Standby Generator Preventative Maintenance

If you have made an investment in a standby generator system for your home, you want to make sure it performs properly as long as possible. Just like your car needs periodic maintenance and inspection, so does your standby generator.

For your generator to maintain maximum operational efficiency and reliability that it has been designed to deliver, it is absolutely necessary for it to be periodically maintained and tested by a certified generator specialist. Simply changing the oil and oil filter will not provide your standby generator the maintenance needed for an extended life. This is a strong recommendation not only by the specialists at Canter Power Systems, but also all generator manufacturers.

A standby generator might operate only 26 hours a year (a weekly exercise and no outages) or as much as several hundred hours a year, depending upon the number and duration of power outages. Whether you have experienced multiple power outages or very few, to operate properly, your generator system needs to be maintained at least once per year. These periodic maintenance checks and inspections will greatly help maximize the life of your investment.

Canter Power Systems’ factory trained and certified generator specialists currently protect over 3,000 generator owners with the maintenance and inspections necessary to maximize the life and reliability of their generator systems. The following tasks are some of the required procedures that, if performed properly, will help to ensure that your generator will be ready at all times and the life of the generator maximized. We also highly recommend looking into one of our generator service & maintenance plans to ensure that power is ready when you need it.

• Test and certify the proper output voltage during operation (unit must be running to perform test)*
• Test and certify the output frequency during operation(unit must be running to perform test)*
• Test and certify the required gas pressure
• Inspect and test the fuel line and connections
• Remove and replace the oil and filter
• Clean and/or change the air filter
• Inspect and/or change the spark plugs
• Inspect the generator for excessive vibration
• Inspect the generator for improper fluid leakage
• Verify the proper running temperature of the generator
• Inspect the rock sub-base or composite pad
• Inspect and test and/or replace the battery
• Inspect and test all battery terminals
• Inspect and test the electrical and grounding systems
• Inspect and test the auto/off manual switch
• Apply conditioner and wax to the enclosure

* These tests are critical to protect your home’s electrical system and your electronic equipment such as TVs, stereos, computers, microwaves, etc.

For a complete list of all tasks performed during a maintenance and inspection, to discuss other requirements to maximize the life of your generator system, or to schedule a maintenance and inspection for your generator system, contact the Canter Power Systems generator maintenance department at 888-372-3278.