Generator installation in Washington, NC

Your house on the river, while you're somewhere else

A lot of the homes along the Pamlico around Washington, Bath and Aurora belong to people who don't live in them full time. They're weekend places, retirement-to-be houses and family river houses. When a storm comes through and nobody is there, an outage doesn't just mean a dark house. It means the sump pump stops, the dehumidifier stops, the crawlspace takes on water and the freezer spoils, and nobody knows until the next visit.

A standby generator handles that unattended. It senses the outage, starts itself within seconds, and keeps those systems running until the grid is back. Most current Generac standby units can be monitored from your phone, so from wherever you are, you can see that the generator started and is carrying the house.

Full-time residents get the same benefit, plus the air conditioning, the well pump and a working kitchen through a week-long outage.

Surge, not just rain

Washington sits where the Tar widens into the Pamlico, so storms here bring water up the river as well as down from the sky. Isabel in 2003 and Irene in 2011 both pushed surge into low-lying parts of town and the shoreline communities, and Florence flooded the area in 2018. That makes flood elevation part of every site visit:

• The installer checks your property's flood zone and the elevation local rules require.
• The generator and its electrical connections are set at or above that height.
• Propane tanks in waterfront and flood-prone yards are anchored so they can't float.

Power, gas and permits around Washington

Power: Washington runs its own municipal system, Washington Electric Utilities, which serves the city and some surrounding areas. Other parts of Beaufort County are on an electric cooperative or another utility. The transfer switch works the same with any of them.

Fuel: Piedmont Natural Gas serves parts of Washington, so some homes in town can run on natural gas. Along the river toward Bath, Aurora and Belhaven, and inland around Pinetown and Chocowinity, propane is the standard. See propane and natural gas generators.

Permits: The City of Washington's Inspections office inside the city; Beaufort County outside it. The installer, a licensed NC electrical contractor and authorized Generac dealer, pulls the permits and schedules the inspections. See whole house generators and Generac installation.

Communities we serve around Washington

Washington, Chocowinity, Washington Park, Bath, Blounts Creek, Pinetown, Aurora and Belhaven, along US 17, US 264, NC 32 and NC 92. We also provide generator repair and maintenance and transfer switch installation for portable generators.