Services
Ready for Emergencies?
Preventative maintenance keeps your generator system ready for a crisis.
Maintenance Saves Money
A good maintenance plan saves you expensive repairs and early replacement.
Not All Plans Are Equal
Many maintenance plans overlook critical system components.
Is Your Generator System Ready to Perform in an Emergency?
Your business depends on electricity, but you never know when the grid will be disrupted again—or for how long.
That’s why you have a backup power system.
But commercial generators aren’t immortal deities, they’re just machines. They break down without regular maintenance. Batteries slowly drain power. Sludge collects in the fuel lines. Rust corrodes electrical connections.
A preventative maintenance plan is the ONLY way to ensure your backup power system is ready to perform in an emergency.
If You Need It, It’s Too Late
By definition, your backup power system exists to provide uninterrupted power no matter what happens on the grid. It exists for emergencies.
If the electricity goes out, your business needs it back immediately—not in an hour, not tomorrow, and certainly not in three days.
A crisis is a terrible time to do a maintenance inspection. Don’t wait until revenue or even lives are on the line to find out your batteries are dead or a fuel line is corroded.
By then, it’s too late.
Preventative Maintenance Saves Money
It’s tempting to think of maintenance as an overhead cost and simply address problems on an as-needed basis. But besides leaving you unprepared for emergencies, this approach also costs more money.
Maintenance is always cheaper than replacement. Like any other piece of equipment, the better a generator is maintained, the longer it will last. Neglect it, and you’ll be facing expensive repairs or a hefty replacement price far earlier than you would have had to otherwise.
Think of your car. What’s cheaper: Changing the oil every 5,000 miles, or changing the engine because it ran out of oil?
It’s Not Just Oil and Filters
Maintenance is cheaper, but that doesn’t mean it’s simple.
Proper commercial generator maintenance involves a lot more than just changing the oil and swapping out filters. There are a lot of components that require regular upkeep to ensure the system works—and many of them get overlooked.
Here’s one example: the Automatic Transfer Switch.
The ATS is the part of your system that switches your buildings from the grid to your generators if the grid loses power. You can have the best generators in the world, but if your ATS malfunctions, all that power doesn’t know where to go. You might as well have a pile of bricks in your basement.
Unfortunately, many generator maintenance plans ignore the ATS because it’s not actually part of the generator. It’s a separate electrical switch, but it’s still a critical component of the overall system.
That’s just one example of why it’s so important to make sure your maintenance plan is comprehensive.
We Can Help
We have over 50 years of experience executing custom maintenance plans for backup power systems of every size. We’ve worked with some of the biggest companies in Silicon Valley, the US government, and even NATO.
All our maintenance is performed by EGSA-certified technicians with a minimum of 100 hours of safety and skills training per year, and we are available 24/7, with a maximum two-hour response time.
Below are just some of the maintenance services we offer.
NFPA 110 Compliance Services
Annual Generator/Fire Pump Engine Maintenance
Once a year, we perform critical maintenance on your generators and fire pump engines. We go beyond just an oil change—conducting a 40-point maintenance inspection, changing fuel and air filters, and even sending your oil to an independent lab for analysis.
Annual Load Bank Testing
Once per year, a generator needs to be placed under a full load for an extended period of time. This test helps to verify that the generator can operate at full power, as well as to burn off the hazardous excess fuel that accumulates in the exhaust.
Monthly or Quarterly Maintenance Inspections
Commercial generators require maintenance at least four times per year (and often more). Our maintenance inspections go beyond just switching it on and giving it an eye check. We go through a 40-point checklist, perform ATS tests, and even clean the unit.
Annual Automatic Transfer Switch Maintenance and Thermal Scanning
The automatic transfer switch (ATS) is a critical component of your backup power system that often gets overlooked. Once a year, we strip it down and then rebuild it to make sure it will never fail in an emergency.
Insulation Resistance Testing
Insulation resistance testing is a specialized procedure used to identify weaknesses in the electrical components of your system that would be undetectable under normal conditions. It helps prevent total system failure, and needs to be performed once per year.
Fuel Tank Inspection and Testing
Diesel fuel deteriorates over time—clogging your engine, causing poor performance, and damaging components. To prevent this, the fuel tank needs to be inspected once per year, and fuel needs to be filtered or replaced once every two years.
Functional Load Testing
A functional load test verifies that your automatic transfer switch (ATS) is functioning properly. Because of how important your ATS is to your backup power system, we recommend doing a functional load test once a month.
Battery Replacement
Battery system failure is the #1 reason that generators don’t start when you need them to. Replacing your battery every two to three years is the cheapest insurance you can buy against a failure of your backup power system in an emergency.
Cooling System Service
Once every three years, you need to service your cooling system—the belts, hoses, gauges, and other components that help keep your engine from overheating when in use.
Valve Adjustment
Over time, the valves in generator engines get loose, allowing in extra air that can wreak havoc on the system. Adjust your valves every three to five years to prevent engine failure and ensure optimal performance.
Tune Up
A tune up is the process of replacing the vulnerable parts of an engine’s ignition system. If your generator has a natural gas or propane engine, it needs a tune up every two years.
Diagnostic, Repair and Testing Services
Our EGSA certified technicians are constantly working to identify issues with your backup power system before they cause disruptions, and they are available 24/7 to respond to emergencies. Their experience with every make and model of generator allows them to quickly diagnose and fix whatever problems arise.
Other Generator Services
Generator System Monitoring
Electro-Motion offers the #1 selling cellular-based generator monitoring system in the country. Gen-Tracker™ collects all the information you need to manage your backup power system and delivers it to your smartphone.
Generator Rentals and Sales
We help businesses quickly deliver, connect, commission, and decommission both rental generators and new or replacement generators. Our large fleet and extensive regional partners allows us to provide you with the best options for this important decision.
Generator Replacement and Commissioning
We have over 50 years of experience helping Bay Area clients find the best replacement generators available. Our extensive partnerships, OEM-agnostic replacement options, and buyback services all make sure you get the best generators at the most competitive prices.
ATS Replacement and Commissioning
We distribute all brands and types of automatic and manual transfer switches, then act as a third party to commission and test the unit so you can be sure it’s properly installed and ready to transfer power when there’s an outage.
