How To Buy A Diesel Generator Suiting Your Purpose

Diesel Generator

A backup generator is one of the most important pieces of equipment for any factory. It helps restore the power in the events of blackouts and brownouts. Thus, ensuring the production continuity without impeding into losses. That being said, the benefits that a company can draw out of a diesel generator depends upon the type of generator.

Notably, the chances of finding the right piece of equipment are close to none, if you know very little about it. That being said, it is noteworthy that deciding the loading requirements when choosing a diesel generator is best left with an electrician. But, there are other things that you can decide on your own.

Regardless, with little knowledge and appropriate resources, you can get started in the right direction for choosing a generator. And this article will help you learn about the deciding factors in brief.

Know Your Power Needs

Deciding how much power you need is the very first step in the right direction. Although an electrician is best suited for evaluating the power needs, as already mentioned, you can start with an estimate. For instance, you can very easily eliminate portable generators from your list, if you are planning to use it for manufacturing processes. Likewise, you can also estimate whether you require a single standby generator or you need to pair up several heavy load ones. Notably, these equipment come in specific power categories which are usually 0-6 kVA, 6-12 kVA, 12-20 kVA, and so on up to several thousand watts of power. Now you can very easily estimate, depending upon the size of your factory, how much power you need.

Start Sorting The Popular Ones

When investing in a piece of equipment to ensure loss mitigation, it is important to be on the safer side with your finances. In other words, you must choose a make and model that has better customer satisfaction, while fulfilling your needs. Usually, customer reviews and feedback are a great source of information for identifying popular equipment. It needs not to be from a highly reputable manufacturer, but rather from a go to site can suffice, as long as it guarantees to serve the purpose. And that too without affecting the cost of ownership for you. Popularity, thus, acts as a measure for identifying the pieces that have more happy consumers rather than only the brand tag.

Be Careful With Your Budget

The next thing you must do is finalizing your budget for the purchase. Essentially, you wouldn’t want your generator to be far too expensive, but at the same time, you won’t be compromising with the quality. Therefore, finalizing the budget becomes a cumbersome task. Well, there’s definitely a way to simplify the budgeting process. First of all, you would require to evaluate the total infrastructure cost of your factory. It must include the cost of machinery, their repairs and maintenance, and also the operating costs and utility bills. Ideally, the cost of your backup generator must not exceed 30% of your total infrastructure costs. It must also include both, one-time purchasing cost and ongoing costs. Once you have this rough idea with you, the next thing is matching up the generator prices. You can explore the internet to get an idea about how much should a generator belonging to your desired power category should cost. Of course, different makes and models would cost you differently. So, you must filter out the ones that exceed your budget limits.

Make Sure You Choose The Right Size

Although this may sound unnecessary, the size and dimensions of your diesel generator should actually affect your purchase decision. For instance, when you buy a car you also consider the space you have for parking it. The same holds true with a diesel generator. You must evaluate the space needed for installing your standby generator. For example, would you need to build an external generator house or you can install it in your parking space, is one way to begin your evaluation. Likewise, you must also consider the fact that a generator would require a proper ventilation for exhaust and cooling purposes. Considering all these space and installation needs, you must choose the one that requires minimal changes to your existing factory layout. For instance, if you can achieve the same efficiency in output from a generator that can be placed out in the open, and that too within your budget, then you must not pick a generator that would demand a separate generator house for installation.

Narrowing Down Your Search

By now, you must have a sorted list of generators from several makers that fit into your budget and also serve your purpose. However, your search isn’t still over yet. You may now be facing the biggest dilemma throughout your purchasing decision. All of the aforementioned steps are fundamental, but finalizing a piece of equipment would need more than just the fundamentals. You must consider the features that different models offer you within your budget range. For example, if model A offers oil cooling and model B has water cooling systems, then surely model A would make a better choice. Similarly, if one piece of equipment has better safety features over the other, you must go for a safer product. Notably, modern diesel generators come paired with top-notch features such as digital controls and monitors, safety switches, and automatic switchover. All of these features are pretty much the standard for modern diesel generators. So, you must look for any additional feature that comes along with your purchase.

This brings us to the conclusion that buying a diesel generator takes more than just consulting with a few agencies and dealerships. A good buying decision is based on several features and factors. Therefore, it is only in the best interests of your company to buy a generator that serves the purpose, and also meets several other requirements. That being said, it is still the best and wisest move to include an electrician for selecting the power needs. After all, power is the primary necessity.

Harper Harrison

Harper Harrison is a reporter for The Hear UP. Harper got an internship at the NPR and worked as a reporter and producer. harper has also worked as a reporter for the Medium. Harper covers health and science for The Hear UP.