Your home alarm system is most likely wired into a central station where they keep an eye on your system 24/7. When a breach occurs, the central station makes the call to the fire department or police to alert them of possible trouble at your address. This peace of mind is priceless for homeowners who have families to protect or travel out of town. A fire, a plumbing leak, carbon monoxide – all are dangerous and a good security system will have sensors to detect these threats to your safety and health.
Your backup generator is a protection system all its own. It runs on dedicated fuel, with dedicated circuitry and its purpose is to keep your household running smoothly no matter what power outages occur. In order for your generator to be ready and able to provide you power at the exact moment you need it, your generator needs to be in proper working order.
What if your generator doesn’t work? You might know that generators do a weekly self-test, just to keep the motor exercised and to run through a series of diagnostic checks. However, things can and do happen in the interim that might impede your generator from doing its job. That’s why generator monitoring is so critical for getting the most out of your generator investment: it ensures that the generator will work perfectly when it is called upon to do so.
The two main types of generator monitoring are on-site monitoring and central station monitoring. Much like an alarm monitoring company, a generator central station keeps an eye on the data that is transmitted from the generator and should a technician note a malfunction in your system, can send out a technician immediately to remedy the problem.
An on-site monitoring system sends text messages and/or email alerts when it detects a problem. This type of system can also be accessed with an app on your tablet or smartphone. Once you receive a message about a generator problem, you can then call for generator service to fix the problem.
Either way, you will get notified of a generator malfunction and the need for service. The method you choose for monitoring will best be decided based on your personal preferences and how involved you want to be.
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