When the Power Goes Out, We Show Up

By Dakotah Merkley, Senior Vice President

One of the questions I get most from customers is pretty simple. If my generator goes down at 2AM on a Saturday, who’s actually going to show up? We are.

Availability in our business isn’t just having a phone number on a website and picking up when it rings. It’s having technicians ready to deploy, trucks that’ll run in any weather, a plan for when the roads are a mess, and a team that keeps you in the loop the entire time. And a big part of it is making sure you never have to make that 2AM call in the first place.

24/7 Emergency Generator Service Across Colorado, Florida, and Texas

All four Generator Source branches are open 7AM to 4PM, Monday through Friday. But power doesn’t go out on a schedule. Every branch has emergency on-call technicians covering nights and weekends, so if your generator fails after hours, you’ve got someone to call.

Branch	Address	Emergency line
Brighton, CO	625 Baseline Rd, Brighton, CO 80603	720-990-5106
Jacksonville, FL	857 Eastport Rd, Jacksonville, FL 32218	904-902-8116
Pensacola, FL	1505 North W St, Pensacola, FL 32505	904-902-8116
Austin, TX	550 County Road 196, Georgetown, TX 78626	737-437-8380

And we’re not just tied to the city on the sign. Out of Austin we’ll go to Dallas, Houston, wherever we need to go in Texas. Pensacola covers the entire Panhandle and the Gulf. If you’ve got a bigger multi-unit project outside those areas, give us a call and our service team will look at it with you.

The Hardest Part Is Getting There

The toughest part of emergency generator service usually isn’t the generator. It’s travel and getting to the site. Snow, downed trees, flooded roads after a hurricane. Those are always going to be challenging, and we can’t control every one of them.

What we can control is how prepared we are before it happens.

Hurricane season in Florida

During hurricane season we keep a full team of techs on standby in secure locations. First and foremost, we make sure our techs and their families are safe. If they need help getting out of the area where the storm’s going to hit, we help them do that.

Then they’re ready to deploy back into the damaged zones as soon as we can get in, or further south wherever we’re needed. With our Pensacola branch online now, we’re in a much better spot to support customers along the Gulf and the Panhandle.

Deep freezes in Colorado and Texas

Up here in Colorado and down in Texas, the big one is cold. Texas has gotten hit by some monster winter storms over the last few years that a lot of folks just weren’t prepared for.

Once temperatures drop below freezing, untreated diesel can start to cloud up and gel. When that happens, it won’t flow through your fuel lines, and your generator isn’t going to start. Doesn’t matter if it’s a construction site, a hospital, or a data center.

So we switch to winterized diesel months ahead of those seasonal events. When we’re out load banking close to winter, we offer fuel polishing and anti-gel additive for your tank so you’re covered before the freeze hits.

Our own trucks have to run too

We do the same thing with our own field service trucks. If our trucks can’t run, we can’t get to you. So they get winterized right along with everything else, and that lets us deploy in pretty much any condition.

You’re Going to Hear From Us the Whole Time

Being available also means being reachable. We stay in contact with customers on every single part of the job, whether it’s transporting a generator you just bought from us or a tech heading out for a PM or load bank test.

Where your tech is. When they’ll be on site. What they’re seeing once they get there. Obviously things happen getting from point A to point B, but we’re always going to do our best to find a way around it and keep you in the loop.

Over the last 12 months we’ve also rolled out a field service management platform. It tracks every generator at every site by serial number, our internal unit ID, or whatever name you use for it on your end. That gives us a full load bank and service history we can pull up and share with you, so when a tech shows up they already know what they’re walking into.

The Best Emergency Call Is the One You Never Make

A lot of the failure-to-start calls we see aren’t complicated. Honestly, one of the biggest ones is people just forget to put fuel in their generators. Construction site, standby unit, doesn’t matter. The other big ones are fuel that’s gone bad and maintenance that got skipped.

