Annamaria in Red Bank has been a Green Sun Energy Services client since April of 2018. The generator on this property is not one we installed, and in May 2026 we washed the house as well.
Taking on a 2015 machine in 2018
The Generac here is a 22 kW, model 6551, commissioned by another company in October 2015. It had run for two and a half years before the servicing came to us.
That gap matters more than it sounds. A standby generator spends almost all of its life not running, which means the things that go wrong with one go wrong quietly: a battery that will not turn it over, oil that has sat too long, a filter nobody changed, a rodent in the enclosure. None of it announces itself. The machine sits there looking exactly like a working machine right up until the night it is asked to work.
So the first visit to somebody else’s generator is not a routine service — it is an assessment of a machine with an undocumented history, and everything found has to be established rather than looked up. The household chose a PowerBase Silver plan, which is scheduled maintenance: the machine is visited on a fixed cycle and the wear items are dealt with before they become the reason it will not start.
It was last serviced on 20 March 2026.
A soft wash in May 2026
On 20 May we soft washed 8,178 square feet of exterior. Soft washing does the work with the solution rather than with pressure: a sodium hypochlorite and surfactant mix goes on at low pressure, is left to kill the algae and mildew living on the surface, and is rinsed off.
The difference from pressure washing is not a matter of degree. Pressure takes the staining off and leaves the growth rooted in the surface, so the house looks clean for a season and then does not; and on siding, soffits and trim, water driven at that force finds seams it was never meant to get behind.
Project Facts
- Location
- Red Bank, NJ
- Services
- Softwash Service, Standby Generator Service
- Client since
- April 2018
Standby generator
- Manufacturer
- Generac Model # 6551
- Rated output
- 22 kW LP / 19.5 kW NG
- Transfer switch
- 100 amp
- Load management
- Managed Whole House
Exterior cleaning
- Surface cleaned
- 8,178 sq ft
Our annual service was done yesterday by John he was amazing and has been serving our generator for a few years now, the whole team is amazing!
Green Sun Energy Services replied
Thank you, Annamaria, and John will be glad to hear it. Sending the same technician back year after year is deliberate: the generator at your home in Red Bank has a history, and the person who knows it spots a change faster than a stranger would. Good to hear the whole team came through as well.
Questions from Red Bank homeowners
Standby generatorWhat size standby generator does a Red Bank home need?
The correct size is decided by the electrical loads the generator is expected to run, not by the square footage of the house. Central air, heat pumps, electric heat, well and sump pumps, refrigerators and freezers, electric ranges and dryers, pool equipment and EV chargers all count. Where a load is connected automatically, the generator either has the capacity for it or an approved load-management system controls it.
Soft washingDoes soft washing kill the algae or just wash it off?
A properly formulated treatment is meant to treat the growth itself rather than blast the visible part off the surface. That is a large part of why the result lasts longer than simply spraying the house with water. The strength of the treatment still has to suit the material underneath it.
Standby generatorCan it start during a brownout when the power is not fully off?
Yes. The controller monitors whether the utility supply is acceptable, not merely whether voltage is present, so it can start while some lights and appliances still appear to be working. That is usually the explanation when a generator runs during severe utility-voltage problems.