Home generators around Sawgrass Grove

The Sawgrass Grove group is young. Its first homes date to about 2020, and its villages sit in two districts that were created by two different cities.

• District 13 is in the City of Wildwood, Sumter County. It was established June 11, 2018 and covers about 2,231.8 acres with 8,062 home sites. Bradford and Chitty Chatty opened around 2020 beside the Chitty Chatty Preserve. St. Catherine has the best documented oak hammocks and woodlands in the group, and Richmond followed in 2022 to 2023 with preserve and open-water homesites.
• District 14 is in the City of Leesburg, Lake County. It was established July 26, 2021 and covers about 1,013.1 acres with 3,234 home sites. Newell came first in 2022 to 2023, then Lake Denham in 2023 and Dabney in 2023 to 2024, known for its mature oak hammocks.

The home types are newer, too. Alongside designer and Premier homes you will find verandas, cottage homes, cottage villas and bungalow villas, and several veranda lines in Lake Denham and Newell use precast concrete walls. DeLuna is split between District 13 and District 12, so its lot decides the manual.

A new home is the easiest time to plan backup power. The panel is current, the yard is not yet full of plantings, and the easements are freshly drawn on the plat. The tradeoff is that every placement rule comes from the developer manual, which differs from the older district manuals in ways that matter for propane. The how it works page shows the steps from estimate to inspection.

Find your village below and request a free estimate while your yard is still open.

Sawgrass Grove follows the Districts 13 to 16 developer manual (version 4.20.26), and its propane rule is different from the older districts. Single-family homes, including cottage homes, and patio villas must use underground L.P. tanks. Courtyard villas, verandas and cottage villas may use an underground tank or an above-ground tank of up to 120 gallons, out of view from the road and neighbors. No underground tank may sit in a utility or use easement.

For a designer home, that rule actually helps a long-outage plan, because the 120-gallon above-ground limit does not apply to it. The limit is space. NFPA 58 keeps a buried tank about 10 ft from the building and from a buildable property line, and the developer manual bars vertical construction in any setback. On a Generac 26 kW at half load:

• 120 gallons: about 47 hours, roughly 1.9 days (the most a veranda or villa can hold above ground).
• 250 gallons buried: about 97 hours, roughly 4.0 days.
• 500 gallons buried: about 194 hours, roughly 8.1 days.

Natural gas is the open question. A 2018 PSC filing described South Sumter Gas Company building gas lines in The Villages within the City of Wildwood south of U.S. 44, to be conveyed to the City of Leesburg. A 2020 petition said The Villages and Leesburg want Leesburg to serve future Villages developments in Sumter County. Which District 13 or 14 streets have gas today is not mapped, so check for a meter or a gas bill. If you have one, a 26 kW unit burns about 188 cu ft an hour at half load, and your installer checks the meter can carry it.

See the propane guide and gas vs propane.

Ask your installer to mark the buried tank and the 10 ft setbacks on your site plan.

The Districts 13 to 16 manual handles generators on its page 10, and its wording differs from the older district manuals in three ways. In plain words:

• An ARC application is needed only for a generator permanently fixed to the home.
• The unit goes in the rear or side yard and must not be visible from the street. Screening may be no taller than the unit, and exhaust points away from neighbors.
• New: the generator's size must be consistent with the size of the lot.
• New: no generator in any dominant or servient use easement.
• Different: no specific 2 ft property-line distance is stated, but no vertical construction is allowed in any Developer, city or county setback.

The easement rule matters most on villas and verandas. Appendices I to X of the manual diagram those maintenance and use easements, and they decide where a pad can go beside the Cason Bungalow Villas in Cason Hammock, the cottage villas in Citrus Grove or the Lake Denham verandas. Some deed restrictions also carry Declarant setbacks. The DeLuna lots in District 12 use the District 12 manual instead, with its 2 ft rule. Noise is not addressed in the developer manual.

The permit office depends on the city. District 13 permits are issued by Sumter County Building Services on behalf of the City of Wildwood, with Wildwood's zoning approval first where required. District 14 permits go through City of Leesburg Building Services, which lists a residential Generator permit type. It asks for a floor plan showing the generator and transfer switch, their specs, an electric riser diagram, a gas riser diagram if needed, and a recorded Notice of Commencement for jobs over $5,000. Your installer confirms each for your address. See permits and transfer switches.

Let your installer read your plat's easement diagram before choosing the pad spot.

Most Sawgrass Grove homes are too new to have a storm history of their own, so the county record is the guide. In Hurricane Milton, the Florida PSC counted 21,912 of 95,259 Sumter accounts out (23.0%) at 8:47 AM on October 10, 2024. Lake County, home to District 14, had 118,050 accounts out (54.35%) at the same hour. Both counties were back to zero by October 14, about four days after the peak. In Irma in 2017, Sumter peaked at 38.9% out and Lake at 69.7%.

Florida has seen longer outages in other places. Michael left Panhandle counties out about 26 days, and Lee County was out about four weeks after Ian. That is history, not a forecast. NERC rates the Florida Peninsula grid at normal risk, so the realistic long outage here comes from storm damage to lines. Florida's emergency checklist sets a horizon of at least 7 days.

A week-long plan for a new Sawgrass Grove home:

1. Pick the fuel first. A buried 500-gallon tank on a designer homesite runs a 26 kW unit about 8.1 days at half load. A veranda limited to 120 gallons above ground needs a refill plan within about two days.
2. Manage loads. Generac's Smart Management Modules shed large loads at startup and when the unit is near its limit, and Generac says they can often reduce system size and cost.
3. Arrange refills. After Irma, propane reached Florida only by truck for about seven days, so an early refill matters.
4. Stock oil. Generac asks for a 30 minute shutdown every 24 hours to check oil and a change every 100 hours above 85 F, about 1.9 qt per change.

See the long-outage guide and the runtime guide.

Ask your installer for a runtime estimate for your home type and tank size.

Sawgrass Grove homes fall under two county programs. District 13 residents in Sumter County register with the Florida Department of Health in Sumter County through snr.flhealthresponse.com; its Special Needs Shelter is at the Gloria Rowe Hayward complex in Sumterville, and FDOH calls registrants before an evacuation. District 14 residents in Leesburg register with the Lake County Office of Emergency Management, whose special needs shelters serve people who need oxygen or uninterrupted power for medical equipment, but not those who need hospital care, and a caregiver must stay with the client.

The state registry says registering does not guarantee a shelter space and asks people to plan to be self-sufficient for at least 72 hours. HHS emPOWER data for October 2026 counts 2,478 power-dependent Medicare beneficiaries in Sumter County and 5,373 in Lake County. SECO Energy's Medically Necessary Service does not prioritize homes during named-storm restoration. That leaves the home itself as the dependable place to keep cool and keep devices running.

• Oxygen: a Philips EverFlo concentrator averages about 350 W, a small load for any standby unit. Concentrator batteries usually last about 3 to 4 hours at low settings.
• Cooling: the CDC advises adults 65 and older to stay in air conditioning in very hot weather and not to rely on a fan.
• Food and medicine: a closed fridge stays cold about 4 hours and a full freezer about 48 (FDA). Ready.gov says to discard refrigerated medicine after more than a day without power unless the label says otherwise.

Water here comes from South Sumter Utility, which serves Districts 12, 13 and 14. After a line break or plant problem, the District issues boil notices that usually take about two days to clear. See medical backup power and keeping the AC on.

Register with your county program, then book a free estimate at (352) 780-1430.