould have been up there with us
(17:34):
too, but they're not.
They're saying, say, Louisianahas more than the rest of the
state.
I don't know if that's stillthe case.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
They have nice balconies and beaches there and
maybe that's why they don't doit.
More hurricane parties maybe Idon't know.
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
And I don't know if that's still the case it and
Chip here actually had broughtto me shoot.
Well, several years ago he hadbrought to me some newspaper
articles that had actuallyhappened in Louisiana of carbon
monoxide poisoning.
After that, myself, chip andour fire chief, danny Campbell,
we had kind of gotten togetherwith the administration and
(18:10):
wrote an ordinance that requiredcarbon monoxide detectors
within the city of Zachary ifyou put in a generator.
That is now state law.
They didn't follow the state,didn't follow Louisiana.
We just we did it in Zacharyand then eventually other cities
started doing the same thing.
Yeah, because you can actuallyand this has actually happened
(18:30):
in one of the articles Chip hadgiven me, I think it was in
Kenner, I don't know somewhere,and someone had put in a
generator and the house stillfilled with carbon monoxide.
What happened was you don'tcontrol mother nature.
The generator was running andhow, still filled up because,
said about mother nature, thewind was blowing.
(18:52):
I'm just gonna say out of thenorth.
Well, the exhaust was runningand the whole time the wind was
blowing.
I'm just going to say out ofthe North, well, the exhaust was
running and the whole time thewind was blowing.
It was pushing that exhaust andit actually had went through a
fixed pane glass window on akitchen that you know nobody.
Just, yeah, how many people go,and I told you this earlier this
morning how many people go backand re-cock their windows.
Right, I'm an inspector, I lookfor caulk on new construction
(19:16):
and I haven't re-caulked my ownpersonal windows.
I mean, it's kind of out ofsight, out of mind.
Yeah, so the cracks in thecaulk had formed and carbon
monoxide made its way, and doingsome research with chip, we
found that there was another onethat the same thing, everything
had done correctly, everythingwas, uh, inspectedpected proper
clearances, and it actually hadleaked up through the soffit
(19:38):
vents in your house.
Because, again, you don'tcontrol the way Mother Nature is
blowing the wind during a storm.
Speaker 5 (19:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
So that's another thing and a lot of people think,
oh, I already got a carbonmonoxide detector.
No, you don't.
A lot of houses they think theydo, but it's just a smoke.
It's not carbon, it's totallydifferent.
A lot of newer houses I don'tremember when the code changed,
probably about 10 years agomaybe so the code changed that
required if you had gasappliances or a garage, you had
(20:09):
to have a carbon monoxidedetector outside of the bedrooms
.
So some people had them outsideof the bedrooms, didn't have
them inside.
Well, where do you sleep?
In your bedroom?
Yeah, If your bedroom's thefirst place filling up with
carbon monoxide, you're alreadyasleep, and if your door's shut,
it's not going to trip thecarbon monoxide detector out in
the hallway.
Yeah, yeah.
So actually here, recently, thestate it was probably about six
(20:33):
, eight months ago.
Recently, the state it wasprobably about six, eight months
ago the state put an emergencyrule that said you had to have
them in every sleeping room andin the immediate vicinity and
it's just purely for safety.
A lot of new construction homeshave a.
They have the smoke alarms thatare already wired directly in
(20:53):
it.
You don't have to buy a specialcarbon monoxide detector, you
can actually go to the store andget a combo and just unscrew
that one out and put a new comboin.
Yeah, and it's all hardwired.
It's the same.
Some people have gone in andsaid that for a while they were
using the plug-ins that you canplug into a receptacle carbon
monoxide.
That was allowed until recently.
(21:13):
The state said no more, becauseyour receptacles are down low.
Okay, Carbon dioxide isstarting to top coming.
It's got to fill up the wholeroom before it trips the hallway
.
Yeah, and on top of it, if yourpower I mean your generator's
running, but power may be outyeah, it revolves around whether
your receptacle works.
So they kind of did away withall this and all of it's.
(21:35):
This public safety.
I mean carbon monoxide is asilent killer.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
And there are going to be people out there that
probably want some sort ofsafeguard or inspection after
this.
Are there resources to have afireman?
Just kind of look at thingswith you, or is that?
Speaker 2 (21:54):
No, firemen don't really get involved unless the
carbon monoxide detectors startgetting tripped.
You start hearing the beep,beep, beep.
Then definitely call the firedepartment because they have a
gauge and they can come outthere and and and do it and say
you know, this is your parts permillion of carbon monoxide.
You got testing positives needto get out yeah, yeah so, but no
, just during the inspectionprocess you, um other than some
(22:16):
of the ladies in in the office,I'd venture to say most of your
dealings will either be with meor chip.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
Okay, all right yeah, uh, we're gonna pass the mic to
jen, to Jen.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
All right, it's Jen.
Oh, thank you.
Okay, I have a couple offollow-up questions.
The first one I have a friendin Americana who was looking to
get a generator installed andshe was not able to because of
the Clearances Exactly.
So can you talk briefly aboutthe clearances required for
generator install?
