Marin · Generator Installation & Repair
Generator Rentals
Towable and portable sets by the day, week or month, with cable, distribution and delivery anywhere in the county.
Generator Rentals · Marin
What A Rental Includes And Who Uses One
Rental generators are for the jobs where a permanent machine makes no sense: a wedding on a ranch with no supply, a festival that needs more power than the venue circuit will carry, a construction site before the utility connection exists, a film unit on location, a facility running through a planned shutdown, or a household covering a long repair. We deliver towable diesel sets and smaller portable units anywhere in the ten Marin towns we serve, with the cable, the distribution boards and the connectors that actually make the power usable, which is the part most people forget to ask about. A rental is quoted as a package: the machine, the delivery, the collection and the fuel policy in one number. Sizing works exactly as it does on a permanent install, from what has to run and how it starts rather than from a guess, and getting it wrong on an event day is a much more public problem. Where a site keeps hiring the same set year after year, we will tell you when buying a commercial generator has become the cheaper option.
Why Go With Us
Most rental problems are not equipment problems. The set arrives without the right connector. Nobody asked what the coffee cart or the kitchen truck actually draws. The machine is technically big enough and stalls anyway when a three-phase compressor starts. The fuel policy turns out to mean something different from what the caterer assumed. We spec rentals from a load list, deliver with the cable and distribution included, and put the fuel arrangement in writing. For an event we will walk the site beforehand, because a Marin ranch driveway and a towable set are not always compatible and the Friday before a wedding is a bad time to discover it.
- Sized from a real load list, including the starting surge of the largest motor, rather than from a total in kilowatts.
- Cable, distribution boards and connectors supplied with the machine as standard rather than quoted as extras afterwards.
- Site visits before event and difficult-access bookings, because plenty of Marin driveways will not take a towable set.
- Quiet enclosed units for weddings and residential streets, where a standard construction set would be unacceptable.
- Delivery, collection and the fuel policy stated in one flat written price with no collection charge at the end.
- Local delivery from San Rafael across all ten towns, so a job that grows in the last week is a phone call rather than a crisis.
Reasons To Rent Rather Than Buy
The situations that make a hire the right answer:
An event on a site with no supply
Weddings on West Marin ranches, festivals, fundraisers and private parties on properties where the nearest usable outlet is a hundred metres away. Wedding generators need to be quiet as well as adequate, which is a different machine from a construction one.
A construction site before the utility connection
Framing, tools, site lighting, a trailer office and a compressor, weeks or months before permanent power exists. Construction generator rental on a monthly rate is far cheaper per day than a stack of weekly ones.
A planned shutdown or a changeover
A switchgear upgrade, a service change or replacing an existing standby set. The facility still has to run, so a temporary machine holds the load while the work happens.
A seasonal or short-term load
Harvest and crush at a winery, a seasonal retail operation, a temporary classroom or office, or a modular building on site for a year. Renting avoids buying a machine for a load that will disappear.
Film, television and production work
Location units need clean, quiet power delivered where the trucks can reach it, and the requirement usually changes twice before the shoot day. Event generators for production are as much about the cable run as the machine.
A long outage or a failed set
A storm outage that has gone past a day, or an existing standby machine that has failed while a repair part is on order. A hire unit covers the gap rather than leaving a business closed.
Give us the date, the address and what has to run, and we will tell you the size, the cable and the price in one call. Call: 415-324-4858
How We Work
A site visit that opens the panel, a flat written price, permits filed by us, and a machine commissioned under load.
1. Sizing the hire
We go through what has to run and, critically, what starts hard: compressors, pumps, refrigeration, kitchen equipment, hoists. Then we look at the distribution, because a machine with the right output and the wrong connectors is no use to anyone on the day.
2. The site check
For events and any difficult address we visit first. Towable sets need a route in, ground that will carry the weight and somewhere the noise will not sit against a marquee or a neighbour. This is the step that prevents almost every rental disaster we have been called in to rescue.
3. Delivery and set-up
We deliver, position, connect the distribution and test it under load before we leave. On event work we hand over to whoever is running the site and make sure at least one person knows how to reset a tripped breaker at nine in the evening.
4. Fuel, monitoring and collection
The fuel arrangement is agreed in writing up front. On longer hires we refuel on a schedule; on events we deliver full and size the tank to the run time. When you are done, one call and we collect it, with no separate charge waiting at the end.
Event, Construction, Industrial And Commercial Hire
The four kinds of rental we do most, and what each needs:
Event generator rental
Marquee lighting, catering, a bar, a band and the power for a photographer and a coffee cart. The two things that matter are noise and headroom. A standard construction set parked behind a marquee will be heard through the speeches, so event work goes out on quiet enclosed units, sited and screened deliberately.
Wedding generators
A subset of event work with less tolerance for failure and more for cost. Ranch and vineyard weddings in West Marin and the Novato hills routinely need 20kW to 60kW once catering and lighting are added up. We size those with the caterer rather than the planner, because the kitchen is nearly always the biggest and most surprising load on the list.
