What Size Generator Does My North Texas Home Need?
Quick answer
The right generator size depends on which circuits you want to keep running during an outage, not just your home's square footage. Paramount Electric performs a load calculation on-site — adding up the actual electrical draw of the circuits you want covered — to recommend the smallest generator that reliably handles your needs, rather than oversizing (and overpaying) or undersizing (and risking overload).
Essential Circuits vs. Whole-Home
Selected essential circuits
Illustrative selected loads: refrigerator and well pump.
Broader home backup
Illustrative broader selection: refrigerator, well pump, lighting, and air conditioning.
AI-assisted educational illustration comparing selected essential circuits with broader home backup coverage. Actual coverage depends on your home's assessed loads and system configuration.
What to Think Through Before Your Estimate
Walk through this list and note which items matter most to you — it's exactly what a Paramount Electric load assessment covers on-site.
| Circuit / Item | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| Refrigerator/freezer | Runs continuously; a must for most homeowners |
| Central air conditioning | One of the largest single loads in most homes; may need surge/starting capacity |
| Well pump | Critical if you're on well water — no backup power means no water pressure |
| Sump pump | Critical in flood-prone areas or homes with a finished basement equivalent |
| Lighting circuits | Usually included even in essential-circuits packages |
| Garage door opener | Often overlooked but commonly requested |
| Home office / medical equipment | Prioritize if working from home or using powered medical devices |
| EV charger | A major load — mention this upfront if you have or plan to get one |
How the Numbers Actually Come Together
This is an educational example, not a Paramount job or a size recommendation for your home. Your actual load calculation uses your equipment's real nameplate values.
Say a household wants essential-circuits coverage for a refrigerator, a well pump, general lighting, and a garage door opener — using commonly published typical wattage figures for illustration. Two terms matter here: running watts is what a motor draws once it's operating normally; starting watts is the higher, momentary peak that same motor draws for a fraction of a second when it first switches on — it replaces (not adds to) that motor's own running-watts figure for that instant, while everything else continues at its running draw.
| Item | Running watts | Starting watts |
|---|---|---|
| Refrigerator | ~700W | ~2,200W |
| Well pump | ~1,000W | ~2,000W |
| Lighting circuits | ~600W | — |
| Garage door opener | ~500W | ~1,400W |
| Total running, all four: ~2,800W. Worst-case peak: swap the refrigerator's running watts for its starting watts, since it has the highest starting figure of the four (~2,200W, higher than the well pump's ~2,000W) — 2,800 − 700 + 2,200 = ~4,300W peak. | ||
The ~4,300W figure assumes only one motor starts at a time, which holds when a generator's control logic (or a homeowner's own habits) staggers large loads rather than letting several start simultaneously. If two motors could realistically start together — for example, a well pump kicking on at the same moment as the refrigerator's compressor — the real peak is higher, and this is exactly the kind of interaction a licensed electrician checks for rather than assumes away.
This example does not translate into a generator size recommendation. Do that with your home's actual equipment: nameplate draw for your specific refrigerator, your well pump's actual horsepower, whether central air conditioning is included (often the single largest load in a North Texas home and not part of this illustration), and any planned additions like an EV charger. Generac's own guidance is to size around a full assessment of the home rather than a generic worked example like this one.
Why a Load Calculation Matters
Generators are rated in kW, and every circuit you want covered draws a specific amount of power — some items (like AC compressors) also need extra "starting" wattage for a moment when they kick on. A licensed electrician calculates your actual combined load, not a rule-of-thumb estimate based on square footage, to recommend a generator that won't overload under real conditions.
Common Sizing Questions
Related Generator Guides
Sources & Standards
Reviewed by the Paramount Electric team · Paramount Electric · Last updated September 8, 2026
Get a Free On-Site Load Assessment
Paramount Electric installs and services whole-home and essential-circuits generators throughout Rockwall, Heath, and the surrounding Dallas area.