Your generator runs itself briefly on a schedule. That cycle is normal and it is useful: it turns the engine over, circulates oil, keeps the battery charged, and gives the controls a chance to report a fault while the failure is still only an annoyance. What it is not is maintenance. The unit exercises with nothing asked of it, which means it can pass that test every week for years and still not be able to carry your house.
Actual service is a person, on site, doing the things the machine cannot do for itself: changing oil and filters, testing the battery instead of assuming it, checking fuel connections, clearing out whatever has moved into the enclosure, and putting the system under real load to see what happens. This is the least glamorous page on this site, and it is the one that decides whether the money you spent on the installation ever does anything for you.
Do not disable it because it is inconvenient. If the timing bothers your neighbors, have it rescheduled to a better hour rather than switched off and forgotten.
Between visits, keep clearance clear, look for nesting or chewing, and notice new noises or warning lights. You are the early warning system, not the technician.
Set a recurring service visit and keep it, rather than calling when something seems wrong. The failures that matter do not announce themselves in advance.
An outage puts genuine hours on the engine and drains what it drains. A unit that just worked hard is a unit that needs attention, not one that has proven itself.
Maintenance pricing follows scope and access. A basic visit covering oil, filters, battery and a visual inspection is one thing; adding a load test is another, and it is the part most worth paying for. Fuel type shapes the checks, since propane brings a tank and regulator into the conversation. A unit sited tightly against a wall or fence takes longer to work on than one with clearance around it. Whether the transfer switch gets exercised and verified belongs in the quote explicitly. Plans that bundle visits across the year exist and can be worth it, but read what a visit actually includes before comparing one plan to another.
No. It is a self-test with nothing connected, so it proves the engine starts and runs briefly. It cannot change oil, test a battery properly, find a fuel restriction that only shows under load, or confirm that the transfer switch will hand your house over. Treat the exercise cycle as the machine reporting in, and treat service as the thing that keeps the report meaningful.
It is running the generator with real demand on it instead of idling. That is the condition the unit will face during an outage, and problems that hide at no load, including fuel supply limits and cooling issues, tend to show up there. If a service visit never puts the machine under load, it has not answered the question you bought the machine to answer.
Nothing visible, which is exactly the problem. The unit will likely keep exercising and keep looking healthy while the battery ages, the oil degrades, and something makes a home in the enclosure. The bill for those years does not arrive until the outage, when the machine gets asked to do the one thing it exists for and cannot.
Yes, and it matters. Keep the clearance around the unit clear, watch for nesting or chewed wiring, notice any warning light or new noise, and let the exercise cycle run. What you should not do yourself is anything involving the fuel connection or the electrical side. Those are both permitted trades for a reason, and the reason is not paperwork.
The permanent version: a unit set outside on a base, plumbed for fuel, wired through a transfer switch, permitted and inspected. We connect you with installers who treat the gas side and the electrical side as one job.
Learn more →The switch is what separates your house from the utility while the generator runs. Without one, power can travel back down the line toward the crews working on it. This is the part of the job nobody should improvise.
Learn more →A unit that will not start, throws a fault, or runs briefly and quits. Most of what fails traces back to a machine that sat untouched for years. We connect you with people who service other companies' installations.
Learn more →Before equipment gets chosen, someone should walk the property: where a unit can legally sit, how far that is from the gas supply and the panel, and what you actually need running when the power is out.
Learn more →Get the siting and scope sorted before anyone quotes equipment.
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