Prince William County, VA Noise from Specific Sources: Generator Noise (2026)

County Code Sec. 14-4(d) carves emergency generators out of the noise chapter's general limits. Subsection (d)(1) exempts emergency generators from the Table 1 daytime/nighttime decibel limits and from the residential steady-tonal-sound limits in subsection (b) entirely when they are running during electrical grid outages, equipment failures, or at the request of a utility, recognizing that a generator keeping the power on during an actual emergency should not be shut down for a noise citation. Subsection (d)(2) draws a tighter line around routine testing: exercising an emergency generator may only be conducted during daytime, defined elsewhere in Sec.

on weekends and county holidays. During that daytime testing window, the Table 1 limits still apply to the exercising, and the residential steady-tonal-sound limits in subsection (b) do not apply to it. The exercising itself must be limited to the minimal acceptable duration specified by the generator's manufacturer, so a homeowner or business cannot run a monthly self-test for hours on end. These generator provisions were added and refined through Ord. No. 23-07 (Feb. 28, 2023) and later amendments including Ord. No. 25-15 (Feb. 18, 2025), reflecting the county's ongoing effort to balance backup power reliability, notably for the data centers and critical facilities concentrated in the county, against residential noise complaints.