Kohler Generator Doesn't Run Weekly Exercise
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ก.ย. 2024
- I am on a generator service call for it not running its weekly exercise. I find the generator locked out on a low engine speed fault. I reset the generator controller. Then I test the Kohler 20RESA Generator. It worked the whole time I was there yet I advised the homeowner to upgrade the regulator due to 3 inches of water collum pressure drop on gas when the generator starts.
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Your running commentary on what you were doing and thinking was extremely helpful in following along. Thanks and subscribed!
Hey man! Great video and channel! I install and service many of these Units in the Northeast, and have had a similar issue like this on a 20kw. I found that the arm in the stepper motor was loose causing it to go into over/under speed. Also, make sure the firmware is up to date on the controller. If it isnt current that will give you a bucnh of headaches! Good luck!
The little hex fastener loosens on the arm of the stepper. I ran into many of those or the 10mm holding stepper in got loose enough and the armature was in the wrong location doing over or under speeds. Lots of hunting issues on the Kohler playing with the speed gains to make them go away. Why do ants love the Kohler controller?
The HVAC Hacker you hit it right in the head man! I havent run into any ants yet but im sure itll happen! Good luck in the field!
@@thehvachacker lol we had the same issue but was on a milbank tho
i think the leaves from that tree surrounding it was choking off the intake screens
Air is another possibility for low engine speed shut down.
I think you’re right it’s not getting enough gas. When the thing throttled up to get to operating speed it dropped more, then as it backed off at target it stabilized higher. I bet it drops like a rock under load and that’ll cause the low speed dropouts.
It was too much of a drop on every start. Now turn the boiler and 2 furnaces on in this house
I have a Generac for 10 years now never skipped a beat just do normal maintence and have changed the battery once.
Is your generac with the metal outer cover and two 8mm bolts need to be removed to get the front panel off? If so how is it fairing with rust?
Yes thats the one I have all metal case. I'm in PA and with all the snow and rain we get here there is very little rust I'm actually surprised how well its holding up.
Most of those I see are rusting yet most likely cause they are surrounded by mulch
Theres no mulch around mine I keep it clear all the way around. Like I said where I'm at I'm really surprised it still looks good.
Good repair video man
I watch a you tuber by the name of James Condon he repairs mostly small portable generators. Some one asked what he had for a generator he said he has a Honda reasons he said we’re they were bullet proof and when they finally break Honda still stocks parts even for older ones .
Well this guy seems to know a bit about what he is working on...well he sound official. I bought a Kohler/Onan on June 30 2018 and will be happy when and if it ever get to run. Do not do business with a company called Colonial Generator they are all over the US. I am in Tampa Florida and Colonial has used excuse after excuse for not getting the install done. We bought a 17 KW (though we wanted and asked for the 20 KW) we bought the extended insurance plan (not sure when that will start since they have yet to install and finish the job) We bought the extended maintenance plan and a 500 gallon propane tank to by underground install (an additional $2000). The first inspection by the county we were asked where the wiring was? How was I to know it never had the wires installed no one said a thing! FAILED, Inspection #2 Wrong location per plans, No safety stickers on meter to warn that if power goes out generator will kick in and also county said the sales person had fudged the numbers and sold the wrong unit for the house (guess what I need a 20 KW - I kind of remember say that to the sales man). FAILED. Inspection #3 New 29 KW installed BUT Colonial never went to the county to get a NEW permit for the correct generator, still NO safety stickers about generator on control head, No way to inspect the wires to prove to the county that they used legal wire. FAILED!
And that is just the Colonial Generator Company part! Now lets talk about their propane installer...1st call, no show, 2nd call no show, 3rd call over phone can not put a 500 gallon tank in the ground BUT would be glad to install 2 each 250 gallon tanks (cost of 500 gallon tank was a $1400 premium)and now the fun one if you can follow this excuse tank install to be done 2nd Tuesday in September. Call me on Monday night and said their truck broke down and would be here on Saturday the 15 of September. I then proceed to reschedule ALL my appointments that were for the Tuesday install and had to be moved to the following Saturday. After I had just finished calling all my contacts I received ANOTHER call from the installer and was told they had freed up another truck and COULD NOW COME on Tuesday after all! They did not understand why I had fired them at that point "after all we are just trying to put n your propane" WTF??? are they and the contractor Colonial Generator that stupid...yep! Have now had the city put in the natural gas line and ready to hook up in 10 days time that too Colonial 3+ months.
