Fall Generator Maintenance

[littlebigreef]

I can do some plumbing, electrical, and I can take care of corals. Small engines on the other hand are not my strong suit.

Anyone have some good maintenance tips for gas powered generators? Seems like now would be a good time to make sure everything is in good working order before the winter weather hits.

 

[CC13]

I can do some plumbing, electrical, and I can take care of corals. Small engines on the other hand are not my strong suit.

Anyone have some good maintenance tips for gas powered generators? Seems like now would be a good time to make sure everything is in good working order before the winter weather hits.

My generator came with a Honda powerplant and it gives instructions for maintenance and storage.

I usually make sure there is fresh gas, change the oil, spark plug and fire up the generator. I usually let it run for about an hour to make sure its making power. After that its pretty much good to go.

I have this one incase you wanted to reference its manual with the instructions for maintenance:

https://powerequipment.honda.ca/generators/ultra-quiet-3000i-es

I would assume the maintenance for most generators are pretty similar (excluding obviously the Generac electrical or propane units).

 

[Eagle_Steve]

I can do some plumbing, electrical, and I can take care of corals. Small engines on the other hand are not my strong suit.

Anyone have some good maintenance tips for gas powered generators? Seems like now would be a good time to make sure everything is in good working order before the winter weather hits.

Here is what I do for my small ones.

Check oil and change if it has been in there a while.
Clean or replace air filter.
Run it. Get all old gas out if it has not been run in a while. If tank is full, siphon most of it out. Replace the fuel with non-ethanol fuel if available.
If it is diesel (one of mine is), siphon most of it out, and replace with an anti-gel winter blend.
If it is gas and it has a little stumble or miss, replace the spark plug(s). They are cheap.
Refer to owners manual for additional items that may need up keep.

For big natural gas/propane systems, follow maint. instructions to a "t". I have a big generac installed and it runs itself monthly to test, and is about due for some tune up work. All easy to do, but maint. instructions are key to that unit.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

opps. double post.

 

[CC13]

Clean or replace air filter.

+1

Forgot this. This is important also.

 

[mcdrichj]

What type of generator do you have? It is best to start it once a month or every other month and let it run for 30 min. Just as others have stated change the oil, check the spark plug, and clean the air filter. Very important as @Eagle_Steve pointed out if it is a gas generator get NON-ethanol gas!!!!! Ethanol with spoil the gas and its corrosive to components in the fuel system.

 

[ca1ore]

Yeah, excercising it monthly (or even every couple) is the most important thing lest you go outside on that snowy day to find it won't start.

 

[Breadman03]

I can do some plumbing, electrical, and I can take care of corals. Small engines on the other hand are not my strong suit.

Anyone have some good maintenance tips for gas powered generators? Seems like now would be a good time to make sure everything is in good working order before the winter weather hits.

Fire it up every month or so for a bit and run it with a load. I like to use mine to run a fan, circular saw, fridge, or something comparable for a bit.

Keep fresh gas. It's easy in summer when the lawnmower is in use, but I pour the gas can into my car about every month in the winter just to keep it fresh.

Change the oil and any filters per the manual.

 

[fishybizzness]

And add stp gas treatment to the gas as well! Keeps it from breaking down.

 

[littlebigreef]

All sounds good. I have the manual and stuff, bought it brand new, I've only had to run it once for 6 hours last November. After about a month I drained the gas. I was mostly just curious to see what everyone had to say.

Follow up question, my garage isn't heated. It is safe to leave in there through the winter (Chicago we sometimes get down to single digits during January and February). I know gas has a freezing point of -40 to -200. I'm just wondering about its readiness if I have to start it on a particularly cold day.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

All sounds good. I have the manual and stuff, bought it brand new, I've only had to run it once for 6 hours last November. After about a month I drained the gas. I was mostly just curious to see what everyone had to say.

Follow up question, my garage isn't heated. It is safe to leave in there through the winter (Chicago we sometimes get down to single digits during January and February). I know gas has a freezing point of -40 to -200. I'm just wondering about its readiness if I have to start it on a particularly cold day.

It will be fine stored there, as long as it has non-ethanol gas in it. Most small engines are vented to the atmosphere in some way and this can cause the alcohol in the gas to absorb water in the air.

If you are storing it empty, it will be perfectly fine though. Although, you may want to run at no load and idle or low rpm until the oil warms up some.

 

[CC13]

All sounds good. I have the manual and stuff, bought it brand new, I've only had to run it once for 6 hours last November. After about a month I drained the gas. I was mostly just curious to see what everyone had to say.

Follow up question, my garage isn't heated. It is safe to leave in there through the winter (Chicago we sometimes get down to single digits during January and February). I know gas has a freezing point of -40 to -200. I'm just wondering about its readiness if I have to start it on a particularly cold day.

I live in Toronto where there are weeks in the winter that hit as low as -30 to -40 (I think the record was last winter we got to -51 with the windchill). If you generator has an electric start, I would say that makes it a lot easier, but if its a quality built unit, you should be able to fire it up with no problem even with pull-start.

If for whatever reason you can't get it started, you can remove the air filter and drop in a couple squirts of fuel into the carburetor....next pull it will fire up for sure on the first pull and by doing this you sort of bump start the engine and the unit will automatically prime all the fuel lines and you'll be off to the races. You can use this technique with any carburetor gasoline engine (lawnmower, snowblower, water pump, ect).

 

[rob taft]

No different than your gas powered lawn mower. When I lived in the UP of MI I kept the lawn mower/snowblower full of gas during the down time but used non ethanol gas and the fuel stabilizer Stabil. I now have a 20KW generator running off propane with an automatic transfer system and it self tests i.e. runs for 20mins once a week.