Thread: Diesel fuel life in a standby generator

My employer bought an old de-commissioned hospital that has an emergency genset. It gets serviced every 6 months or so. During a recent power outage, the generator ran out of diesel. The boss rang the service company to see why they hadn't topped up the tank last month with the service, and they replied that they have never put fuel in.

So, this generator has been running on the same tank of diesel for 15-20 years.

Weeds, I agree with Bacicat about sizing. 88kVA is the go.
My calculations are:

IF Weeds Arse is on the line, THEN Go for the bigger genset if in doubt
Discharge = NO, NO, NO
Money = Someone Else's (NOT Weeds')

I assume the pumps will do the swapover thing on mains operation, but in mains failure mode both may be required to operate at the same time (well staggered start anyway).
You also need to consider the pumps "fault" load - i.e if they're ragged when they try to start.

On the fuel age issue, we had diesel gensets for level crossings that did not have the fuel changed in the 4 years that I was working on them, and they tested fine every week.

FG Wilson are great units, I would look though to dropping a biocide in the tank to stop it growing bugs.

I would tell the company that every six months would be a good idea and that I will happily dispose of the old fuel(in my LR tank)

Originally Posted by Owen

FG Wilson are great units, I would look though to dropping a biocide in the tank to stop it growing bugs.

Made contact with them but still haven't sent through a quote.....must be making plenty sales

Originally Posted by d2dave

I would tell the company that every six months would be a good idea and that I will happily dispose of the old fuel(in my LR tank)

12 months Im thinking.....I value my job too much for the fuel to go anywhere but our mobile plant or dispose off

Originally Posted by weeds

Made contact with them but still haven't sent through a quote.....must be making plenty sales

I should have mentioned they can be a bit slow depending on who got your email. I'll zap an email to the Sales guy I know and tell him to get everyone to check their emails.

Did you send it to the generic sales@allightsykes.com email?

Originally Posted by bacicat

I should have mentioned they can be a bit slow depending on who got your email. I'll zap an email to the Sales guy I know and tell him to get everyone to check their emails.

Did you send it to the generic sales@allightsykes.com email?

It was a phone inquiry