BUT we still do not have a working generator. Why? well the county has now RED TAGGED THE JOB for all the previous reasons. We just had Hurricane Michael pass us and we did loose power thankfully it was only for a few minutes.
Here is the bottom line project start June 30......it is now October 12 and STILL no movement. Colonial Generator had stated to both my wife and I they were only charging for the generator not the failed propane part of the contract. To date still waiting for the job to be done and operating. Generator cost as far as we can tell was $4599 (not listed only said generator package) labor, permits, extended service contract and extended mechanical contract, Xtra large in ground tank $2000. Paid out so far $17,000 (at first they were not going to install unless we paid up front ALL of the amount due...wrong not legal) Balance owed $1,650.
DO NOT EVER DO WORK WITH COLONIAL GENERATOR .... OH YEA HOW DID WE FIND THESE JERKS? 5 STAR HIGHLY RECOMMENDED BY HOMEADVISOR.COM!!!!
David Vincent wao what a nightmare i am sorry for all your troubles with these company. Ironically my experience with my Champion 8.5kw standby gas generator was completely different from yours but i don’t live in the states i live in the carribean Puerto Rico. I bought my generator a couple months after we were hit by hurricane Maria and was completely installed and running in only about 4 to 5 hours the same day of the appointment. The surface were the generator and gas tank were installed was prepared prior the installation and was made in concrete with a 4” thickness and then safety attached to the floor with long tapcon screws that can windstand hurricane force wins, then for extra protection a local company made me a couple of custom made cabinets made with steel. The electrician and the company who installed my 100 galons propane gas tank show up the same day and same time and after almost two years of the installation the generator is working flawlessly. Also I bought the unit in sale in my local Sams Club store for only $1,999.00 dollars plus tax and after the installation was completed the total price was only about $3,500 dollars but both the electrician and the owner of company who supplied the gas tank and the installation are close friends of mine so they gave me a special price for their job. My generator even that is a relatively small unit it power all my appliances but my house is very power efficient since my water heater is solar, my dryers use propane gas and my a/c is a split unit 18,000 btu inverter not a 3 or 5 ton central a/c and we don’t need a heater because our local weather is always warm during all year long.
if the gen fires up ok with manual override - why won't start with automatic exercise routine? the starter does nothing. push man override starts up as norm. thank you with any suggestions.
Check the weekly exercise in the controller to see if it’s set.
Hello I hv a Kohls 20kw gen. When it does weekly maintenance run, it makes an on off reviving noise, not continuous. Is this normal? What might be the problem? Thank you very much!
Hard to say yet if you have the generator run half loaded that will make it rev up and down
Its funny because most people i know who have a Kohler generator or other make have one similar to this one in the video but I have a model that looks different and has an all metal casing vs the common plastic casings. I'm just curios whats the difference is the metal casing going to withstand damage more than plastic or vice versa or are companies simply being cheap and deciding to use plastic while still charging the same price for less quality? I'm curios if anyone has any knowledge in this department. I would imagine they would prefer to use strudy metal for ALL full house generators due to tropical storms and stuff like that but maybe I'm wrong and plastic is better..
O and another thing, the oil drains very slowly. Do you use a vacuum extractor or pressurize the crankcase to aid in oil removal?
I run the engine, get the oil hot and it pours out a lot faster.
@@thehvachacker Couldnt do that this time, took 2 hours but still not done. Leaving it overnight.
I have a 20RESA and I noticed the unit in your video has a crack in the composite base. My unit also has a crack and the base has been replace twice for the same reason. Do you see many units with cracked bases? My unit is also installed on a GEN PAD.
Most have that crack. Not worth replacing since 80% are like that. It won’t affect the generator, just sucks that it seems to be a problem these resa seem to suffer
@@thehvachacker Thanks for the info and fast response. The base was replaced both times under warranty and that was like pulling teeth to get it done. I was concerned that the base would continue cracking, the unit is well out of warranty, and would cost a bundle to replace only to crack again.
I'll leave it as is.