Speaker 2 (22:53):
So it all depends on what you're putting it up
against.
If you have, like a brick wallor stucco, something that's
fireproof, you can go up to 18inches.
It used to be on the windows.
The code didn't specify it.
(23:14):
It said it can't be within fivefeet of any openings.
Some people are saying, well,this is a fixed window, it
doesn't really open.
Well, yeah, but it's still apenetration.
And I actually had emailed thestate to get clarification and
they said the state does notdifferentiate between whether
the window is operable or not,it just says openings and
(23:34):
technically that is an opening.
Just like what we said aboutwhat happened in Kenner.
It was a fixed pane window butit was still the solid.
The caulk around it stillallowed carbon monoxide to go
through.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
I believe her issue was more about the lot lines and
the space between houses and itabutting a neighbor's lot line.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
That could happen if you're in a subdivision with a
very close lot line.
A lot of Americana houses areabout five feet from the
property line.
So if you're five feet from theproperty line to the edge and
then you've got to come out atleast 18, depending on where you
put it at least 18 inches offof the house, it's giving you
(24:14):
three and a half feet.
Now you've got to take intoaccount how wide the generator
itself is.
I could see where on some Ididn't know that's happened, but
I could see where some peoplewas like you can't because
you're going to cross over aproperty line.
Mike G (24:26):
Jen, I went to a round table and listened to a
generator contractor that talkedabout specifically about
clearances and how difficult itis to find the perfect situation
for an install, because thegenerator manufacturers are
voiding warranties if they don'thave the proper clearances for
(24:47):
whether it's a fence that theneighbor may build up against
the generator that theirneighbor has installed.
Then they go back and voidwarranties because that fence is
too close.
And that is an issue thatthey're trying to find a way on
each house to be able to installit with all of the clearances
(25:12):
that are now required, whetherit's an actual, you know an
ordinance or you know a statelaw, or if it's a manufacturer's
warranty clearance.
And one of the things that hesaid is a real issue is a lot of
people, after they have theirgenerators installed, the first
thing that they want to do iscover that thing up from view
from the street.
So they build this littleshield or fence or you know a
(25:37):
screen around it so that youcan't see it.
But those things are air cooledand they also exhaust an
extremely large amount of heatfrom them when they're operating
and those things will overheatpretty easy if they don't have
the proper ventilation, and hesaid that that is a real problem
and educating the consumerabout it is one of the
(25:59):
challenges that they have.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
I would like to commend whoever the generator
people were, you know, becauseunfortunately there's a lot of
people out there that might havetold your friend, oh, it'll be
fine, because they want to getthe money.
So, whoever they were, Icommend them for the honesty of
saying look, you can't do it,you're not going to meet the
clearances.
There are issues.
You've got to have clearancesaway from your electrical panel.
(26:26):
You've got to have clearancesaway from our gas meters For us
to be able to work on them.
You've got to have clearancesaway from your windows,
especially if they're bedroomwindows, because that's
technically an egress.
In the case of emergency, youcan get out the window.
So, yeah, I could see we'rehaving in very close quarters
neighborhoods that it would comeup as an issue.
Speaker 5 (26:44):
Yeah, for sure.
Well, that kind of brings me tomy next question.
So if someone is looking to geta generator installed, can you
give me some do's and don'ts?
So, for instance, if they'renot going through the proper
channels and getting itpermitted, what are they doing?
Just finding a guy that theyknow to hook it up?
(27:05):
Or I mean, are people justgoing out and buying these on
their own and finding somebodyto hook them up.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Some people have thought they were handymen and
have bought probably off aFacebook marketplace or Costco
or something, and bought one andsaid there's nothing to it, I
can hook it up.
I'm not realizing the otherstuff involved in it.
There there was many, many,many years ago.
There was a guy we never didcatch him and I don't know where
(27:31):
he's at now.
But Zachary, me and Zachary and, uh, carrie chauvin, who was
the building official at thetime of baton rouge.
We were both trying to catchbecause he was doing it all over
baton rouge too.
And tell you how long ago was,if y'all remember the uh, the
tune-in show, the the aroundtown the round happening show.
He was on their show doing aninterview.
I was going to work one morning.
(27:52):
I see him on there and I'mcalling Carrie.
He's like oh my gosh, I'm aboutto go to the mall right now and
catch this guy.
Like.
This guy was going on TV andadvertising his company.
He was not licensed.
It wasn't even licensed withthe state, so don't know
whatever happened to the guy.
Unfortunately, he had a few inZachary that we caught later
when they didn't work.
He had a few in Zachary that wecaught later when they didn't
(28:14):
work and you know it was likewho did this?
And they gave him the name.
I was like, yeah, he's not evena licensed contractor.
Speaker 5 (28:18):
So we need to be asking for proof of license and
insurance, yeah, licenseinsurance.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
And look the main thing, I wouldn't even do that.
You can just say I want to seethe copy of the permits Because
when you permit it through thecity of Zachary, we're doing
that work for you.
We're checking to make surethey're licensed, that they have
all the proper credentials ofelectrical, mechanical they have
their insurance, their bond.
