I have a 3500 watt Chinese generator. Seems ok, runs fine. It says not to run it during wet or rainy conditions. That's reasonable I guess, since I don't want electricty flying all over. But, if I happen to have a power blackout and it's raining for a day or two, I figured that maybe I could throw a tarp over the deck in the backyard and let the generator run underneath it? The deck has about four feet of ground clearance and extends far enough from the house so I'm not worried about carbon monoxide.
I have power cords back there that power the fountain and even a heated birdbath during the winter, and those are fairly unprotected from the rain/snow. Those don't short out the house (GFI of course).