Any clue on rotor lockout code 2013 kohler 20resa. It cranked ran few min shut off then tried again it will click then throw code. Changed battery and checked wires etc. Cant get anyone up on the mountain as I'm hours from a dealer. I'm at a loss and sad part I lose power up here often and need it.
Jump your starter and see if it’s engaging. If it is then pull off back end of housing to engine by exhaust and try to manually bar the engine over. If it doesn’t move engine is seized.
Looks to me the generator solenoid cut the valve off thus interrupting the gs pressure. The gas pressure should be checked upstream of the solenoid where the flow would not be interrupted by the solenoid.
Do you find much of a pressure difference checking gas pressure before the gas solenoid or at its pressure tap?. These Kohlers require at least 5"w.c. after the solenoid. The fuel solenoid doesn't cut pressure like a furnace gas valve. The generator regulators can also not operate correctly yet usually that causes engine hunting, which was why Kohler issues the sb722 bulletin. Have you had solenoids cut out after engine starts?
@@thehvachacker i had that on 2 seperate 20resa units. the controler was on its was out and was opening and closing the solenoid (varifed with gas meter) causing a really bad hunting and surging on one and the other kept shutting down on over crank even though it would crank for a few seconds fire up and then shut right down. For some reason a good chunk of the low engine speed calls we get, we found fowled out plugs. Gas pressure was solid almost no drop, valve opened up nice and stayed open, pulled the plugs and they looked like little 4ky onan rv units
I couldn't get the machine to shut down on a fault. I was stopping the machine every time it stopped in this video. The only thing that looked like it may cause a problem was the gas pressure drop on start.
I replaced many rdc2 controllers. With hunting and surging, most of the time playing with the speed gains seems to correct that problem. If the hunting disappears when you remove the battery cover then the regulator needs the vent tubs installed. These Kohlers were notorious for hunting. Some would run smooth till cooldown and start surging all over the place
My generac 11kv requires 11" and it does not drop after the regulator. It maintains a steady pressure. If it detects a low pressure the solenoid drops out and shuts down.
I have a 35kw Kohler natgas. starts fine from the unit and runs as long as I let it. When starting to set the weekly timer or just running it from the transfer switch in house it either starts up for 15 seconds and then shuts off or today it ran about a minute then shutdown when testing the run option on the transfer switch. Went back to unit and can run manually no problem. No error on the display but I did not go thru menu system on unit. Could this be a bad transfer switch telling unit to shutdown?
Get a cat generator set. Diesel power - Yes expensive but worth it.
I don’t even own a generator yet I was planing on putting a Generac/ Honeywell into the house I’m buying. I am a Generac dealer. Haven’t worked on the cat line or Cummings line of generators
You have to let it sit for a week to get that fault in the gas regulator, most likely... good you had the gauge to check the drop, and knew the mfgr's spec. Also good you checked the usual culprits... I'll bet you don't get a call-back on this one... good job.
I was thinking of getting one of those Dwyer gauges. What does that gauge have on it? Does it only have the BUNA option? And how does it handle cold weather?
The ones I have only do inches of water column, What do you mean by BUNA? Cold weather doesn't affect these gauges at all. I use them all the time outside when cold.
When you go to buy a gauge off the Dwyer site you can configure what the gauge will have. BUNA changes diaphragm to be more compatible with NG/LP. I will be buying one with that option and see how long it lasts in negative temperatures. The LT option removes the liquid inside the gauge so that you can use it in 20 below. Tech Support told me if I am going to be using one for NG/LP to use that BUNA diaphragm. I guess the NG/LP one is a Nitril diaphragm while the default diaphragm is only silicon. You reply pretty fast, gg.
I will check tomorrow which model I have yet am sure it would be LT since I have used it at 0 degrees with no problems and it is always kept in my truck. It is designed for ng/ lp since its originally purchased for testing heating system gas valves
Where did you buy yours? I would be getting mine right off Dwyer.
My company provides everyone with these. We have about 70 of the 0-15"w.c. and the same amount for 0-1.0" w.c. Testing gas pressure is a must. If I had to do it I would buy it right from Dwyer. I am sure my company got them from Grainger. I tried using digital Magnehelic gauges yet they don't respond as quickly. This gauge has been built tough I need to replace my hoses. My gauge I have been using for almost 10 years now. In all weather conditions without any problems.
no the regulator would not open. if it could not vent .not allowing gas to flow through it
I also wouldn't get the genset to run.