We make sure that we do all thatfor you.
(28:44):
I mean knock yourself out ifyou want to, but if you just say
show me a copy of the permitthat guarantees, because we
wouldn't have given them apermit without it.
Mike G (28:59):
But the biggest do I'm going to tell you is to make
sure it's permitted, and they'realso turning in a basically a
little mini plot plan of wherethat generator is going to be
located.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
So, uh, you know he's checking those clearances from
our side as well so what willtypically happen is the
generator people will come,they'll pull their permit um,
they'll contact the powercompany.
The power company will schedulea disconnect for their meter.
They'll disconnect the meter,they'll hook it up.
They call me.
I go out there, I do a gas testto make sure that the new gas
(29:24):
line they were in is holding,it's not leaking.
I do the electrical and I lookfor the carbon monoxide.
If it doesn't pass, we let yourgenerator people know this is
what needs to happen, this iswhat you need to fix, and then
they'll call us back when it'sfixed and we'll double check it.
If it passes right off the bat,my office then signs off on it.
We send it over to Chip, letChip know it's okay and then he
starts his process withinstalling a bigger size gas
(29:47):
meter.
Am I correct on that?
Speaker 4 (29:49):
That's right, all right, all right guys on that.
That's right, all right, allright guys.
I think that's an excellentplace to wrap.
Uh, scott masterson and chiptroth everybody, scott, you got
(30:17):
one more I got uh.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
One more quick thing I'd like to say, if you had to
all your listeners out there.
If they have any questions,please feel free to call our
office.
You my, the inspections officeis 654-6873.
We're open monday through th, 7to 5.30.
If you don't want to call, feelfree to shoot me an email.
It's scottmasterson atcityofzacharyorg.
(30:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
If you didn't get a permit, just say you listen to
PNP and you'd like a littleamnesty with Scott.
I promise he's not a scary guyand he really does care about
this city.
So just approach him and tellhim what's up and keep everybody
safe and keep some money inyour pocket.
So again, you can find themboth at cityofzacharyorg, with
(31:04):
their contacts there, and youcan catch PNP on local newsstand
and on our website,porchandparishcom.
Thanks to our communitypartners who make this podcast,
the magazine and everything yousee online possible and free.
All right, thanks for joiningus and don't forget to share
this podcast with a friend.
Bye-bye now.
I'm Scott Masterson and I'm Chip Troth and please
keep listening to Porch andParish the podcast welcome,
welcome, welcome to our humbleabode here at Virginia Street,
where the PNP headquarters arenow located and the Gennaro fam
now resides.
We are back better than ever inPorch and Parish's third year
life with.
In the Z, they say, make haywhile the sun shines, and in
(00:26):
Louisiana that translates tomaking the correct moves for
hurricane preparedness.
Today we're tackling a topicthat's crucial for every
homeowner in hurricane-proneareas.
With that season now upon us,many are considering investing
in home generators to stay safeand prepared.
But before you make thatsignificant investment, there
are some things you need to know, and in this special episode,
(00:48):
we're thrilled to have twoexperts who can help you
navigate this important decision.
Joining us are Scott Masterson,city Inspector, and Chip Troth,
meter Director at the City ofZachary.
They'll be sharing theirexpertise on the hidden costs,
regulatory requirements and thebest practices for installing
and maintaining home generators.
It's a lot of stuff youprobably don't know, because I
didn't.
(01:09):
Whether you're a seasonedhomeowner or new to the area,
scott and Chip's insights willensure you're making a
well-informed decision andavoiding unexpected expenses.
So grab a notebook and getready for some valuable
information.
I'm Mike G, host of Porch inParis, the podcast.
We bring you the best of ourregion and we broadcast it to
you every Monday right here fromour headquarters in beautiful
downtown Zachary.
(01:29):
This is Porch and Parish thepodcast.
(01:52):
So let's take it away.
Scott, I think you're best tolead this off.
Why are we here getting thisvery important message out to
citizens in Zachary?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Well, we've been seeing a huge uptake in personal
home generators.
You know, for a long time wewould have the people were going
to buy and the portable onesthat you get from the store,
whatever the 550s.
And now we're starting to see alot of people go and get the
standalone home generators andthey're great, we're glad to
(02:22):
have them.
But we also, I think, and Chipwould agree, we're glad to have
them.
Um, but we also, I think, andchip would agree, if, whenever
we have a storm, whenever wehave a power outage, I think we
seem to see see a uptake in inthe permitting of generators.
Um, if we kind of go through aperiod of not, they'll kind of
drop off.
But here recently we've beendoing a lot within the city of
zachary.
Uh, actually did three today,yeah, so we're seeing a lot of
(02:45):
them.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
And that's a good thing.
It's a great thing when they'repermitted right.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yes, and that's the main thing we want to try to get
across is you know, a lot ofpeople are like I'm not worried
about a permit.
This is one of those things thatyou really need to, because,
well, you do always, no matterwhat it is, but in this
situation it's very much sobecause you're dealing with
literally electricity and gasinside your house.
