Correct, the generac bellow can handle 17,500 watts but when you fire off your AC it will surge very high, hince the 26,250 watt surge capacity. Mine is at the limit at 12.5 KW and when the AC kicks in, it will bog down just for a second, but a 15KW or 17.5KW would probably not surge as bad. I just leave my AC cold so I don't get the surging at night. Everything else in the house will not make mine surge, just the AC.


Model 5308
Rated Power (watts) 17,500
Surge Watts 26,250


Surge is the initial power up of a device with all the friction and power needed to turn a motor from a dead stop up to operating RPM, once up to speed the current goes drastically down.

Kind of like a wind up flashlight when the batteries are dead, hard to crank at first but the more juice the batteries gets the easier the cranking.