do you really only check it once a year? i haven't had mine too long but generally run it once a month and only use ethanol free gas. if i only have to do it once a year that is a blessing.

I usually run mine 3-4 times a year or when I need it for sumtin....
It is time to run it again tho..... Mine has been fine with plain pump gas (yes, has ethanol) but I ALWAYS turn the gas line off and run the bowl dry --- its been fine for 16+ years.


Edit --- Just got done running mine for~20 minutes with a parabolic heater plugged in.... I'm a bit disappointed it took TWO pulls to start it... probably would've started on the first if I had waited longer after turning the gas on..... And thats with pump gas that from last summer (spring?) --- I always leave ~ 1 gal in the tank.

I gotta say --- I'm a little disappointed that I don't get more use out of my genny.... it only gets used when I can't reach where I need to with a sawzall/elec hedger/elec chainsaw on my 100' cord or when the power goes out. I'm glad I didn't go big on it either -- I only have four circuits on the transfer switch that are furnace/fridge/living room lights/master bed lights so the 3500/4000W 30A $300 Champion is plenty for what I need..... Anything bigger would've been wasted $$$ and so far the little Champion has been a solid performer.

Mine has no easy way to drain the bowl after a run or I would. I do this with my sail boat's outboard which massively cuts down on having to clean / rebuild my carburetor. My genset's carb isn't easily accessible, and there's only an electrical shut off switch, not a gas shut off. I suppose I could shut off the air inlet to the gas tank & let it pull a vacuum on the tank that way, but I haven't found that to be necessary.

As far as size, mine's only a 3kw generator, enough to keep both my freezers and both my fridges running so I don't lose any frozen food, plus a few lights. To be honest, I kind of like it when the power goes out. It gets quiet and peaceful (you can't hear my generator past about 20' from it or so). As long as I can get my neighbor across the street to point his genset's exhaust away from us, we don't have to listen to his either.



I've had this genset since the 2008 ice storm where we lost power for about 8 days. Running it once a year seems to be enough to keep it happy, plus I'm bound to run it a couple of times in the winter when a tree takes out our power for a day or whatever. That seems to happen about 50% of the winters here.

Appreciate this thread. I dusted off the gen that came with our new place and tested it a few weeks back.

Today with the sun shining and not a cloud in the sky power went out. Inland power finally answered their billing line (you have to pretend to want to give them money to get them to answer the damn phone) meanwhile they weren't answering the outage line or emergency line (so much for downed lines or trees or gas leaks right?). No ETA on fix so I'm running the generator. Have a nice manual failover setup. I need to read more about this gen, so far I'm running a household kitchen split fridge/freezer combo, an 18 horse power well pump and controller and two chest freezers in the garage. Think this thing can handle more or any way to power it down to economize gas usage?

Where are you all getting ethanol-free gas?
I'm tired of degunking carbs....

Check out www.pure-gas.org

MOD EDIT: URL fixed to add the hyphen and to hyperlink.

What the hell is this redirect?

I fixed the link.

Oh that works waaay better!

Thank you!

You sure about the 18 hp pump? I would double check.... Find some charts for 'typical' wattages for the appliances and add them up to see how close to max you are for your jenny --- be sure to pay attention to the 'starting' watts - thats what will trip the breaker.

I'm kinda lost as to how the amps work on a 240/120 output.... mine is just a 120 output...

I just ran across this vid of what to do to put your genny up for storage.... I don't know about filling the carb with transmission fluid --- that seems extreme to me - but as he says 'its old school' so there might be something to it. Figured I'd just past it along.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWNC1TDTpzk

For me - shutting the gas valve and running it dry and giving it a run 3-4 times a year seems to keep it pretty happy. I probably should start pulling the plug at the bottom of the carb bowl.... but I haven't felt the need yet.

Well, it's past that time of year, but I wasn't even within 8000 miles of my generator for the whole month of September, so I'm not sweating being late too much.

I'm still not feeling so perky, so I didn't do my regular clean & gap like I normally would. Still started on the 3rd pull (should start on first, but I'll take it). Ran it for 15 minutes to get the oil nice & pushed around, filled the tank up to the neck of the filler pipe with non-ethanol gas (I'll never run a small engine with ethanol gas if I can help it, ever again).

Also looked around for my square bladed shovel, I have a feeling we're going to have an "interesting" winter and it's easier to use the narrower bladed shovel than the full on snow shovel (which I already knew where it was). Couldn't find it and thought I was going to be able to get a new one, but then I remembered our last run to the dump before our trip, and there it was, with my shop broom, in the bed of my truck.

Once I catch my breath a bit (Covid knocks the shit out of your respiratory system), I'll probably take down a couple of my better lanterns (better = not a PITA to deal with), and make sure they're ready to go as well, same with my propane & white gas heaters. If I'm feeling particularly frisky, I'll take out 1-2 of our white gas stoves, but not too worried about that, we have gas for our regular stove, and in 20+ years of living here, we've never once lost gas.

Still waiting for the sweats & thumping heart to calm down.

Hope you feel better soon, David

Sorry David, that spicy cough is no fun. Feel better soon and thanks for the generator prompt. Mine is buried under crap somewhere, I should get organized.