Building a new home in Florida. 3200 sq ft under air 2 A/C's. Can you give me an idea what to look at for a whole house generator? Thanks and I enjoy your videos.
2 ac is tough on a generator. The starting force or LRA of the ac compressors at times can be too much. The generator is for emergency situations do you need both ac's. If so you need to find ac systems with low LRA. Every time an ac starts the generator bogs down. A generator should never be ran at 100% load.
Thanks! So far just speaking with a local gen company they are thinking a 27KW water cooled. The house will be on nat. gas. They sell both Generac and Kohler. They said when all the bad stuff went down here hurricane wise, Generac really helped a lot sending people down. Kohler couldn’t be bothered. They also said Generac has come a long way and not the same company from years ago. They will sell me whatever I want but strongly suggesting I go with the Generac. With everything on the gen should only be pushed 80% so it will be sized accordingly. I want this to be as if I don’t even know the power is out. I don’t want to make choices on what to run. I know it will be expensive. It will be worth it though after going almost two weeks without electric never again.
What does doing a loaded test every month do for maintenance?
It operates the generator under a load so it actually is powering the house. Which also makes it run hotter burning any moisture out of the system
@@thehvachacker that makes sense.. thought maybe there was some other benefit for the windings etc., but guess heating them under load would work to keep them dry
kohler generator exerciser has to be reset after a power outage, works fine until we experience an outage. No faults! Any ideas? Model RDT-CFNA-0200A transfer switch .....
If the exercise is set at transfer the board loses memory and needs to be reset.
@@thehvachacker how do u reset it. I have recently changed the battery, it doesn’t start weekly -kicks in if a power outage but not lights up the house now?!?! I’m so confused 🤷♀️
My 20RESA had hunting issues - after watching your vids I added the vent tubes and that problem went away - but now the thing is sputtering erratically (sounds like mini misfires) while it runs. Any ideas on what potential problems may be or what I can check? Thanks so much for all the great vids!
Could be spark plugs or "ignition module"
@@jbs8659 replaced spark plugs without luck. Will look into ignition module next. Difficult to replace? Thank you for replying!
@@ARiffOnDrinks they are difficult to replace. :(
@@ARiffOnDrinks if you unplug one of the boots that goes to the spark plug and then press run with the generator breaker off. Do you get the same sound?
Are you running LP or Natural Gas?
It looks like you work on a million different types of equipment and I know everything is different. Pretty annoyingly, where you were testing for water column is actually after the solenoid shutoff so the drop in pressure would be a result of the controller / tstat / estop interrupting that circuit.
Recently installed a Kohler 12Resvl. Electrician and plumber completed their work. Simulated an outage and the generator turned right over. The following week, the normal unloaded exercise completed on its own. Last evening, we had our first real outage. The engine would turn over and then off with a “AC Sensor Loss” fault. Is there no communication between the gender and transfer switch? Any help would be great. Thanks!
AC sense loss is usually T1 fuse or wire issue. if it has an auxiliary shut down switch, check connections
If it's having gas pressure problems starting up, will it even run with a load on it if the power goes out and it's actually needed?
It wasn’t having problems starting up. I couldn’t replicate the fault. I was starting and stopping the generator watching the pressure drop just on start. Running it stayed over 5” w.c. The maintenance for this machine is coming up. So I can play around with this machine. Kohler only wants 1” w.c. Drop on start. That was the only thing that seemed out of ordinary so I wanted the house regulator checked. Usually low engine speed is a gas issue. Have you had many low engine speed issues?
I saw one that did it when the power went out. The owners said it would start up, run for a few seconds and shut down. The power came back on. I was there the next day and it had a low engine speed shutoff. They were using their electric oven, 3 burners on the stove, the microwave and the air conditioner might have been running. I assumed the breaker should trip if there is too much load. That was running on propane. I talked to the propane supplier and they put a larger regulator on it and a larger hose. I haven't heard of them having any trouble since then.
