Step by step. Official links included.
This is not legal, tax, or insurance advice. Read the official pages linked here. Partner offers are optional and labeled.
Ice and a multi-day outage are why the phone rings from November into February. A furnace and a sump still need power when the house is closed up. A standby unit, a transfer switch, and a gas line are three permits, not one electrical service call. In New York, the housing decides the visit: walk-ups, co-ops, brownstones, and outer-borough houses, often with stacks, boilers, and boards that must approve the work. The weather on the truck is cold winters, humid summers, nor'easters, and freeze-thaw that opens brick and flat roofs. Park Slope, Astoria, and Riverdale are worth naming only when they are real stops. Jamaica and St. George are a different drive until you can reach them the same day. NYC Department of Buildings permits is the local counter to ask when the job needs a permit or a city registration. This page names that office. It does not invent a fee. In the city the customer may be an owner, a super, or a co-op board. The page has to say which of those jobs you take. In the city the customer may be an owner, a super, or a co-op board. The page has to say which of those jobs you take.
walk-ups, co-ops, brownstones, and outer-borough houses, often with stacks, boilers, and boards that must approve the work cold winters, humid summers, nor'easters, and freeze-thaw that opens brick and flat roofs A standby install and a portable inlet as different permits, with the fuel line named only if you pull that permit. In New York, NY, list Park Slope and St. George together only if one crew really covers both.
Start the route in Park Slope, Astoria, and Riverdale. Add Jamaica and St. George when you can reach them the same day. In the city the customer may be an owner, a super, or a co-op board. The page has to say which of those jobs you take.
The New York guide has the filing office and the LLC fee we could verify ($200 to file). This page is the local version: what the first jobs are, which permit counter to call, and how to price a day here.
Some boxes are labeled Partner. ServiceBase has not joined those programs. The links go to each company's own homepage, not a tracking link. If a program later approves us, the address will change and we may earn a commission. You can file, insure, and bank anywhere. Official government links are not partner links. Nothing on this page is a discount code.
$500 in free advertising when you launch
The guide stays public. An account saves your state, city, and trade, and lets you mark each filing as you go. The advertising credit is reserved when you register. It can be spent after the free website is live.
Create a free account to track your progressgenerator installer names that work here are plain. Use one you can spell from a driveway in Park Slope.
Search it at the New York Department of State before you order magnets. The voicemail, the invoice, and the Google profile should use that spelling.
The electrical license is usually held by a person who qualifies the company. A sole proprietorship works when that person is you. An LLC works when the board lets the company hold the registration with you as qualifier. Read the electrical section before you file. The fuel-line credential, if it is separate, has its own qualifier rules. An LLC does not let an unlicensed owner pull either permit. This page is not legal advice.
The New York Department of State fee schedule lists articles of organization at $200. The same schedule lists $50 to file the publication certificate. That $50 is the department's filing fee, not the newspaper bill. Read the schedule and the articles page before you budget. A sole proprietorship can still be you, under your own name, without this filing. The fee is not a suggestion to form an LLC.
If your customers are in New York, the registered-agent address still has to satisfy New York. Read the filing office's rule. A neighbor's kitchen table is not always an acceptable address.
An employer identification number is the business tax ID. The IRS issues it online at no charge and says you never have to pay a company to get one. If you form an LLC, file with the state first. The IRS says an EIN application can stall when the state filing is not done. A sole proprietor can often start with a Social Security number and get an EIN when a bank or a hire requires it.
Apply on the IRS page if you want the number yourself. LegalZoom, the partner beside this step, can request it while they form the company. That service is optional. The IRS fee is still zero either way.
Read the electrical board for the license and who may pull a permit. Read the fuel-piping board as a separate question. Ask the city about the electrical permit, the gas permit, the pad, and the setback. A dealer badge is not either license.
New York files business entities with the Department of State. Contractor and home-improvement licenses are often the city or county, not one statewide board. Check the place you will work.
NYC Department of Buildings permits is the local counter for work in New York. We are naming that office, not linking a fee schedule we have not read. Call them or open the city's own site and ask what a new generator installer has to register before the first job in Astoria.
The New York guide repeats the board link and tells you what we could not verify. Read it before you pay a filing service.
General liability that understands electrical work and, if it is true, fuel piping. Tell the insurer you set generators, transfer switches, and pads. A damaged service, a gas leak, and a unit that floods a yard are the claims to describe. Commercial auto for the van. Workers' compensation before a helper is in a panel or a trench. A property manager will ask for the certificate and the license number in the same email.
Workers' compensation is a state program. Before anyone works with you, including a friend, ask an insurer and the state labor office whether you must carry it. This guide does not quote a headcount, because those rules differ and the state page is the source. The SBA page describes the common policies. It does not sell them. Buy the policy before you work in a house in New York.
