Augusta-Richmond County, GA Noise from Specific Sources: Generator Noise (2026)

Section 3-6-2(c) lists ten 'other restrictions' that apply without the distance or time-of-day tests used for music and shouting in subsections (a) and (b), and item (9) targets combustion-engine and blower noise directly: a noise-creating blower, power fan, or internal-combustion engine violates the Code unless its noise is muffled and it carries a muffler device sufficient to deaden the sound. Because a portable or standby generator is an internal-combustion engine producing noise from exploding operating gases, it falls squarely inside this clause, and the rule applies at any hour, not just overnight.

Item (3) of the same subsection separately requires exhaust from any 'steam engine, stationary internal-combustion engine or motorboat' to run through a muffler that prevents loud or explosive noise, reinforcing the muffling requirement from a second angle. The chapter's exemptions in Sec. 3-6-2(e) protect essential-service work such as utility repair projects and storm-restoration efforts (item 3) and routine manufacturing, governmental or commercial operations in the normal course of business (item 10), so a utility crew's temporary generator during a repair, or a factory's fixed generator running as part of ordinary operations, may fall under those carve-outs even without perfect muffling, but a homeowner's or contractor's unmuffled portable generator does not. Section 3-6-4 sets the chapter-wide penalty for a violation.