Working at a data center we had a 120kw Koehler unit on the roof...gas company did their math wrong. It was fine until we actually had a decent load and the air dons running in the summer then it couldn’t get enough natural gas, kept tripping the transfer switch during exercise runs. Made a major headache with the UPS (battery backup) units until we figured out what the heck was going on. Gas company had a regulator down at street level that was about a third the size needed and had installed pipe that was half the size needed at the lower pressure...thing is the unit had a second stage regulator on it so there was no reason to even try to run low pressure to the roof. Retested the pipe to the roof to certify it for high pressure, swapped the street regulator for a correctly sized HP one and last I knew (left that company some years back) all was well.
The HVAC Hacker so yeah, my guess is if plugs are good and otherwise healthy running till she’s loaded, it’s not getting enough gas.
Also autocorrect is bonkers... Kohler and air cons not air dons lol
Honestly....i would spend the money on a portable generator after watching these videos on repair work work on standby generator
When you have lots of generators out there some will have problems
this stuff should be smarter. there should be more gas pressure sensors in the box to tell you in the log what got hosed up.
It at least throws a fault to give you a direction to start troubleshooting. Kohlers seem to throw ghost faults and lockouts at times.
Hacker I haven't heard a phone ringing like that since the 70s. Peace brother
It’s loud enough that hopefully I can hear it
It’s loud enough that hopefully I can hear it
Worst purchase of my life was having Generac generators installed in both of our homes , we use the old Honda 5500 and 7500 portables we used before spending $30,000 grand on natural gas Jenny's that have have us nothing but problems , if your not using one of these as your main power source then be prepared to have a shit ton of problems from them sitting .
They shouldn’t be sitting they should run every week and I recommend to my customerers to load them for an hour every month. No machine should sit. Yet what problems have you had?
@@thehvachacker Oh I'm fully aware of that now but when my wife had them installed the contractor told her the Jenny's would be fine sitting for 6 months unused , our houses are 90 miles apart & we just can't get to the unoccupied house to let them run ,I should have known better to begin with because I start all our cars ,motorcycles etc every week in winter but I foolishly took the word of a home Depot contractor & now I'm paying for it .
What is wrong with the genset? Generac has a 5-year warranty? Labor only 2 on some models. 5 on others.
Michael Ledford unlike your car/motorcycle, Generators at programs to run every once in a while as you set them, in order to keep you from having any potential issues from them not running
I have a Kholer generator that was running weekly exercise until my gas line was shut off for a few hours for repairs. Now it would not run it’s weekly exercise any more. What should I do? Thanks for your help
The fuel line is most likely full of air. Either bleed it at the union or let it crank a bunch of times. Until all the air is out and generator starts.
@@thehvachacker
Thank you so much for helping a lady out!! will it go back to the original exercise schedule or the time that I get it started again? The generator is 15 years old, so there is no digital panel with schedule option on it. Do I crank it by pushing the toggle to run it?
Yes you would need to turn the generator to off. Then to run. Let it crank. If it stops cranking after several attempts and doesn’t start. Turn it off let it be off for 5 minutes and back on. Let it try again. When air is out of line and gas is present the generator should start
@@thehvachackerDo I have to reset the exercise time again or will it go back to the original set time after it runs gain? Thanks for your advice... You have a great channel
Shit ... you know we have the same ringer I'm looking all around for my phone for crap sake !!!
Haha I hate when that happens
My Kohler 20RESC stopped because it said coolant level low. Can I use any coolant to fill up until I can get service to come to me? Can you tell me where would I find the coolant fill?
A low coolant alarm on an air cooled Kohler, indicates that the battery ran itself dead during an outage either charger is not backed up on the gen panel, or the battery charger has failed.
There is no coolant, it is a Air cooled unit. up date the controller. Site Tech
50/50 Mix should be ok. if problem continues, check and replace low coolant sensor if needed.
My Resa20 has 103 hours on it. While running the 2 week auto exercise i heard it shut down. It locked up. Removed the starter and it tests fine. The flywheel is very hard to rotate even with the spark plugs out. Drained the oil and it looks pristine, no metal dust. Any ideas??
What fault did it shut down on?
@@thehvachacker In the past, it displayed locked rotor error but i cleared it and it ran fine for months . This time it was Main power overload shutdown. I cleared that one also in an attempt to start the generator, so no error is currently displayed. You could hear the starter try to rotate the motor but it would just jam.
Does the controller go blank and check date and time flash?