A standby install pays in a large check, and the equipment house wants their share the same month. Open the business account before you take a deposit. The smaller inlet jobs belong in that account too, or the big checks will hide whether the service work pays. Set tax money aside the day a standby job clears. Permit fees should not land on a personal card.
The bank will usually ask for your ID, the EIN or your Social Security number, and the formation papers if you filed an LLC. A checking account and a habit of setting tax money aside are enough at the start.
Treat these as typical planning estimates, not a price list and not a survey. A portable inlet and interlock is an electrical visit, often discussed from the high hundreds into a couple of thousand dollars once the permit is in the number. A whole-home standby unit, with a pad, an automatic transfer switch, and a fuel line, is often discussed in the thousands, commonly a wide band from several thousand dollars into the mid-teens, depending on kilowatts and how far the pipe has to run. Do not publish one number for both. Write three numbers from your own hours and your supplier's quote: the inlet, the standby install you will permit, and the fuel job you refer.
Housing age, the length of the gas run, and a setback that forces a longer trench move the day more than a national per-kilowatt figure. A price that assumes a clear suburban side yard will lose money on a tight city lot. Adjust after you have permitted ten real jobs. Say on the quote which license pulls which permit, and that the number is a starting point until the load calculation is done.
cold winters, humid summers, nor'easters, and freeze-thaw that opens brick and flat roofs walk-ups, co-ops, brownstones, and outer-borough houses, often with stacks, boilers, and boards that must approve the work That is why a price copied from another metro will miss. A standby install and a portable inlet as different permits, with the fuel line named only if you pull that permit. In New York, NY, list Park Slope and St. George together only if one crew really covers both.
Write the price you want for the common job in Park Slope and the price you want for a far stop in St. George. If the second number is not worth the drive, leave St. George off the service area.
Claim the Google Business Profile for New York, NY. Set hours you answer. The service area should list Park Slope, Astoria, and Riverdale if those are real stops, and it should leave off towns you will not drive.
Ask for a review after a clean job, and ask them to mention the neighborhood and the task. A review that says the work and Jamaica helps the next search. A review that says 'great service' does not.
Claim the Google Business Profile before the outage season you actually have, with the electrical license on it and a service area made of towns where you already pull permits. That season is ice and wind in a cold market, and hurricane season on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. Photos of pads and transfer switches you have installed beat a stock generator in a field. Ask reviewers to name the neighborhood and whether the job was an inlet or a standby unit. The website splits those offers, says the fuel line is its own credential, and asks what fuel is already at the house. ServiceBase publishes the page and keeps the requests. It does not pull the permit or sign a dealer agreement.
When the name and the phone are real, create the free generator installation site with New York already filled in. Quote requests land in your list. The site does not replace NYC Department of Buildings permits.
$500 in free advertising when you launch
Signup asks for an email and a password. No card. This guide opens the next step with the trade and city filled in. You can change every line after.
Pick the service you can finish, search the name at the New York Department of State, get the free EIN from the IRS, read the license page, call NYC Department of Buildings permits, insure the work, open a business account, and publish a page that names Park Slope and the jobs you want. A standby install and a portable inlet as different permits, with the fuel line named only if you pull that permit.
Read the electrical board for the license and who may pull a permit. Read the fuel-piping board as a separate question. Ask the city about the electrical permit, the gas permit, the pad, and the setback. A dealer badge is not either license. New York files business entities with the Department of State. Contractor and home-improvement licenses are often the city or county, not one statewide board. Check the place you will work. Then ask NYC Department of Buildings permits what the city adds.
Treat these as typical planning estimates, not a price list and not a survey. A portable inlet and interlock is an electrical visit, often discussed from the high hundreds into a couple of thousand dollars once the permit is in the number. A whole-home standby unit, with a pad, an automatic transfer switch, and a fuel line, is often discussed in the thousands, commonly a wide band from several thousand dollars into the mid-teens, depending on kilowatts and how far the pipe has to run. Do not publish one number for both. Write three numbers from your own hours and your supplier's quote: the inlet, the standby install you will permit, and the fuel job you refer. cold winters, humid summers, nor'easters, and freeze-thaw that opens brick and flat roofs Time the first ten jobs in Park Slope and Riverdale before you copy a price from another city.
You can draft it. Put it in public under the name you will actually use, with the phone you answer. If the state requires the license before you advertise the work, wait. The free ServiceBase site does not file the company. Signup can open with generator installer and New York filled in so you are not retyping them.
New York filing and license · Free generator installation website in New York, NY · All trades in New York, NY
Prefer a one-time score? The AI visibility checklist stays in this browser. It is not emailed.