(03:09):
This isn't anything that youkind of want to play with.
You alluded to in ourconversation earlier this
morning about wanting animpartial person to go in there
to say, hey, this is donecorrectly.
No electrician is going to goin there and say, look, I wired
this thing up.
It's not done right, it'sprobably not going to work.
Give me my money, yeah, so youdo want someone to go in there
and look at it, especially withand I'm going to let Chip talk
(03:31):
about the gas size, which endsup catching a lot of people.
Correct me if I say it wrong,chip, but the standard size
meter that comes on a houseisn't quite big enough to run
effectively run the generatorand the gas appliance is still
in your house, and that'ssometimes that's when we catch
(03:53):
somebody that didn't have itpermitted because it wasn't done
correctly.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
Yeah, it wasn't permitted, it wasn't inspected,
so now your stuff isn't runningokay, so from a third grader
kind of level of knowledge ofthis stuff, if you don't have
the capacity to run other thingswhen you're running a generator
, that means you might not havea generator working right when
you need it.
Mike G (04:15):
Yeah, that's exactly what's going to happen if you
don't have the capacityavailable and the max capacity
typically is going to come intoplay during the winter months.
If you have an outage during awinter storm, when typically
people don't think of thewintertime being the most
critical time to have maxcapacity for gas, but that is
(04:38):
actually when you're going toend up seeing and realizing that
you don't have the capacity onthat meter unless you went
through the proper process ofpermitting having a BTU sheet
turned in so that we could sizeit correctly and also get a
regulator that will handle thatvolume of gas that's required at
(05:00):
that time.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Yeah, and so that's during winter outages.
Typically you're going toseeages.
Mike G (05:04):
Typically, you're going to see that problem where you're
going to realize, hey, I don'thave enough, uh, during the
winter, because that's when yourhot water heater is going, your
heaters are going, uh, you know, if they're gas heaters, um,
that you're going to, you'regoing to find it out then.
Uh, sometimes in the summertimeyou'll be okay because you're
only running air conditioner andthat generator is running all
(05:26):
of that stuff for you and youdon't have a whole lot of draw,
unless your wife decides thatshe wants to cook during the
storm.
Yeah, or you decide you want tocook yourself for yourself
during the storm.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
Sure.
Mike G (05:36):
You might be using a little bit of gas then.
Yeah, definitely hot bath,that's right Well yeah, come in
from yard work or whatevercleaning limbs up.
Typical real drain on the gasBTUs is going to be during the
wintertime.
Speaker 5 (05:52):
Yeah, okay.
Mike G (05:54):
So let's build a case for the gas users out there.
So I just paid for a homegenerator probably over 10 grand
, Is that about what it is 15.
Oh, my goodness, I'm out oftouch.
Oh, ouch, Okay.
So I'm waiting for a time whenthis thing is going to kick in
(06:14):
and just save me and, um, youknow that time comes and I don't
have meter capacity.
So isn't that a case where, hey, somebody needs to pay for this
right?
That's the first thoughteverybody would would have.
Why, why isn't my meter goodenough, Zachary?
Um, I can, I can kind of go intothat a little bit.
We're going to.
If you go through thepermitting process correctly, uh
(06:36):
, that uh plumbing contractor isgoing to turn in a BTU demand
sheet and we're going to size itand make sure that you have
what you need so that thatsituation isn't going to happen
to you.
You know it's not going to be agas volume.
That's your issue if yourgenerator isn't working, it's
going to be something else.
Speaker 5 (06:55):
It's going to be.
Mike G (06:56):
You need to call your generator guy.
You don't need to call the citybecause you've got enough gas
if you went through thepermitting process and if you,
if you paid for your upgrade,essentially, yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
So we're having a problem where, um well, you know
, in our pre-interview we kindof talked a little bit about the
companies that were the serviceproviders for generators were,
um, pointing the finger atzachary, you know, when the
things weren't working right.
Can we say that, yeah, I meanthat that has happened Actually.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
um, I'm touched on it .
What was it, chip?
A couple of weeks ago we hadone that it was a homeowner.
I'm not going to say it's asubdivision, but the homeowner
was calling the power companybecause their generator wasn't
working, it wasn't you know, agenerator typically when you get
it every week will kick on andrun for about 15 minutes once a
week.
And they got to do that to keepit, make sure everything's flush
(07:49):
, everything's working.
You don't want to let it justsit there idle for two years and
all of a sudden then it triesto work.
Right, so it'll kick on.
Well, apparently when thisperson was kicking on, it wasn't
working.
Okay, they called the generator.
Generator people of, of course,are saying, well, you got to
meet a problem becauseeverything's done correctly,
(08:10):
okay.
She ends up calling the powercompany who goes over there and
looks at it and then immediatelycalls me because they didn't
have a record that there wasever a disconnect, got it.
So when you do a generator, thethe generator people actually
have to get in your electricmeter and you can't just do it.
So you end up calling the powercompany.
Power company comes, removesyour meter, then the power
company.
