Annual service, exercise cycles, and warranty protection that keep a standby unit ready for the outage it exists for.
A standby generator is an engine that sits idle for months and then has to start perfectly in a storm. That is exactly the use pattern that punishes neglect: stale oil, a dead battery, a clogged air filter, or a failed exercise cycle that nobody noticed. Most manufacturers tie warranty coverage to documented annual service, and most outage failures trace back to a missed service year, not a bad unit.
A typical annual visit covers an oil and filter change, air filter and spark plug inspection, battery test and terminal cleaning, coolant check on liquid-cooled units, a full-load transfer test, and a review of the exercise-cycle log. Expect $250–$450 a year for a residential plan in Connecticut, with some installers bundling the first year into the install price.
Every modern standby unit runs a brief weekly self-test — usually 5 to 12 minutes — to circulate oil, charge the battery, and flag faults. The installer sets it during the walkthrough; if your unit ever skips its exercise, that is a service call, not something to ignore until the next storm.
Ask whether the plan provider is your installer or a third party, what the emergency response time is during a declared storm event, and whether the plan preserves the manufacturer warranty. A cheap plan from a company that can't reach you in an outage is not a plan.
Two minutes. Matched with a local installer. Free written estimate, no obligation.