You’d be surprised what you find when you open up a standby generator. One of ours, at the CBC station near the traffic circle in Dieppe, had a medium-sized garbage bag’s worth of doughnuts, bagels, and other treats in it. No, it wasn’t catering for the technicians: rats had dragged that food all the way from the Tim Hortons on King Street.
Although we’re impressed by the rats’ work ethic, this is exactly the sort of thing that can compromise your emergency power system and a great example of why regular service is important to protect your investment. Preventive maintenance is about making sure your generator will start when the grid doesn’t. Based on 50+ years of field experience and data from Cummins (one of the top names in generators), here’s what that looks like in practice.
The Hidden Saboteurs
Let’s go back to that garbage bag of doughnuts. Rodents nesting in generators (or in the engine bay of a car or truck) isn’t rare. Both are warm, dry places that are very appealing to them. We’ve found snake nests wrapped around coolant heaters (urine, feces, shed skin), mice chewing through wiring harnesses, and rotting insects corroding terminal blocks.
Because of this, we’ve started installing ultrasonic rodent deterrents inside certain generator housings. They’re not a silver bullet, but they help. Still, nothing beats opening the unit and checking things out with your own eyes. Rodents love the warm, dry enclosures and they’re happy to destroy thousands of dollars in equipment just to build a nest.
Salt Air & Corrosion
If your generator is near salt water, like in Shediac or the Bay of Fundy, you also have salt air to contend with. Airborne salt significantly speeds up corrosion. We see it on:
- Battery terminals
- Frame connections
- Grounding points
- Exposed fasteners
During scheduled visits, we inspect, clean, lubricate, and protect vulnerable connections with dielectric grease or anti-corrosion sprays. Skip this, and you’ll be replacing parts far sooner than you’d like.
Oil Change Intervals: 200 Hours or Every 2 Years
People love to ask: “But I haven’t even used my generator much, why do I need an oil change?”. It isn’t just about run-time. Oil absorbs moisture and contaminants even while sitting. Two years is the hard line, or every 200 hours of run-time, whichever comes first.
An oil change isn’t just about the oil either: it’s a chance to inspect filters, catch leaks, and identify early-stage wear. The cost of an oil change is peanuts compared to a seized engine during an outage.
Battery Load Testing
One of the most common reasons standby generators fail to start? Weak or dead starting batteries. It doesn’t matter if your battery reads 12.6 volts on a multimeter. That’s an open-circuit reading. What matters is how it behaves under load. We run actual load tests on all starting batteries during maintenance. This is the only way to know whether they’re holding enough charge to crank the engine under stress (like a cold January morning in New Brunswick). We also clean the terminals, check the specific gravity of the electrolyte, and top up distilled water where needed.
Cummins TSBs: Staying Ahead of the Curve
We’re an authorized Cummins service provider, which means we get access to Technical Service Bulletins (TSBs) just like a car dealership would. They alert os about fixes for emerging issues: maybe a connector that needs sealing, a software update, or a wiring harness reroute.
Ignoring TSBs is like ignoring a recall. As part of our preventive service, we check every serial number against active TSBs and apply them where relevant. That kind of proactive work saves a lot of hassle later on.
Cooling Systems, Fuel Checks, and Other Daily Drivers
Routine maintenance isn’t just about the major items. There’s a full checklist that we follow, based on Cummins’ recommended schedule.
If you’re in harsh conditions (like coastal air or a dusty environment), you need to shorten your maintenance intervals. Same goes for generators used for prime power, not just standby. Here’s a simple rule of thumb: the harsher the environment, the more frequent the maintenance.
Preventive Maintenance Is Cheaper in the Long Run
The typical maintenance cost per year might be a few hundred dollars. The cost of failure on the other hand ranges from thousands of dollars in lost productivity to serious safety risks. If your generator powers critical infrastructure, the stakes are even higher.
Here’s what we recommend for a typical standby diesel generator used in Canadian conditions:
| Task | Frequency |
|---|---|
| General Inspection | Weekly or Monthly |
| Oil & Filter Change | Every 200 hours or 2 years |
| Coolant Check & Heater Test | Monthly |
| Fuel System Check & Water Drain | Monthly |
| Battery Load Test | Semi-annually |
| Radiator Inspection | Every visit |
| Air Cleaner Element | As needed (or annually) |
| Full Service Inspection | Annually |
| Generator Exercise (with load) | Monthly |
This isn’t just theory. This is what we do for our own clients. Whether you’re maintaining one unit or fifty, the approach is the same: be consistent, be proactive, and don’t wait for a red light on the control panel to tell you something’s wrong.
Generators don’t ask for much. They sit there quietly, month after month, waiting for the moment they’re needed most. But when that day comes, you want to be absolutely sure they’ll fire up and carry the load without hesitation.
If you have questions about your generator setup or want a tailored maintenance plan that fits your environment, contact us for honest advice backed by 50+ years in the industry.