Power company comes, removesyour meter, then the generator
people tie in from your meter toyour panel and all that stuff
and there's a sensor in therethat when there's a disruption
(08:33):
in the electric meter that itdies.
That's what kicks yourgenerator on, okay.
Well, when the power companywent there, they saw that it
wasn't hooked up correctly.
They looked through theirpaperwork and saw that the city
of Zachary never sent usanything, which means it was
never inspected.
So then they called me.
Of course I didn't have apermit.
Yeah, we go over there, andthere were some wires crossed.
That's why it didn't work.
(08:54):
And, sure enough, at that momentunfortunately I don't think the
homeowner was able to get tothe generator people she
actually had to call anothergenerator company to come in and
fix it, got it, and so thatthat's the thing.
And you know it's about $15,000.
Your permit is going to run youabout 50 bucks, um, and while
not to make a lot of $50, $50,$50, but it's still for that $50
(09:18):
, you're going to get chip, isgoing to verify everything on
your gas meter, and I'm going togo out there and do the
inspection.
We're going to make sureeverything's done correctly and
safe and that everything will berunning, and we're that
independent party.
But I will say that's not theonly fee you have.
Typically, when you have to,when you upsize that gas meter,
(09:40):
you have to buy it.
You have to buy the gas meter.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
And I can kind of speak to that.
Chip's the cost guy.
I'm a purchasing director on topof being a meter operations
director, so I can speak to thisfrom firsthand knowledge.
Typically, 95, I would say 95 to99 percent of the BTU
applications that we get forthese generators are going to
(10:07):
require an upgrade.
You know, very few homes areset up from construction to
handle the capacity needed torun these generators, because
these are whole house generatorsthat, if you think about it,
you're essentially asking yourgas company to replace the
electric grid, right, okay, soyou're going to need more gas
(10:30):
capacity than you needed whenyou originally were just
planning for your lights andyour lanterns out front and your
fireplace light and that kindof thing, your stove, even one
or two heaters.
You're going to need thatadditional capacity because
those things do require a lotand, from a cost standpoint,
(10:51):
typically most homes will fallinto the range of a 400-series
meter with a two-pound regulatorthat the city requires by
ordinance.
And that's for us to be uh, beable to properly uh meter that,
uh, that gas that's goingthrough there and also provide
the customer uh an extra littlebit of capacity in the pipe of
(11:15):
pressure when that thinginitially starts and kicks off.
So how many ounces of naturalgas is that capacity for our
details, people.
Typically in a house you'regoing to have seven inches of
water column or four ounces ofpressure.
That's going into a residence.
Got it, and that's still goingto be the.
What's going to happen is thecity is going to provide two
(11:39):
pounds is going to help provideextra capacity for the generator
, which typically is downstream10 feet to as much as 100 feet
downstream of where the meterlocation is.
And in rural areas, which wehave, several, what I would call
rural areas, like, say, theplains or little farms area the
(12:00):
meters are actually located atthe road.
So it may be 200 feet, so thatpipe capacity with the
additional pressure, um, youknow, allows the customer, uh,
and that generator contractor tonot have any worries about what
the city is providing.
And then, um, the contractor isgoing to cut that uh, two, two
(12:23):
pounds of pressure down back tothe four inches of water.
I mean seven inches of watercolumn, or four ounces that go
into the house.
From a cost standpoint and Iadded it up the other day for
Sharon just so that she wouldhave an idea of what that cost
would be it was $1,056 is whatthe actual cost of the material
(12:43):
is to upgrade the meter.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
Yeah.
Mike G (12:46):
And the city charges and I'm going on the 400 series
which most of the customers aregoing to fall into that range.
Okay, our charge is $1,120 forthat and you know Scott's going
to go out there a couple oftimes.
I usually go out there at leastonce before I send our guys out
to actually do the fiscalupgrade and there is reams of
(13:10):
emails and paperwork that's sentand phone calls that are made
to the contractor, you know, bythe city, to you know, to get
that customer what they need inorder to when power goes out.
They have, they have somelights.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
All right, so I could touch on that just a little bit
.
That's what a lot of I wouldventure to say a lot of our
homeowners will get a little youknow kind of upset when they
pay 15,000 to get a generatorput in and then all of a sudden
they were getting hit withanother $1,100 for the size of
the new meter.
We have to do that.
I've heard it where some peoplesay my buddy in Baton Rouge
(13:47):
didn't have to do that.
Baton Rouge isn't their own gascompany.
They get their gas from Inter-Gand, I'm sure, some other
places.
Those are private companies.
They're allowed to do thingsthat we as government cannot do.
We can't take and I'll use theGineros as an example that wants
to put a generator up there.
We cannot take the taxpayermoney of John Doe and just give
(14:11):
Mike Gineros a new generator,because it cost us that money to
buy the generator or a newmeter.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
Or a new meter.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Sorry, Sorry, I said generator.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
I'll take a generator too.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
It cost us that to buy the meter.
We don't get them for free.
Some places and some of thosecompanies you're still buying
the meter.
It's just maybe written into acost thing on your bill, right?
We can't do that State law, weon your bill, right, right?
we can't do that um state law.
