UPS Repairs and Emergency Call-Out in Durban
When a UPS goes into fault, you have two problems. The first is that your load is now exposed. The second is that you do not know why, and until you do, replacing parts is guesswork with your money.
We repair commercial and industrial UPS systems across Durban and KwaZulu-Natal. We diagnose before we quote, we tell you when a repair is not economical, and we do not sell you a new system when a component will do.
Call 031 100 2679 or email service@powerinfrastructure.co.za.
What we repair
Battery faults. Failed strings, failed individual blocks dragging a whole string down, thermal runaway damage, charging faults and banks that pass a voltage check but fail under load.
Charger and rectifier faults. Units that will not charge, charge intermittently, or charge but never reach float.
Inverter faults. Output instability, units dropping to bypass and staying there, overload and over temperature shutdowns.
Bypass and static switch faults. Units stuck on bypass, failed transfer, and units that will not return to inverter.
Control and communication faults. Display and control board failures, firmware faults, SNMP and monitoring card failures, and false alarm conditions.
Cooling and mechanical. Fan failure, blocked filters, dust ingress and the heat damage that follows it.
Capacitor and life cycle failure. DC bus and AC filter capacitors have a service life measured in years, not decades. A large share of the "sudden" failures we attend are simply components that reached the end of a life nobody was tracking.
We diagnose before we quote
The most expensive repair is the wrong one. A unit that keeps tripping on overload might have a genuine overload, a failed current sensor, a failing fan causing thermal derate, or a battery bank pulling excessive charge current. Four different faults, four different costs, one identical symptom on the display.
Our call-out starts with a diagnosis: fault log and event history review, live measurement of input, output, DC bus and battery parameters, thermal inspection of connections and components, battery bank impedance testing at block level rather than a string voltage reading, and load verification against the unit's rating.
You get a written finding with readings before you get a quotation. If the unit is beyond economical repair, we will say that in writing and show you the numbers, rather than quoting a repair we know will not hold.
Emergency call-out
Equipment fails outside office hours more often than inside them, because that is when load profiles change, cleaning staff unplug things and grid events happen.
Clients on a service level agreement get committed response times written into the contract, priority over ad hoc call-outs, and a technician who already has the site history, the commissioning readings and the fault log from the last visit. That history is frequently the difference between a two hour diagnosis and a two day one.
Ad hoc emergency call-outs are available across Durban and KZN subject to technician availability.
Repair, or replace
We will tell you when to stop spending money on a machine.
A repair usually makes sense when the unit is under roughly eight to ten years old, spare parts are still supported by the manufacturer, the fault is a defined component rather than widespread degradation, and the repair cost sits well below the replacement cost.
Replacement usually makes sense when the platform is end of support and boards are no longer available, when multiple subsystems are failing in sequence rather than one component, when the unit has suffered a thermal or water event, or when the repair quote starts approaching half the cost of a new system with a fresh warranty and a decade of life.
We produce condition reports on this basis regularly, including for insurers and for facilities managers who need a documented technical position rather than an opinion. Where a unit is beyond economical repair we will say so plainly and quote the replacement separately, so you can see both numbers side by side.
Repairs on any brand
We repair Riello, Vertiv and Liebert, Schneider Electric and APC, Eaton, Delta, Makelsan and most other commercial UPS platforms found in South Africa. We are an authorised Riello installer for KZN and a Vertiv Silver Partner, which gives us direct manufacturer support on those platforms.
We do not require you to have bought the unit from us.
The fault you fix twice is the one you did not diagnose
Roughly a third of the emergency call-outs we attend are repeat failures on equipment that was "repaired" by someone else within the previous year. A battery string replaced without testing the charger that killed it. A fan replaced without cleaning the filters that starved it. A board swapped without finding the surge path that took out the first one.
This is the argument for a maintenance contract rather than a repair relationship. Under an SLA, the unit is inspected on a schedule, battery impedance is trended over time, life cycle components are replaced before they fail, and the failure that would have cost you a night of downtime becomes a line item on a planned visit.
Our clients on SLA call us for emergencies far less often. That is the point of it.
Areas we cover
Durban CBD, harbour precinct and Maydon Wharf, the Bluff and Jacobs, Umhlanga and Umgeni Business Park, Pinetown, Westmead and New Germany, Amanzimtoti and the South Coast, Ballito and the North Coast, Richards Bay and Empangeni, Pietermaritzburg and the Midlands.
Frequently asked questions
My UPS is beeping continuously. Is that an emergency?
It depends on the alarm. A continuous audible alarm with a red fault indicator usually means the unit is no longer protecting the load, and that is urgent. See what your UPS alarm is telling you, then call 031 100 2679.
How quickly can you get to site?
Clients on a service level agreement have committed response times in their contract. For ad hoc call-outs across the Durban metro we respond as fast as technician availability allows, and we will give you an honest time when you call rather than an optimistic one.
Do you repair UPS systems you did not supply?
Yes, across all major commercial brands.
Can a UPS be repaired without shutting down our load? Often yes, if the unit has a working maintenance bypass. If it does not, that is usually the first thing we recommend fixing. See maintenance bypass switches.
Is it worth repairing an old UPS?
Sometimes. We give you the repair cost, the replacement cost and our honest recommendation in writing, and you decide.
What does a UPS repair cost?
Diagnosis is quoted as a call-out. The repair is quoted separately once we know what is actually wrong, because quoting before diagnosis is guessing.
Need us to Repair your UPS?
Call 031 100 2679. Or book an assessment and we will find the problem before it becomes an outage. Email service@powerinfrastructure.co.za.
