Generator installation in Kinston, NC

Kinston knows what a long outage looks like

Few towns in North Carolina have flooded as often as Kinston. The Neuse set a record crest here during Floyd in 1999, then broke it after Matthew in 2016. Two years later Florence flooded the region again and closed US 70, the main road through town. Each time the rain moved on long before the river went down, and power stayed off in many neighborhoods while crews worked around high water.

A standby generator won't stop a flood. What it does is keep the house running through the wind, the outage and the days of cleanup after: the freezer cold, the pumps going, the air on in September heat.

Where the generator goes when the river is close

In Kinston, the first question at a site visit is often not what size generator you need, but where it can safely sit. The installer works through:

• Your flood zone. Whether the property is in a mapped flood zone, and what elevation the local floodplain rules require.
• Pad height. In flood-prone yards the generator and its electrical connections are raised on a taller pad or platform so they sit above the expected water.
• The transfer switch and wiring. Connections near the meter are placed so they aren't the weak point if water comes up.
• The fuel supply. A propane tank in a flood area has to be anchored so it can't float, and the gas line route has to hold up too.

Getting this right is what lets the generator come back on after a storm instead of becoming one more thing to replace.

What Kinston homeowners want powered

• Central air or heat pumps through late-summer outages
• A well pump in homes outside the city water system
• Sump pumps in low-lying yards near the Neuse and its creeks
• Chest freezers full of meat, fish or garden produce
• Oxygen concentrators and other medical equipment
• Home offices and internet

Cover the whole house or a set of essential circuits; the installer runs a load calculation and recommends a size. More on whole house generators and Generac installation.

City power, Piedmont gas

Most homes inside Kinston buy electricity from the City of Kinston's own municipal utility; outside the city it may be Duke Energy Progress or a co-op. The transfer switch works the same with any of them and keeps the generator from feeding back onto lines crews are repairing.

Piedmont Natural Gas serves much of the city, so many Kinston homes can run on natural gas with no tank to refill, though some need a meter upgrade. Out toward Pink Hill, Deep Run and Hugo, propane is the norm. See propane and natural gas generators.

Communities we serve from Kinston

Kinston, La Grange, Pink Hill, Grifton, Deep Run, Dover, Seven Springs, Hugo, Sandy Bottom and Institute, along US 70, US 258, NC 11, NC 55 and NC 58. We also handle generator repair and maintenance and transfer switches for portable generators here.