The importance of preventative maintenance is much like taking your car in for regular oil changes, visiting the dentist regularly and attending your annual physical at the doctor’s office; all are necessary to ensure proper functioning and optimal performance.
If you do any of these things, then you already understand the importance of preventive maintenance.
Your electrical systems and equipment need preventive maintenance, too. This includes maintenance such as inspection, testing, and servicing of facility equipment, and critical components to avoid unplanned outages and failed equipment.
Essentially, you can divide your maintenance costs into two separate categories:
- Preventive maintenance
- Breakdown repairs
Parts can wear down, become exposed to moisture, or lose their insulation over time. When left unattended, these issues can lead to electrical distribution failures.
Do you need electrical preventive maintenance (EPM)? Here are a few reasons you might.
1. Your Operations Depend on a Reliable Back-up Power Source
If you’re a building owner, your tenants may do just fine in the event of a temporary electrical outage.
However, if your tenant houses critical equipment in your facility, such as server racks they can’t afford power failures. If your facility needs a reliable power source, you’ll need regular electrical preventive maintenance to help prevent possible power failures and possibly install a back up generator with an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) A UPS will ensure there is no loss of power between the time your power goes out and the time a generator kicks in.
The truth is, electrical systems and equipment are in a constant state of deterioration from the very first time they are energized. Many times, this is the result of insulation breakdown or wear and tear on the conductors and equipment. Over time, this stress and deterioration can start to cause serious problems.
For these reasons, it’s important to maintain your electrical system. Preventive maintenance may have to come out of your operating budget, but think of it as an investment or insurance policy to avoid costly emergency repairs. Eventually, electrical equipment that isn’t maintained will fail, your tenants’ business will be affected, and the safety of the tenant and your building may be compromised.
An electrician can conduct tests and inspections, like infrared scanning or load testing, to know if part of your electrical system is showing signs of failure or distress, so you can schedule repairs on your time instead of having emergencies, power failures, and unplanned outages that can be costly to your tenants—and to you.
Infrared scanners take thermal images of your electrical components and give your electrician the ability to pinpoint areas of vibration and heat loss which may indicate issues or potential issues. By using heat to find abnormalities in your system, your electrician can find elements that have weakened over time. Having this advanced diagnosis allows you to make repairs before failures happen and before you lose valuable production time.
2. You’re Unsure of Your Service’s Electrical Load
Are your electrical services overloaded? You may not always have the best idea about whether your day-to-day operations are putting too much stress on your electrical system. An over-utilized distribution system has an increased likelihood of power loss during a disturbance.
With electrical preventative maintenance, electricians can conduct a power analysis to determine whether your services are being over-utilized. If this is the case, you can increase your machine load or expand your building’s capacity to avoid loss of power.
Maybe you suspect that you have a full service and discover you have lots of capacity, but your building just needs a sub panel, which gives you more breaker space and allows you to get more out of your service. Whatever the discovery, power analysis as part of preventive maintenance can give you a better idea of how much stress you’re putting on your system.
3. You Can’t Afford Unplanned Outages
Your facility has a process in place, so it’s crucial to head off disasters wherever you can. Over time, machine components can weaken or become compromised.
Electrical equipment failures aren’t just inconvenient—they can result in arcing events or explosions that can escalate into fires, causing permanent damage to your equipment, downtime, and potentially life-threatening dangers to your entire team.
You have several options. You can let your equipment burn out, deal with downtime, and pay to replace equipment when it fails. If you’re lucky, no one gets injured. The better option is to ensure safety and prevent expensive damage before it happens.
4. Your Industry Requires Working Safety Lights
Does your facility have functional emergency lights that illuminate your path of egress?
If you were to experience a power outage tomorrow, would your emergency lights switch on the way they need to in order to guide your employees and visitors to safety?
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires the use of emergency lighting—or lighting from a reserve source that’s triggered when your traditional lighting becomes unavailable—in the event of a power failure.
Many of the same regulations for general lighting also apply to emergency lighting, with one exception: temporary electrical installations of more than 600 volts may only be used in emergency situations.
Oftentimes, exit and emergency lighting on separate batteries, which spares the system if one fails. However, there is an inverter type system that runs on a central battery that could cause all emergency lights connected to that single battery to go down if the battery failed.
Every time a building inspector comes through your facility, one of the things they will examine is whether your emergency lighting system is functional. If your emergency lighting system is down, you’ll be stuck having to pay expensive emergency repairs or risk getting your business shut down.
Keep in mind if you make changes in the design of your floor plan, this may render your path of egress out of code. It is a good idea to simply take this change into consideration with your emergency lighting plan.
Especially if your building is older, your emergency lighting system may not be functioning the way it should. There may be components that need to be replaced to keep your emergency lighting ready for anything, but it may also need some maintenance to bring it up to code.
When it comes to dealing with building inspectors or fire marshals, you don’t have much leeway; your systems are either ready for an emergency, or they aren’t. To avoid a costly shutdown, electrical preventive maintenance is the answer.
Having an electrical preventive maintenance plan is critical to reducing the possibility of industrial and commercial hazards. Click here to review our guide to putting together a thorough plan.
At Lemberg, we’ll cater electrical preventive maintenance to your facility. Your needs aren’t like anyone else’s, and we’ll carefully examine your integral systems and equipment, leaving no stone unturned to keep you up and running.
Preventive maintenance is critical to the ongoing success of your business. We’re here to help. To learn more about how we can help keep your facility in proper working order, schedule a service call today!
