From all the complaints I've heard, the problem is not solved with new gear. It's not just an issue of ethanol attacking seals, that problem was solved. It's that ethanol attracts water and the gasoline turns to gunk and clogs up the carb.
I'm sure the newer stuff is fine with ethanol . But as long as I can get the gas without , I'll use it .
Same here. I put stabilizer in too. The ethanol three was about 70 cents more but may avoid problems.
You shouldn't store ANYTHING with gasoline in it, E-10 or E-0.
This has been sound advice decades before the politicians bent over for ADM and put corn in the tank.
Faults are typically Line to Earth and the GFCI is useless if the generator frame is not grounded.
When you parallel the neutral and EGC you have objectionable current. That is not necessarily fault current. .
The main issue with E-10 is phase separation or the fact that ethanol is a better solvent than gasoline and it breaks loose long forgotten crud in the fuel system. Your stuff has to be pretty old not to be E-10 compliant. OTOH E-10 will absorb the accumulated water in your tank that came from running E-0 forever. You might want to dribble in a little at a time for a while until you are sure you have that problem solved. It is basically "dry gas". Everything I have has never seen anything but E-10. I buy the gas, I use the gas and I buy some more, no problems. Just don't store it for months at a time and never in the equipment.
The thing with me is that this equipment may sit for months at a time unused . But when I need it I NEED it . Ethanol laced gas has a very poor track record for long term storage whether stabilized or not . Example is the generator , last Wednesday our power was off for several hours for line maintenance/upgrades . It has sat unused for at least six months and it fired on the first pull . Same with my chainsaws (well , not first pull) . This time of year and for the next few months they'll get lots of exercise . Then they will sit in the shop for a few months .
Why not dump the gas out and run it dry? That is particularly true with something like a generator that uses the same gas as your car/truck. The reality is I would dump a pint of 50:1 in my car in a heartbeat too. I always mix my gas right before I use my chain saw and run out whatever I am not using. If you talk to any compounding pharmacy they will give you (or sell you pretty cheap) a 10CC syringe and that works out perfect 50:1 for
1/2 liter of gas (about a pint).
You may not have any problem with the ethanol, but seems that you snow thrower did. That is one of the big gripes about the ethanol. Let is sit in a samll engine and it gums up the carborator for one thing.
If you have older equipment the ethanol may eat the seals or cause other problems. A few years back, way after the ethanol was added some of the small engines still have problems with it eating the 'rubber and plastic' parts.
It is not good to run the 2 cycle engines dry as they get the lube from the oil. Each time they are ran dry you probaly do some damage to the bearings.
Gotta be careful about that - the affordable inverter generators - seem to only go 115 volts - I might need to open the vault < my wallet > when my old Honda gives-up-the-ghost - to get a 220 volt inverter unit ... John T.
I bought my Honda em5000 in 1999 used ... I have used only regular < Canadian regular > gasoline. ... so far so good - no problems at all - unless I forget to test-run it every 4 months or so - then it might take 3 or even 4 or 5 pulls to start .. I always add some stabilizer when buying gas for the lawn mowers and generator ; and try to time my winter gas purchase for very late fall / early winter < no snowblower .. yet >
Maybe I'm just lucky ? Maybe the American regular has more corn-fuel ? dunno. John T.
How do I " store " ~ 10 gallons of gasoline from mid November to April / May ? in plastic jerry cans in my shed ? or in the generator gas tank ? What's the difference .. ? I do both & my 20 + year old Honda em5000 is still fine. John T.
Say what? Faults where a hot contacts a metal box, a metal appliance frame, a metal tool frame, a metal light frame, etc are not typical and more common than a fault to earth? And with those the generator GFCI will instantly trip, but only if the neutral is bonded to the eqpt grounding conductor which is part of the neutral bonding to the frame. And I think that is likely why they want the neutral bonded to ground.
I didn't say it was. IF you're not going to do the switched neutral transfer switch option, I'd say it's the next best choice, it's a no brainer to do, lots of people are likely doing that, whether they know it or not and I could live with it.
One difference is that the jerry cans are sealed and the gas tanks are vented. The gas can suck water fro the air. Then it seems that ethanol wants to react with the metal in the carborator. I have cleaned green goo out of my generator several times before I quit the ethanol and also run it dry.
A tiller I have that sits for 10 months gets the ethanol free and runs empty . Always starts (fo the last 10 years) with one or two pulls.
If equipment manufacturers would just put a 50 cent or so shut off valve to the carburetor a lot of problems would be alleviated. I have to drain the tank and burn it dry on my snow thrower but a friend just turns of the valve and runs dry. I have one on my lawn mower and generator.
Funny one day with my wife buying gas with no ethanol out of state, she asked if it was OK in her car. All we have here is gas with ethanol.
There have been plenty of people here and all over the internet complaining about E-10 screwing up small engines.
It absorbs water from the air too and condensation too.
You might want to dribble in a little at a
But that's part of the problem. Gas in many small engines does sit around for weeks to months. And before E-10 that generally wasn't a problem. Take a look around HD, they sell ethanol free gas and I've seen people here seeking it out. It can't all be just for old engines.
Not sure that letting the gas sit in the tank instead of the carb solves the problems. It might be better though and I agree that a shutoff is a good idea. If for nothing else, when you have to take the carb apart to clean it, you can just shut it off, instead of draining the tank. I learned that lesson with things like the snowblower. When starting it for the first time in the season, I only put a small amount of gas in it, so that if it won't start or run right, I don't have much to drain out to take the carb off.
The amount of lube lasts in the moving parts long after the carburetor starves for fuel or most equipment would be junk pretty fast. Running out of gas happens just about every tank of gas. Fuel was "varnishing" up decades before the crooks in Washington sold us out to "Big Corn".
You store it in jerry cans that are full. (Less air space). I would also recommend dumping them in your car every 2 or 3 months and refilling them with fresh gas. I have a boat so that is not an issue with a 12 month boating season. You can blow off that idea but don't be whining about bad gas.
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