Probable Reasons Why Your New Haven Home’s Backup Generator Aren’t Starting

A backup generator is a great peace-of-mind installation for your New Haven home, as it will allow you to maintain power during any blackout situation. Of course, like anything, your backup generator can develop issues that might prevent it from starting up when you need it.

To get your backup generator going when it doesn’t want to, you need to know some of the common causes of backup generator issues. Knowing these issues will help you to resolve your generator problems promptly so that you can get back to using electricity when your power is out.

Low Coolant Levels

The most common cause of low coolant levels is a leak either on the inside or on the outside of your generator. You don’t have to find out this has happened to your generator only by finding out it won’t work when you need it. Instead, you can learn some common signs of leaking coolant: oddly colored oil, crust on hoses, and moisture around your generator.

Oil Or Fuel Leaks

Another common problem is another kind of leak: oil and fuel leaks. These issues can be due to a number of causes: overfilling the base tank (for your fuel) and “wet stacking” (caused when unburn fuel passes into the exhaust system). If your generator won’t kick on when you need it to, check to see if you’ve overloaded the tank or if wet stacking has occurred.

Air In Fuel System

If air gets into your generator’s fuel supply, its engine will fail to start, thus not allowing the generator to function, of course. While the frustrating news is that this issue can be common in newer generator models, the much less frustrating news is that the issue can be easily avoided. To do that, simply run your generator at least once weekly to help keep air out of its fuel system.