Must be winter, pulled the generator out of storage

I hate sitting in the dark. My old place in the Santa Cruz Mountains would go out for weeks at a time. When we moved the generator came with us. I charged up the starter battery and fired it up today in preparation for whatevery may come this way this winter.



What you got?

I've got a 2 year old Honda-by-northern 10kw that has  like, 18 minutes of run time on it. My father-in-law wired up the house for a single plus, which is awesome.
I run it about 6 times a year for maintenance but have not had an extended outage since I bought it (which figures)

I did just buy gas for it though, so maybe tonight...

add stabil to the gas and it will last all year for when you really need it

Thanks for the reminder.  I've got a Honda EU7000 inverter generator I converted to run on propane.  It's triple fuel; propane, natural gas and gasoline.  I've only run it on propane though.  There's never been a drop of gas in the tank.  Virgin.  Ha!

Propane never goes stale and the motor oil stays very clean due no ring blow-by to contaminate it. 

The genny plugs into that gray box near the handle, below the breaker box.  I do a master cut from PG&E to my genny AND I disconnect my solar generation as the mis phase would destroy the solar inverter and the genny's inverter if I tried to close them in together.  (Important to remember if you have solar to disconnect it.  Since most power outages happen after dark, folks forget, the sun comes up and KaBlewy!!  )

This photo is last year's first snow fall and getting the genny set up before going to bed. 

remember to check the oil level in the crankcase and/ or change it before using it.

remember to check the oil level in the crankcase and/ or change it before using it.

Good reminder. Mine has a low oil light and cut-out.  It will shut down if the oil level drops below a certain point. 

Here's a tip;
Never check oil while the motor is running.  I tried that once; pulled the fill plug/dipstick out and oil blew out everywhere!!  I looked like an idiot, trying to put that plug back in with oil spraying me, my face, the side of the house, etc.  I should have just hit the kill button.  Ha! 

yup, stabil in the fuel.
My setup plug in is pretty much the same as Jerry's.
good tip on checking the oil.

my headache with the generator was only related to the two manuals that came with it. Both Honda and Northern manuals specified to turn the fuel off during storage. Of course they would.
But would either of them indicate which direction the fuel valve needed to go to be in "off" or "on"? No, why would you need that? Such a small thing but it drove me crazy. 
I ended up writing my own cheater manual so that my better half can set it up and operate it. It is attached to the gennie cage in a ziploc.
Yes, I included illustrations!