Agricultural generator rental from Red Deer for three jobs: running grain dryers and aeration fans through harvest, pumping irrigation water through the growing season, and keeping a livestock barn on power when the line goes down. Each set is sized to the motors on your yard and rented for as long as that job lasts.
Heavy motor starts, several times a day, for as long as the bins are filling.
Jump to it ↓Growing seasonOne pump at a steady load, often around the clock, until the crop stops needing water.
Jump to it ↓All yearWaits behind a transfer switch and takes over the barn when the utility drops.
Jump to it ↓A dryer, its aeration fans and the augers feeding the bins are all motors. A motor pulls far more current for the first few seconds than it does once it is up to speed. So a grain drying generator has to handle the largest motor on the yard coming on while everything else is already running, not just the running loads added up on paper. A set that is too small can carry the dryer at full tilt and still drop out when the next fan tries to come on.
The electrical service is often the other gap. Many bin yards are fed single-phase while the dryer and the bigger fans want three-phase. A generator set up for the voltage and phase your equipment needs solves both problems for the length of harvest.
For local detail, see generator rentals in Red Deer for Central Alberta farms and generator rentals in Grande Prairie for the Peace Country, both supplied from our Red Deer yard.
Nameplate horsepower is enough. The power calculators convert it to kW if you want to check the figures yourself, and the generator sizing guide explains why the start matters more than the run.
Irrigation works the other way round from drying. The pump starts once, then runs at a steady load for days or weeks, often through the night. An irrigation generator is chosen to carry that load continuously, so the real planning question is fuel.
If the yard has natural gas service, or a propane supply that can keep up with a set running around the clock, natural gas and propane generators run on what is already there. If it has neither, diesel generator rentals with external fuel tanks stretch the time between fills. Either way, who fills it and how often is settled when the rental is quoted, not in the middle of July.
The pump motor's start sets the minimum size. The hours it runs set the fuel burn and the service schedule.
Gas or propane on the property, or diesel with a tank sized for the gap between deliveries.
Scheduled servicing is arranged with the rental, and 24/7 field service from Red Deer covers a fault in between.
A barn full of animals needs only a few things to keep running through an outage: moving air, water and the controls that manage both. Sizing a farm backup generator for a barn starts with that short list, not the whole farm's load, so the set only has to carry what the animals need until the utility comes back.
With an automatic transfer switch, standby generators with automatic transfer make the changeover with nobody in the yard. The switch notices the utility is gone, calls the set to start and moves the barn onto it once the engine is up to speed. When the line comes back and stays up, the barn goes back to the utility.
An automatic switch covers a 3 a.m. outage with nobody awake. A manual switch works where someone lives on the yard and can make the changeover themselves.
The switch has to suit the voltage and amperage of the barn's service. Power distribution and transfer switches lists what the fleet carries. Your electrician confirms the connection, and whether the setup meets any insurance or code requirement.
A load bank run shows the set carries the barn's load before the barn depends on it.
A farm rarely needs a generator for a single day, and rarely for the whole year. The term is set around the job.
Rent for the weeks the dryer runs, for an irrigation pump from spring to fall, or longer where standby stays on the barn. Terms run from short-term to multi-year.
If the same set comes back every fall, what you pay in rent can count toward owning it. Ask which units qualify.
Each unit is set up and load tested in our Red Deer shop before it leaves, then delivered to your yard.
Field service answers around the clock from Red Deer, every day of the year, dryer season included.
Weighing a long rental against a purchase? Read renting vs. buying. For winter, flameless heaters warm up engines and hydraulics left out overnight. They run on their own diesel engines, not on the generator.
Gas and diesel sets together, read live from inventory and listed from the smallest up.
Not sure where your load falls on this list? The power calculators give a first figure, and the quote confirms it.
The dryer make and model, the horsepower of each fan and auger, how the largest motors start, the voltage and phase the equipment runs on, and the dates you need power. The set is sized for the hardest start on the yard with everything else already running, and the quote is written against that list.
Yes, when it is connected through an automatic transfer switch. The switch senses the outage, starts the set, moves the barn over once the generator is ready and switches back after the utility returns. A manual switch is the other option, where someone on the yard makes the changeover. The switch has to suit the size of your service, and your electrician confirms the connection.
Yes. The term is set around the job, whether that is the weeks the dryer runs, a full irrigation season or longer. If the same set ends up coming back every year, ask about rent-to-own; some units in the fleet qualify.
It depends on the fuel on the property. Where natural gas service or a propane supply can keep up with a set running day and night, a gas or propane generator runs on what you already have. Where there is neither, diesel with an external fuel tank is the usual choice, with the fill schedule agreed when the rental is quoted.
Usually not. Barn standby is sized for what has to stay on: ventilation, water, controls and alarms, and milking equipment on a dairy. Keeping those circuits separate from the rest of the farm keeps the set smaller and easier to fuel. Your electrician decides how that is wired.
Yes. NexSource works from one yard in Red Deer, and rentals are delivered from there to farms across Central Alberta and north to the Peace Country. Field service answers 24/7 from Red Deer, every day of the year.
Send the dryer and fan motors, the irrigation pump, what in the barn has to stay on, the size of your electrical service, the fuel on the yard and your dates. You get a written quote covering the generator, the transfer switch and the fuel plan. Sending it early leaves time to have everything on the yard and tested before you need it.