We're not allowed to putanybody on payment plans because
again it's all taxpayer money.
(14:40):
So we don't.
We don't have that luxury, likeother private companies had,
that can put you on a paymentplan for the generator or stuff
like that right, but then whenyou you need somebody, when you
need a local expert, y'all arethere.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
So that's the benefit yes but all right, so we made
the cost argument for the city.
There.
There's another argument thatyou were expressing about just
general safety.
Can you give us some kind ofhorror stories about safety If
you don't get your systeminspected prior?
Speaker 2 (15:15):
what could happen.
So a lot of people and that'smore of what I do is the safety
standpoint, the inspection pointof it, and not only am I going
in there and making sure thatyour wires are hooked up
correctly, the right size, andall that.
There are some things that thestate has recently passed, one
of them is being that if yourgenerator is not an eyesight of
(15:38):
the transfer switch, you have toput a sticker on that transfer
switch telling where thegenerator is.
A lot of people don'tunderstand why.
Until you explain it.
Then they say that makes senseand I'll do it real quick is
when the fire department goesout there.
If your house catches on fire,the fire department or the power
company is going to go outthere and they're going to pull
that meter so they can go intofights or fire.
(15:59):
They're running in with axesand all kinds of stuff.
They don't want to be pokingaround not only with fire, but
an electrical issue too.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
I never knew that yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
So they will actually pull the meter.
The thing is with a generatoronce you pull that meter, it
throws the sensor on there tostart the generator, Right.
So now the house is back hotagain.
Okay, so it's in the NationalElectric Code that every
generator has to have anautomatic shutoff switch and
it's located right there on theback of generator.
It's a little toggle switch andit's for a fireman or whoever
(16:32):
in case of emergency to go inthere and hit that switch and
that will kill the generator.
Yeah, the reason for thesticker is there is pandemonium
going on.
A house is on fire.
If the fireman cannot seeexactly where the generator is,
that sticker says it's on theother side of the house, it's in
the rear of the house and whenit comes to fire safety, seconds
matter.
So that little sticker is thereto tell them exactly where to
(16:53):
go to shut that generator off,and they're not running around
all over the property trying tofind it.
Yeah, got it.
The other thing that I look atis carbon monoxide detectors,
and that's a requirement now.
Before there wasn't any.
At one time there wasn'tanything that pertained to
carbon monoxide detectors whenit comes to generators because
they were so new carbon monoxidedetectors when it comes to
(17:14):
generators because they were sonew the last time I was told.
I don't know if this is stillthe case, but about a year ago I
was told by some generatorpeople that the state of
Louisiana sells more whole housegenerators than the rest of the
country combined.
And it makes sense.
Except I was floored aboutFlorida.
I would have thought Floridawould have been up there with us
(17:34):
too, but they're not.
They're saying, say, Louisianahas more than the rest of the
state.
I don't know if that's stillthe case.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
They have nice balconies and beaches there and
maybe that's why they don't doit.
More hurricane parties maybe Idon't know.
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
And I don't know if that's still the case it and
Chip here actually had broughtto me shoot.
Well, several years ago he hadbrought to me some newspaper
articles that had actuallyhappened in Louisiana of carbon
monoxide poisoning.
After that, myself, chip andour fire chief, danny Campbell,
we had kind of gotten togetherwith the administration and
(18:10):
wrote an ordinance that requiredcarbon monoxide detectors
within the city of Zachary ifyou put in a generator.
That is now state law.
They didn't follow the state,didn't follow Louisiana.
We just we did it in Zacharyand then eventually other cities
started doing the same thing.
Yeah, because you can actuallyand this has actually happened
(18:30):
in one of the articles Chip hadgiven me, I think it was in
Kenner, I don't know somewhere,and someone had put in a
generator and the house stillfilled with carbon monoxide.
What happened was you don'tcontrol mother nature.
The generator was running andhow, still filled up because,
said about mother nature, thewind was blowing.
(18:52):
I'm just gonna say out of thenorth.
Well, the exhaust was runningand the whole time the wind was
blowing.
I'm just going to say out ofthe North, well, the exhaust was
running and the whole time thewind was blowing.
It was pushing that exhaust andit actually had went through a
fixed pane glass window on akitchen that you know nobody.
Just, yeah, how many people go,and I told you this earlier this
morning how many people go backand re-cock their windows.
Right, I'm an inspector, I lookfor caulk on new construction
(19:16):
and I haven't re-caulked my ownpersonal windows.
I mean, it's kind of out ofsight, out of mind.
Yeah, so the cracks in thecaulk had formed and carbon
monoxide made its way, and doingsome research with chip, we
found that there was another onethat the same thing, everything
had done correctly, everythingwas, uh, inspectedpected proper
clearances, and it actually hadleaked up through the soffit
(19:38):
vents in your house.
Because, again, you don'tcontrol the way Mother Nature is
blowing the wind during a storm.
Speaker 5 (19:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
So that's another thing and a lot of people think,
oh, I already got a carbonmonoxide detector.
No, you don't.
A lot of houses they think theydo, but it's just a smoke.