The worst thing that can happen is you skip the preventive maintenance contract, something goes down, and now you’re in an emergency situation. That’s exactly why we use PM agreements to stay on top of our customers.

What a PM visit covers

Every one of our branches runs the same 31-point inspection on site, top to bottom, left to right of the generator. The checklist is on our website so you can see exactly what’s being covered. You get that document back from us showing the generator is up and running to your standards, and if it’s not, we give you our recommendations.

We also do load bank testing. Simply explained, a load bank is a dyno test for your generator. We run it under load and check everything from the radiator to the alternator. Are any cylinders running hot? Is it getting the right amount of fuel? Is it producing the correct voltage? If it’s not putting out the right voltage, it’s not going to back up your power when you need it.

Add in fuel polishing to keep your fuel and additives stabilized, and you’ve taken care of most of what puts people on the phone with us at 2AM.

Hospitals, data centers, and NFPA 110

For life safety applications this matters even more. NFPA 110 basically says that for most life safety systems, the generator has to start and take full load within 10 seconds. Think about a patient on an operating table or a mother giving birth. That power can’t wait.

You can’t predict when the grid is going to go down. What you can predict is whether your generator is going to start, and that’s what PM agreements and regular servicing are for.

Equipment Availability When New Lead Times Are Long

The U.S. Department of Energy has flagged the national grid as critical infrastructure under real strain. That’s created a lot of urgency for people wanting to install generators, which has pushed back lead times and driven up the cost of new units.

That’s where we fill a nice gap. Not everybody has the funds to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a brand new generator before cabling, fuel, and installation. They just need something they know they can rely on to keep their business running 24/7.

We own all of our own inventory, from 20kW all the way up to 4MW+. Every used unit we sell goes through a full 31-point inspection, load bank, and service before it ships, and we guarantee it arrives in working condition. That means a lot of the time we can get you power in days or weeks instead of waiting months.

We can move fast on the big stuff too. On a manufacturing project in Houston, we set up three 1500kW units in parallel for a facility that had no utility power coming for months, possibly years. We had the first two on site in less than 30 days.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Generator Source offer 24/7 emergency generator service? Yes. All branches are open 7AM to 4PM on weekdays, and emergency on-call technicians cover nights and weekends through each branch’s emergency line.

What areas does Generator Source service? We service Colorado, Florida, and Texas.

Why won’t my diesel generator start in cold weather? Once temperatures drop below freezing, untreated diesel can cloud and gel, which keeps it from flowing through the fuel lines. Winterized diesel, anti-gel additives, and fuel polishing ahead of the cold season help prevent it.

What is the most common reason a generator fails to start? In our experience, it’s often as simple as running out of fuel. Bad fuel and skipped preventive maintenance are the other big causes.

What does a generator PM agreement include? Our PM visits include a 31-point inspection of the full generator, and can include load bank testing and fuel polishing. You get a written report with any recommendations.

How fast does an emergency generator need to start under NFPA 110? For Type 10 systems, the classification most hospitals and life safety applications use, NFPA 110 requires the emergency generator to start and accept full load within 10 seconds.

What size generators does Generator Source sell and rent? We sell, rent, and service commercial and industrial generators from 20kW up to 4MW+.

Family First, Even at 2AM

We understand generators aren’t your expertise. You’ve got a business to run. Generators are our expertise, and when you call us, we want it to feel like your brother or your neighbor is coming over to help.

That’s what availability means to us. Showing up when it’s hard to get there, keeping you posted the whole way, and doing the work ahead of time so the emergency never happens.

Save your branch’s emergency number before you need it:

• Colorado (Brighton): 720-990-5106, Brighton generator service
• Florida (Jacksonville): 904-902-8116, Jacksonville generator service
• Florida (Pensacola): 904-902-8116, Pensacola generator service
• Texas (Austin): 737-437-8380, Austin generator service

Want to get a PM agreement in place before winter or the next storm? Reach out to us at any point in time. We’d love to be there for you.