Fall Is Here, and Winter Generator Service Is Right Around the Corner

It’s still warm out, and most people aren’t thinking about winterizing their generators yet. That’s actually why now is a good time to.

Every winter, our phones get busy in a hurry. Somebody’s generator won’t start during an outage, a storm knocks out power for a few days, or a property manager realizes nobody’s touched the unit since it was installed. By then the service schedule is filling up and rentals are going out fast. A lot of what we get called about in December could have been handled in a normal visit in October.

Winter is a couple months away, and fall is when you want to get your generator looked at.

What Usually Goes Wrong

Most cold-weather problems we see come back to a short list.

Batteries are the big one. They wear out, and a lot of the time a technician has already recommended replacing them and the work just never got scheduled. The date is stamped on the battery, so it only takes a minute to go check how old yours are.

Coolant and block heaters come next. The block heater keeps the engine warm so the generator can start quickly when the power goes out. Last winter, coolant and block heater work showed up on more of our service quotes than anything else. If you see leaks around the heater or hoses, or the engine block feels cold on a chilly morning, have it checked.

Fuel is another one. Diesel that sits in a tank for years breaks down, and cold weather makes it harder to move through the system. Know how big your tank is and how much fuel is in it.

The last is the transfer switch. Sometimes the generator runs fine, but it never gets the signal to start when the power drops. The only way to catch that is to test the system from the switch, the same way a real outage would.

A Few Things Worth Doing Now

If you do one thing this fall, gather the basic information about your generator and put it somewhere other people can find it. When we get emergency calls, this is usually what’s missing:

• A photo of the data tag showing the make, model and serial number
• Your system voltage and main breaker amps
• Fuel tank size
• The name and number of your electrician

It sounds simple, but it can save a lot of back and forth when something goes wrong.

If You’re New to the Building

If you took over a property this year or stepped into a facilities role, it’s worth finding out what shape the generator’s in before it gets cold. Ask for service records and check whether there’s a maintenance agreement in place. If we’ve serviced the unit before, we can usually tell you when it was last load tested and whether any repairs were recommended.

Plan Ahead

Our service team is busy from November through March, and the schedule fills up quickly once the weather turns. Customers who book in the fall tend to have an easier winter.

We’ll be sharing more about winter prep over the next few weeks. In the meantime, if your batteries are getting old or it’s been a while since your last service or load bank test, give us a call and our EGSA-certified technicians can get your unit ready before the cold shows up.