The power went out and the standby generator did not take over. Where did it stop?

You bought a standby unit so this would not happen. The street went dark, and the house stayed dark with it, or half of it came back, or ComEd came back hours ago and the unit in the side yard is still running. Each of those breaks the handoff at a different link. Which link it was decides whether the electrician or the engine dealer gets the call.

What has to happen, in order, for a standby generator to carry the house through an outage?

Six things, one after the other. The controller notices ComEd is gone, the engine starts, the automatic transfer switch moves the house off the utility and onto the unit, and the managed loads come on in turn. When ComEd returns, the switch moves the house back and the engine runs a short cool-down before it stops. Standby generator service in Lockport splits along that chain.

The engine and its controller belong to the manufacturer’s dealer. Everything between the unit and your panel is electrical: the transfer switch, the feeders that carry power from the unit to the switch, the control wiring that tells the switch and the engine what is happening on both sides, the load management that holds big circuits off, and the circuit that keeps the unit’s starting battery charged between outages.

The generator started but the house stayed dark. Is it the transfer switch?

Probably, or the wiring on either side of it. A running engine means the dealer’s half got that far, and the power is not getting from the unit into the house. That points to the transfer switch, the feeders between the unit and the switch, or the control wiring that tells the switch to move. All three are electrician work.

What you can safely notice without opening anything:

• Whether the engine is actually running, by sound, from the yard.
• What the unit’s display says, word for word. A photo of it is better.
• Whether the transfer switch has an indicator showing utility or generator, and which one is lit.
• Whether any part of the house has power, even one room.
• Whether the neighbors are dark too, so it is a real outage and not something at your meter.

Leave the switch cover on and the breakers inside it and inside the unit alone. A transfer switch has utility power on one side and generator power on the other, and when one of them comes back unannounced, whoever is standing in front of the open cover is in the way.

If it fails on a storm night with water rising in the sump pit, that is an after-hours call. If the house is cold but dry and it can wait for morning, the daytime rate applies.

Why did some circuits stay off while the generator was running?

Some of that is by design. A unit sized to shed the air conditioner keeps it off, or brings it on only when there is room, and managed loads can take several minutes to come back after the transfer. A circuit that never comes back during the whole outage is different. It points at a load module that is not releasing, or at a circuit that was never put on the generator side of the switch.

The second one is more common than people expect, and it usually comes from the house changing after the unit went in. A finished basement adds a bedroom, a bathroom on an ejector pit, maybe a second freezer. A charger goes in the garage, or a hot tub on the patio. None of those were on the panel the day the unit was sized, and some of them landed on circuits the switch does not carry. Others landed on circuits it does carry, and now the unit trips when the air conditioner and the new load ask for power at the same time.

If the finished basement is why this matters, start with keeping the basement dry through a long outage, and ask whether the sump and the ejector are on the generator side.

An electrician reads which circuits sit on the transfer side, what each load module controls, and what the house draws now against what the unit was sized for. The fix might be moving a circuit, adding a module, or a conversation about the unit’s size.

ComEd is back and the generator is still running. What now?

A short cool-down after the switch moves back is normal. A unit that keeps carrying the house long after the streetlights and the neighbors’ porch lights are on, or a switch that will not move the house back to ComEd, is a fault in the switch or in the wiring that senses the utility side. Call about that one rather than waiting it out.

On the well-pump lots in Lockport Township and toward Homer Glen it matters more than it seems. The pump and the water in the house stay on the generator for as long as the switch keeps them there. If the switch is not reading ComEd’s return and the unit then shuts down on a fault, the house can go dark with the street lit, and the water goes with it.

What does it mean when the unit skips its weekly exercise or shows a fault?

The exercise is the unit’s scheduled self-test. It starts, runs for a short while without taking the house, and shuts down, on the day and hour it was set for at install. A unit that stops exercising, or exercises and then shows a fault, is a fair sign the next real outage will go the same way.

When that slot falls on a weekday in a house that is empty through the workday, nobody hears it run or stop, and the display is the only record. On the exercise day, walk out after it should have run and read it, especially after a summer that gave the unit nothing to do but exercise.

A low-battery or charging fault splits two ways. The battery itself is the dealer’s, or the owner’s manual’s. The circuit that keeps it charged comes from the house and is electrical, and a new battery that keeps going flat points there.

October and November are the time to have it looked at. The summer storms that take out the feeders along Route 53 and 159th are past, and the January ice that loads the lines has not started. A dealer’s annual service on the engine and an electrician’s check on the switch, the feeders and the control wiring are two separate visits.

What does a call about a standby unit cost?

A daytime call on the electrical side starts with the trip charge, $89 to $149, which covers the first half hour. Tracing a fault through the transfer switch and the wiring usually lands at $150 to $250 for the first hour, trip charge included. What a diagnostic visit costs sets those beside the other rates.

On a night or a weekend the trip charge is $199 to $299 plus an hourly premium, which is the call for a unit that quits in the middle of an ice storm. A failure that shows up on the display in October can usually wait for a weekday.

The repair is quoted once the cause is found, in writing, before the work. A worn switch, a loose control connection and a circuit that needs moving to the generator side are very different jobs, and none of them is known until the electrician has the switch open. Engine work the dealer finds is priced by the dealer.