It's not carbon, it's totallydifferent.
A lot of newer houses I don'tremember when the code changed,
probably about 10 years agomaybe so the code changed that
required if you had gasappliances or a garage, you had
(20:09):
to have a carbon monoxidedetector outside of the bedrooms
.
So some people had them outsideof the bedrooms, didn't have
them inside.
Well, where do you sleep?
In your bedroom?
Yeah, If your bedroom's thefirst place filling up with
carbon monoxide, you're alreadyasleep, and if your door's shut,
it's not going to trip thecarbon monoxide detector out in
the hallway.
Yeah, yeah.
So actually here, recently, thestate it was probably about six
(20:33):
, eight months ago.
Recently, the state it wasprobably about six, eight months
ago the state put an emergencyrule that said you had to have
them in every sleeping room andin the immediate vicinity and
it's just purely for safety.
A lot of new construction homeshave a.
They have the smoke alarms thatare already wired directly in
(20:53):
it.
You don't have to buy a specialcarbon monoxide detector, you
can actually go to the store andget a combo and just unscrew
that one out and put a new comboin.
Yeah, and it's all hardwired.
It's the same.
Some people have gone in andsaid that for a while they were
using the plug-ins that you canplug into a receptacle carbon
monoxide.
That was allowed until recently.
(21:13):
The state said no more, becauseyour receptacles are down low.
Okay, Carbon dioxide isstarting to top coming.
It's got to fill up the wholeroom before it trips the hallway
.
Yeah, and on top of it, if yourpower I mean your generator's
running, but power may be outyeah, it revolves around whether
your receptacle works.
So they kind of did away withall this and all of it's.
(21:35):
This public safety.
I mean carbon monoxide is asilent killer.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
And there are going to be people out there that
probably want some sort ofsafeguard or inspection after
this.
Are there resources to have afireman?
Just kind of look at thingswith you, or is that?
Speaker 2 (21:54):
No, firemen don't really get involved unless the
carbon monoxide detectors startgetting tripped.
You start hearing the beep,beep, beep.
Then definitely call the firedepartment because they have a
gauge and they can come outthere and and and do it and say
you know, this is your parts permillion of carbon monoxide.
You got testing positives needto get out yeah, yeah so, but no
, just during the inspectionprocess you, um other than some
(22:16):
of the ladies in in the office,I'd venture to say most of your
dealings will either be with meor chip.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
Okay, all right yeah, uh, we're gonna pass the mic to
jen, to Jen.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
All right, it's Jen.
Oh, thank you.
Okay, I have a couple offollow-up questions.
The first one I have a friendin Americana who was looking to
get a generator installed andshe was not able to because of
the Clearances Exactly.
So can you talk briefly aboutthe clearances required for
generator install?
Speaker 2 (22:53):
So it all depends on what you're putting it up
against.
If you have, like a brick wallor stucco, something that's
fireproof, you can go up to 18inches.
It used to be on the windows.
The code didn't specify it.
(23:14):
It said it can't be within fivefeet of any openings.
Some people are saying, well,this is a fixed window, it
doesn't really open.
Well, yeah, but it's still apenetration.
And I actually had emailed thestate to get clarification and
they said the state does notdifferentiate between whether
the window is operable or not,it just says openings and
(23:34):
technically that is an opening.
Just like what we said aboutwhat happened in Kenner.
It was a fixed pane window butit was still the solid.
The caulk around it stillallowed carbon monoxide to go
through.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
I believe her issue was more about the lot lines and
the space between houses and itabutting a neighbor's lot line.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
That could happen if you're in a subdivision with a
very close lot line.
A lot of Americana houses areabout five feet from the
property line.
So if you're five feet from theproperty line to the edge and
then you've got to come out atleast 18, depending on where you
put it at least 18 inches offof the house, it's giving you
(24:14):
three and a half feet.
Now you've got to take intoaccount how wide the generator
itself is.
I could see where on some Ididn't know that's happened, but
I could see where some peoplewas like you can't because
you're going to cross over aproperty line.
Mike G (24:26):
Jen, I went to a round table and listened to a
generator contractor that talkedabout specifically about
clearances and how difficult itis to find the perfect situation
for an install, because thegenerator manufacturers are
voiding warranties if they don'thave the proper clearances for
(24:47):
whether it's a fence that theneighbor may build up against
the generator that theirneighbor has installed.
Then they go back and voidwarranties because that fence is
too close.
And that is an issue thatthey're trying to find a way on
each house to be able to installit with all of the clearances
(25:12):
that are now required, whetherit's an actual, you know an
ordinance or you know a statelaw, or if it's a manufacturer's
warranty clearance.
And one of the things that hesaid is a real issue is a lot of
people, after they have theirgenerators installed, the first
thing that they want to do iscover that thing up from view
from the street.
So they build this littleshield or fence or you know a
(25:37):
screen around it so that youcan't see it.
