Electrical systems rarely fail without warning. They fail after months of warning that nobody was scheduled to look for. A loose lug heats, oxidizes, heats faster, and eventually opens a phase at the worst possible hour. The failure is sudden; the condition that caused it was not.

Preventive maintenance is the discipline of finding those conditions on your schedule instead of theirs. Below is a workable commercial electrical maintenance framework for commercial and industrial facilities, separated into what an in-house team can reasonably own and what belongs to a licensed electrician.

Why a Written Program Matters

NFPA 70B addresses electrical equipment maintenance, and NFPA 70E governs electrical safety in the workplace — including the energized-work practices and personal protective equipment requirements that shape how inspection work is actually performed. Insurers, lenders, and prospective tenants increasingly ask to see a maintenance record. A written program with dated findings is also the fastest way to establish that a failure was not caused by neglect.

The program does not need to be elaborate. It needs to exist, name an owner, define intervals, and produce records that someone actually reads.

Monthly: In-House Walkthrough

These tasks are visual and audible. Your maintenance team can perform them without opening energized equipment.

Walk every electrical room. Confirm the required working clearance in front of panels and switchgear is clear — NEC 110.26 working space is not storage space.
Look for panel covers left off, missing breaker knockout fillers, and open junction boxes.
Listen at panels and transformers for buzzing, arcing, or a change in the normal hum.
Smell for hot insulation. Staff notice this before instruments do.
Check that electrical rooms are dry, ventilated, and at a reasonable temperature.
Test exit and emergency egress lighting; log which units failed.
Note any breaker that has tripped since the last walk, and why.
Scan for damaged cords, temporary wiring that has become permanent, and daisy-chained power strips.

Quarterly: Deeper Checks

Test GFCI devices in wet, outdoor, kitchen, and rooftop locations per NEC 210.8 requirements.
Exercise and inspect generator and transfer equipment, following the manufacturer’s interval for your backup and standby power system.
Inspect exterior and parking lot lighting after dark, when outages are actually visible.
Review your surge protective devices — many have status indicators that silently go dark after they have absorbed a hit.
Verify panel schedules still match reality after the quarter’s small changes.

Annual: Licensed Electrician Scope

This work requires qualified personnel, appropriate PPE, and in most cases a planned shutdown window.

Infrared thermographic survey

A thermal scan of panels, switchgear, disconnects, and motor control centers under load identifies hot connections before they fail. It is the single highest-value annual task for most commercial buildings, and it is non-invasive.

Torque verification and connection service

Connections loosen through thermal cycling. Verifying terminations to the manufacturer’s torque specification, cleaning and re-terminating where corrosion is present, and documenting the results closes out the most common root cause of electrical fires and unplanned outages.

Equipment cleaning and inspection

Dust, moisture intrusion, and insect activity inside enclosures degrade insulation and bridge clearances. Switchgear and MCC interiors should be cleaned and inspected on a defined interval, with findings photographed.

Grounding and bonding verification

Ground electrode conductors, bonding jumpers, and equipment grounding connections should be inspected and tested. Grounding and surge protection is the foundation everything else depends on, and it is almost never checked until something sensitive starts failing intermittently.

Protective device review

Confirm breaker and fuse ratings still match the loads they serve, especially in buildings where tenant fit-outs have changed the load profile since the panel was built.

What Records to Keep

For each interval: date, who performed the work, what was inspected, what was found, what was corrected, and what was deferred with a target date. Photographs of findings. Thermographic images with temperature deltas noted. Torque values where applicable.

Deferred items are the most important line. A finding that is documented and scheduled is risk management; a finding that is documented and forgotten is evidence.

Building the Schedule Around Your Operation

Annual shutdown work has to land somewhere. Retail schedules it after the holiday season; schools during summer or spring break; manufacturing during a planned changeover. Pick the window deliberately and book the contractor early, because everyone in your sector wants the same two weeks.

For facilities that cannot shut down, some scope can be performed with the equipment energized by qualified personnel under NFPA 70E work practices, and some genuinely cannot. A contractor who tells you everything can be done hot is telling you something about their safety culture.

Talk to Hargrove Electric

If your facility has no written electrical maintenance program — or has one that nobody has executed in a while — an assessment is the place to start. Hargrove Electric has served commercial and industrial clients across the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex for over 55 years, operating under Texas Electrical Contractor License #17522. Call 214-742-8665 or contact us online to schedule a walkthrough.