1. Always add Stabill or equivalent to the fuel you use (this should
give you almost a year of use).
2. Shut off the generator by shutting off the fuel and letting it run dry.
3. Set up a schedule to once or twice a year to drain all the fuel and
replenish it.
4. Put all the 6-month-old fuel in your service trucks.
bp
<part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>
On 1/5/2025 9:21 PM, Ken Hohhof wrote:
What do you folks do with your portable gasoline generators to avoid
stale fuel problems?
I’m talking 1000-2400 VA generators that you take out to a tower site
when there’s a power shortage. And when power comes back on, there
could be from zero to a full tank of gas in the generator, and it
could be a week or a year before you use it again.
I have a couple Honda inverter type generators, and I’m bad about just
taking them back to the shop and letting them sit until next time I
need them. They’ve always started. I think it helps that the Hondas
have a fuel shutoff valve between the tank and the carburetor, and
also a shutoff for the fuel cap vent. I also suspect the Hondas
actually pump fuel from the tank to the float bowl rather than gravity
feed but I’m not sure about that. I don’t however drain the
carburetor after use, and in Illinois you can’t by E0 pump gas. It
has to be E10, unless you buy outrageously expensive gas in cans like
TruFuel. I guess we have to put lousy gas in our small engines to
help the farmers sell their corn.
Should I be emptying the fuel tank after every use? Am I OK to leave
gas in the generator if I add Sta-Bil to the gas in the can I use to
fill the generator? Should I fill the generator to the top before
storing it rather than leave it half full?
Or am I overthinking this? I know I left about an inch of gas in my
snowblower tank after last winter and it really didn’t want to start
this year. I pumped out the fuel tank, refilled it with TruFuel,
drained the float bowl several times, finally got it to start but it
ran like crap for 2-3 minutes. I think it wasn’t varnish but water in
the gas from the alcohol pulling moisture out of the air, but I’m not
sure.
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