But those things are air cooledand they also exhaust an
extremely large amount of heatfrom them when they're operating
and those things will overheatpretty easy if they don't have
the proper ventilation, and hesaid that that is a real problem
and educating the consumerabout it is one of the
(25:59):
challenges that they have.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
I would like to commend whoever the generator
people were, you know, becauseunfortunately there's a lot of
people out there that might havetold your friend, oh, it'll be
fine, because they want to getthe money.
So, whoever they were, Icommend them for the honesty of
saying look, you can't do it,you're not going to meet the
clearances.
There are issues.
You've got to have clearancesaway from your electrical panel.
(26:26):
You've got to have clearancesaway from our gas meters For us
to be able to work on them.
You've got to have clearancesaway from your windows,
especially if they're bedroomwindows, because that's
technically an egress.
In the case of emergency, youcan get out the window.
So, yeah, I could see we'rehaving in very close quarters
neighborhoods that it would comeup as an issue.
Speaker 5 (26:44):
Yeah, for sure.
Well, that kind of brings me tomy next question.
So if someone is looking to geta generator installed, can you
give me some do's and don'ts?
So, for instance, if they'renot going through the proper
channels and getting itpermitted, what are they doing?
Just finding a guy that theyknow to hook it up?
(27:05):
Or I mean, are people justgoing out and buying these on
their own and finding somebodyto hook them up.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Some people have thought they were handymen and
have bought probably off aFacebook marketplace or Costco
or something, and bought one andsaid there's nothing to it, I
can hook it up.
I'm not realizing the otherstuff involved in it.
There there was many, many,many years ago.
There was a guy we never didcatch him and I don't know where
(27:31):
he's at now.
But Zachary, me and Zachary and, uh, carrie chauvin, who was
the building official at thetime of baton rouge.
We were both trying to catchbecause he was doing it all over
baton rouge too.
And tell you how long ago was,if y'all remember the uh, the
tune-in show, the the aroundtown the round happening show.
He was on their show doing aninterview.
I was going to work one morning.
(27:52):
I see him on there and I'mcalling Carrie.
He's like oh my gosh, I'm aboutto go to the mall right now and
catch this guy.
Like.
This guy was going on TV andadvertising his company.
He was not licensed.
It wasn't even licensed withthe state, so don't know
whatever happened to the guy.
Unfortunately, he had a few inZachary that we caught later
when they didn't work.
He had a few in Zachary that wecaught later when they didn't
(28:14):
work and you know it was likewho did this?
And they gave him the name.
I was like, yeah, he's not evena licensed contractor.
Speaker 5 (28:18):
So we need to be asking for proof of license and
insurance, yeah, licenseinsurance.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
And look the main thing, I wouldn't even do that.
You can just say I want to seethe copy of the permits Because
when you permit it through thecity of Zachary, we're doing
that work for you.
We're checking to make surethey're licensed, that they have
all the proper credentials ofelectrical, mechanical they have
their insurance, their bond.
We make sure that we do all thatfor you.
(28:44):
I mean knock yourself out ifyou want to, but if you just say
show me a copy of the permitthat guarantees, because we
wouldn't have given them apermit without it.
Mike G (28:59):
But the biggest do I'm going to tell you is to make
sure it's permitted, and they'realso turning in a basically a
little mini plot plan of wherethat generator is going to be
located.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
So, uh, you know he's checking those clearances from
our side as well so what willtypically happen is the
generator people will come,they'll pull their permit um,
they'll contact the powercompany.
The power company will schedulea disconnect for their meter.
They'll disconnect the meter,they'll hook it up.
They call me.
I go out there, I do a gas testto make sure that the new gas
(29:24):
line they were in is holding,it's not leaking.
I do the electrical and I lookfor the carbon monoxide.
If it doesn't pass, we let yourgenerator people know this is
what needs to happen, this iswhat you need to fix, and then
they'll call us back when it'sfixed and we'll double check it.
If it passes right off the bat,my office then signs off on it.
We send it over to Chip, letChip know it's okay and then he
starts his process withinstalling a bigger size gas
(29:47):
meter.
Am I correct on that?
Speaker 4 (29:49):
That's right, all right, all right guys on that.
That's right, all right, allright guys.
I think that's an excellentplace to wrap.
Uh, scott masterson and chiptroth everybody, scott, you got
(30:17):
one more I got uh.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
One more quick thing I'd like to say, if you had to
all your listeners out there.
If they have any questions,please feel free to call our
office.
You my, the inspections officeis 654-6873.
We're open monday through th, 7to 5.30.
If you don't want to call, feelfree to shoot me an email.
It's scottmasterson atcityofzacharyorg.
(30:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
If you didn't get a permit, just say you listen to
PNP and you'd like a littleamnesty with Scott.
I promise he's not a scary guyand he really does care about
this city.
So just approach him and tellhim what's up and keep everybody
safe and keep some money inyour pocket.
So again, you can find themboth at cityofzacharyorg, with
(31:04):
their contacts there, and youcan catch PNP on local newsstand
and on our website,porchandparishcom.
Thanks to our communitypartners who make this podcast,
the magazine and everything yousee online possible and free.
All right, thanks for joiningus and don't forget to share
this podcast with a friend.
Bye-bye now.
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