Fueling a standby generator in South Louisiana
A standby generator only backs you up if it has fuel it can burn for days, and in South Louisiana that comes down to two options: a natural gas line from the street, or an on-site propane (LP) tank. If you want the plain comparison of how the two fuels behave, the natural gas vs. propane guide covers that. This page is about the setup work itself, which fuel is even available where you live, and what the installer we connect you with does to get it right.
The fuel decision is not usually a free choice. It is decided mostly by what your property already has, and getting it wrong means either a generator that cannot run long enough or a system that never passes inspection.
Natural gas: convenient where the main reaches you
Where a natural gas main is available, it is the low-hassle option. There is no tank to fill and, in theory, no running out during a long outage. In the region that mostly means service from Entergy in parts of the New Orleans area and Atmos Energy across many other communities. Coverage is real inside town and along established corridors, but it thins out fast in rural Acadiana and the bayou parishes, where a lot of homes simply have no gas main at the road.
When natural gas is the plan, the fuel work involves more than tapping a line:
- Line sizing. A large standby unit demands a lot of fuel. A 22 kW generator at full load can call for roughly 280,000 to 350,000 BTU per hour, so the gas line has to be sized for that load plus everything else already on the system, and for the distance from the meter to the pad.
- Long runs. Pipe runs beyond about 50 to 100 feet often need a larger diameter so the generator does not starve on pressure drop.
- Meter capacity. A typical residential meter, plus a furnace, water heater, and range, can be pushed to its limit by a generator. The utility sometimes has to upsize the meter or the regulator before the system will run reliably.
All of that is why a natural gas hookup for a generator is a permitted job for a licensed contractor, not a weekend project.
Propane: the default across the bayou and rural Acadiana
For the many homes with no gas main, propane is the standard. An on-site LP tank feeds the generator and does not depend on the grid or a buried pipeline that a storm could disturb. In Houma (Terrebonne Parish), New Iberia (Iberia Parish), and much of rural Lafayette Parish, propane is simply how standby generators get fueled.
The main tradeoff is runtime, which is a function of tank size:
- A large tank buys you days of unattended runtime. As a rough guide, a 20 kW generator at partial load can run somewhere in the range of a week to a bit more on a 500-gallon tank, which is why that size is a common recommendation for whole-home backup.
- Smaller tanks, like a 100 or 250 gallon, cost less and take less yard space but need refilling sooner in a long outage.
- The right size depends on your generator’s output, how much of the house it carries, and how long the outages in your area tend to run.
Because South Louisiana outages regularly stretch multiple days after storms like Laura, Delta, and Ida, tank sizing here leans larger than in regions where the power blinks and comes back.
Placement, flood elevation, and permitting
Fuel setup is not only about the fuel. Where the tank or the meter and the generator can sit is shaped by local rules. Flood-elevation requirements in lower-lying parishes affect how high the equipment has to be set and where a tank is allowed, and gas work is permitted and inspected. Requirements are not identical from parish to parish, so the installer we connect you with handles the sizing, the placement, and the permit for your specific address rather than applying a one-size template.
How the fuel setup ties into the rest of the system
Fuel does not stand alone. It has to match the generator and the switch, so this work is spec’d as part of a full generator installation alongside the automatic transfer switch. And on the propane side especially, ongoing maintenance matters, since a tank that runs low or a regulator that drifts will leave you dark exactly when you need the generator most.
Get matched with a licensed installer
Bayou Generators is a resource, not a contractor. Tell us your city and whether you have a gas main or would need a propane tank, and we will connect you with the one vetted, licensed local installer we work with in your area. Start from the home page whenever you are ready.