@@thehvachacker I turn the controller to the off position, then back to auto and it cycles these messages : Maintenance overdue - Status online ready - Voltage 14.2 - Date and Time - Next exercise schedule -
@@thehvachacker Could the generator armature bearing be froze up making it hard to turn over the motor? Is it just the 4 long bolts that couple the generator to the motor? Where can i get a service manual ? Thx
it could be a pluged vent hole on the regulator spiders love them to build a web i yrier
Wouldn't I experience hunting if this was the case? Spiders do love those spots. Kohler even had a vent kit to prevent air pressure from preventing the regulator to operate correctly.
I've also had mud dauber wasps plug the vent with mud.
The kohlerss are notorious for loosing there exercise time through the control board on the ats... u need to on that model set the exercisee time through the unit itself
I think some Kohler ats if a power failure occurred the set exercise time gets wiped out
Mine works just like the company advertises. That may be because Kohler demands that their techs get a thorough education on how to install and repair their product. I wish that the same was true for some of their competitors.
Generac training is more intense and harder than Kohlers factory training. I been through both dealers training.
I can tell what you do when you dont know whats wrong, you blame the utilities
If I can’t replicate the problem yet the gas pressure on start is more than manufacturers specs then making sure proper gas pressure to machine is utilities responsibility.
we had a rash of heat calls a few winters back. Literally hundreds of no heat calls and frozen pipes. Freaking nightmare. Reason?? National Fuel had turned the pressure down on their mains. Gas pipes sag, act like a trap and hold water, pressure low it cant blow thru... high demand due to single digits and windchill caused a huge drop in pressure causing pilot lights on old furnaces and h.w. tanks to go out. Grab the turbo torch and re-light quick and bail...so yea, utilities are to blame at times
The utilities at times try to get away with whatever they can. A few days after Sandy hit I get a generator service call its surging and making weird pinging noises. I find water in the gas line and spend a lot of time bleeding it out of the engine, gas supply line till I had mostly gas going through the gas pipe. Got their genset up and running. My customer contacted PSE&G and told them of it. They blew it off and said not to worry about it. The first-night temps went below freezing all meters on the street ended up freezing since they were outside. This could have been corrected yet I do understand they still had too many areas without power.
@@twiz8789 Years ago I had a call where the furnace and WH would go, then they would reset the furnace and re-light the pilot on the WH, and all was good until the next morning. I got there at 5am and checked gas pressure at the furnace, which was in lockout mode. It was 0 inches. The sun started coming out and gas pressure went up to 14 inches. Called gas company. This house was last on the street. It ended up being a trap in the mainline too close to the surface and freezing at night when the temps went to a single digit.
@@metubetomuch Ran across this in the mid 90s. National fuel engineers thought it a good idea to lower gas main pressure despite the guys in the field warning against it. Pilot lights out everywhere when it got below 20°F
Nicely padded out and wasted time to justify the labour costs.
Where is the wasted time?
what is this a personal backup electric generator??? why would you even have such a thing???
Bakup should be basic, barebone, not some ungodly computer controlled contraption.
I frankly see nothing more in that a expensive lump of steel...
And what the deal with water colum is it not air coold WTF???
Ho gazoline suplie well if you have to worry about that then you definitely have your emergency setup all worg
I understand your point but in my personal life i need power 24/7 because of my kidneys and because my wife could sufficate and die if her cpap were to fail when she sleeps. Safly a personal generator that we would have to go out to start on a moments notice would not work. In otherwords we require auto starting and auto monitoring
Did you see the size of those houses? Of course they would would have full back up systems if the power were to go out. And most modern day equipment ranging from generators to ice machines to hvac units have digital controllers. Everyday experience for me. Also, water column is a unit of measurement for gas pressure, has nothing to due with how the unit is cooled. Clearly air cooled during fast forward section while unit is running and leaves are blowing in tree.
@@xTheRainMaker1x yep air cooled I did not get the gaz part because it is so uterly stupid!
@@alfoncejean8826 How is the 'inches of water' pressure unit utterly stupid? Do your home work, its been around for ever for measuring low pressures below 1 psi. 1 inch of water = 0.035psi. It'd be more stupid measuring units that small in psi or bar.
@NonyaBusiness! a wise man once told me : " seems like these stand by generators have HUGE PROBLEMS. Just reading the comments alone here, you can see the many people who have complaints with these things. "
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