Construction generator rental
Tools, site lighting, a welfare unit, a site office and often a compressor, from a few weeks to the whole build. These go out on monthly rates because the delivery and collection cost the same whether the machine stays a week or a season. Diesel is standard here for run time and block load capacity.
Industrial generator rental
Temporary cover for a plant during a shutdown, a switchgear upgrade or a standby set replacement, sized against the same load study a permanent installation would get. These are large towable or containerised diesel machines and they are planned rather than ordered, usually weeks ahead.
Commercial generator rental
A restaurant, a shop or a clinic covering a planned utility outage, a failed machine or a seasonal load. Short hires, quick turnaround, and usually more about connectors and cable routing through an occupied building than about the generator itself.
Trailer generators and portable units
Trailer generators tow behind a standard vehicle, carry their own fuel and cover the 20kW to 150kW range that most events and job sites need. Below that, portable gas generators handle small tool loads, a market stall or a single trailer. The step between them is bigger than the catalogue suggests, and it is usually decided by whether anything on site starts with a motor.
Cable, distribution and connectors
The generator is half the order. Distribution boards, the right cable lengths, correct connectors, RCD protection and cable ramps where the public walks are what turn output into usable power. We supply all of it with the machine, and it is included in the quoted price.
What Generator Rental Costs In Marin
Rental is priced by size tier and duration, with the delivery, collection and distribution inside the number. As a guide, a small portable unit up to about 10kW runs roughly $75 to $150 a day. A mid-sized towable set of 20kW to 60kW, which covers most weddings and small sites, is about $200 to $500 a day or $1,200 to $3,000 a month. Larger sets from 100kW upward start around $600 a day and are usually quoted monthly. What moves it:
- The size tier, which comes from your load list rather than from the size of the event or the site.
- How long you keep it. Weekly and monthly rates are dramatically cheaper per day, because the delivery and collection cost the same either way.
- Whether you need a quiet enclosed unit. Event and residential work does; a fenced construction site usually does not.
- How much cable and distribution the layout needs. A long run across a field with several distribution points adds equipment and time.
- The fuel arrangement, which is either delivered full and returned full or refuelled by us on a schedule, and is agreed in writing before delivery.
- Access. A flat yard is a normal delivery. A ranch track, a hillside address or anywhere a towable set cannot reach needs different equipment and more time.
Every hire is a flat price with the delivery, the collection and the distribution already included. If you are hiring the same machine every year, we will tell you when a permanent backup generator would cost less over five years, and any set we rent out is maintained on the same service schedule as the ones we install, and everything else we fit and service is priced the same flat way.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to rent a generator?
It is priced by size tier and duration. A small portable unit up to about 10kW runs roughly $75 to $150 a day. A mid-sized towable set of 20kW to 60kW, which suits most weddings and small job sites, is about $200 to $500 a day, or $1,200 to $3,000 on a monthly rate. Larger machines from 100kW upward start around $600 a day and are normally quoted by the month. Delivery, collection and the distribution equipment are inside those numbers.
What size generator do I need for a wedding or an event?
Most Marin ranch and vineyard weddings land between 20kW and 60kW once catering, lighting, a bar, sound and a photographer are added together. The kitchen is almost always the largest and most underestimated load, so we size these with the caterer rather than from a guest count. Noise matters as much as capacity, so event bookings go out on quiet enclosed units rather than standard construction sets.
Who pays for the fuel on a rental?
It is agreed in writing before delivery and there are two normal arrangements. Short hires and events are usually delivered full and returned full, with the tank sized so the machine will run the whole event without a mid-event refuel. Longer construction and industrial hires are refuelled by us on a schedule and the fuel is billed as used. Either way it is in the quote rather than a surprise on the invoice.
How long can I rent a generator for?
From a single day up to as long as the job runs, and plenty of our construction hires go on for a year. Anything past a couple of weeks should be on a monthly rate rather than stacked weekly ones, because the delivery and collection are the same work whether the machine stays a week or a season and monthly pricing spreads that over more days.
Do you deliver and set it up?
Yes. We deliver, position the set, connect the distribution and test it under load before leaving, then collect it when you are finished. Delivery and collection are inside the quoted price for anywhere in the ten towns we cover. On events we also make sure somebody on site knows how to reset a tripped breaker, because that is the call that otherwise comes at nine in the evening.
Are rental generators quiet enough for a wedding?
The enclosed units we send to event work are, and the standard construction sets are not, which is why we do not send those to weddings. Beyond the machine itself, siting does most of the work: putting the set behind a structure, away from the marquee and downwind of the seating makes a bigger difference than the last few decibels on a spec sheet.
Can you supply cable and distribution as well?
Always, and it comes with the machine rather than as an extra. Distribution boards, cable in the right lengths, correct connectors, RCD protection and cable ramps where people walk are what make the output usable. A generator delivered without the right connector is the single most common way a hire goes wrong.
Need power in Marin?
An address, a panel size and a rough list of what has to keep running is all we need. We call back inside one business hour with a free estimate and a flat price.
Or call us now: 415-324-4858