Diesel fuel is not like gasoline! If you store diesel it has degraded and become contaminated. Because generator fuel is normally stored in steel tanks these contaminates are not readily seen. Therein lies a big part of the problem - it’s out of sight so it’s out of mind. Before you know it, contaminates are clogging your fuel filters preventing fuel from reaching the engine. Now you have no emergency power.

Fuel Polishing is NOT just another name for fuel filtering as some will have you believe. It’s a precise fuel cleaning and re-structuring process. Fuel Filtering can actually remove ingredients that your engine needs, take your fuel out of spec, and even reduce the life of your engine. Fuel Polishing does not and does a better job of cleaning your fuel. Fuel filtering is a method of fuel cleaning that unknowing owners use because it can be a bit less expensive. Knowing the difference will help you ask the right questions when hiring fuel cleaning companies or when purchasing fuel cleaning equipment. It will also help you to understand why your fuel needs to be cleaned from time to time and the consequences if you don’t.

LinkedIn’s Facilities Management Group (68,000+ members) recently asked the question “What are the most common diesel generator failures that you have come across?”. There were close to 200 responses that stated or implied 50 different reasons. Here they are . . .

There are two ways to detect things that are going wrong or have gone wrong with your generators before it’s too late. I like to call them the “hard way” and the “easy way”. I don’t have enough data to do a reliable analysis of which way costs less, but my strong sense is that the easy way not only costs less in the long run, but also significantly reduces stress on the managers who must ensure that the generators turn on and run for the expected amount of time when utility power is lost. Let’s do a quick comparison of how each works to see if you get the same sense. . .

Most states require two methods that prevent aboveground storage tanks that store combustible hazardous liquids (such as oil and fuel) from being overfilled resulting in a spill – even a small one. The first method is a mechanical overfill prevention device mounted inside the pipe where the liquid is loaded into the tank. The second method is a visual way to see if the tank is almost full or is full. A “clock gauge” is normally used for that purpose. . . There are two standard types. They are . . .

This brief article won’t make you a mechanical engineer, but it will give you the common sense knowledge needed to make wise data center cooling planning decisions!

The best way to explain value engineering is to compare it to cost reduction analysis. There is one fundamental difference. Value engineering analysis includes some post-construction operating expenses and cost reduction does not. So what are they and how are they calculated? Let’s take a look. . .

The term Power & Data means the special relationship and dependency that exists between critical power and critical data, and the specialized field of work and industry that is growing out of it. Amazingly. . .