Do I Need a Permit to Install a Generator in Savannah?

The county's Department of Building Safety and Regulatory Services, on Eisenhower Drive in Savannah, publishes the list of work that needs a permit, and one sentence on that page covers a standby installation twice over: "All electrical, plumbing, and mechanical work requires a permit unless waived by the Director of Inspections or designated authority." The transfer switch at your panel is electrical work. The gas line from the meter, or the propane plumbing from the tank, is mechanical and plumbing work. Nothing about a standby install is the kind of job that sentence waives, and we don't plan a project around a waiver. Two permits, two inspections, one machine.

That sentence is the county's, and the county office covers unincorporated Chatham County; of the places we work, that is Wilmington Island and Georgetown. Inside the Savannah city limits and in Pooler, the permit comes from that city's own building office. Richmond Hill is Bryan County and Rincon is Effingham County, and each of those counties issues its own. We haven't reprinted those offices' wording here, because we have read the county's and not theirs, and a rule quoted from memory is worse than none. What we can say is what the quote says: whichever office covers your address, the permit is a line in the job, confirmed for that address before the site visit turns into a written number.

Georgia licenses electrical contractors, not individual electricians. The State Board of Electrical Contractors' own answer to the question "Does the Board license electricians?" is "No, the Board licenses Electrical Contractors, not electricians," and the licence is renewed with the board in the spring of even-numbered years, with continuing education hours required every year in between. That is why the line on our installation page reads the way it does: electrical work is performed by a licensed Georgia electrical contractor. On our jobs the electrical permit and the gas permit are both ours to pull. Your part is the homeowners' association approval where one applies, which is a separate piece of paper and is covered on the Pooler page.

• The transfer switch at the panel. The wiring and connections that let the house move between the grid and the generator, and move back.
• The fuel line. Pipe sized for the unit's draw over the length of the run, joints tested for leaks before gas flows; on propane, the tank placement and the regulator work.
• Where the unit sits. Clearances from windows, doors and property lines, so exhaust and heat go where they should.
• The pad and its anchoring. Level, anchored for coastal wind, and on flood-zone lots raised to the elevation the rules set for mechanical equipment.
• The commissioning. That the unit starts, transfers and carries load, which is the same test we run for you on the last day.

Mostly time and paperwork, in your favour. The permit cycle is part of the two-to-six-week window the installation page describes for a normal season, and it is one reason a standby cannot be put in between a storm getting a name and its landfall. Nothing is poured until the permit is issued, nothing is energized until the inspection passes, and at the end you are handed the record, which stays with the house. That record is the item a future buyer's inspector asks about first, and it is why a permitted install is the only kind that helps at resale. It is also a line in the price rather than an extra on top: the permit line inside a Savannah generator installation quote sits alongside the pad, the fuel work and the transfer switch, itemized, not buried.

Electrical permit — covers the transfer switch, the panel work and any panel upgrade folded into the job. Gas or mechanical permit — covers the fuel line, the regulator and, on propane, the tank connection. Rough and final inspection — the office's checks that the work matches the permit, before and after it is closed up. Setbacks and clearances — the distances from windows, doors and lot lines that fix where the pad can go. Wind-load anchoring — how the unit is fastened to the pad on the coast. Flood elevation — the mounting height on lots the flood maps affect. Bonding — the electrical tie between the generator, the transfer switch and the house's grounding, checked at the panel.