You know how it goes. You prep, you prepare, you're a boy scout except for the badges.

Well, the storm took out our power all night. No big deal, I'll get up early crank up the ol emergency generator. Ah, no. For all my prep, some seal somewhere has dried out and it now leaks gas faster than I can pour it in.

I guess I'll need to refresh my prepper badge!

Where is it leaking? Around the carb, around the tank fitting, in between or all of the above? Ethanol gas? Stored with gas in it?

If not a late model (last 5-10 years) set up for ethanol, the gas will rot the rubber seals/gaskets/hose.

Ethanol seems to gum up faster and can cause stuck floats in the carb which will cause overflow/leaks there.

Two solutions for fuel storage: The best is non-ethanol gas. The other is a gas treatment formulated for ethanol.

Also, when shutting down, turn the fuel off at the tank and let the carb run dry. Disconnect the load first, obviously.

That sucks. Always good to run them at the beginning of hurricane season, and also at least once a month with a load on them.

Its leaking from a couple different places but definitely around the carb.

I have to take it all apart to see exactly where.

It was stored dry - no fuel.

Yes, I've been lax on my annual prep. It's my fault.

Good news was I got an out of box 5k watt craftsman for 550 at lowes.

Stuck bowl float?

I had stored my trusty portable generator without gasoline so at the start of hurricane season I did the annual oil change, put gas w/ stabilizer in it, and it started first pull.

I've been meaning to sell it since I had a Kohler installed so I texted my buddy and offered him a smoking deal on my whole kit (generator, dozen 5 gallon cans, 30-amp 40 foot cable, spare parts, etc). I have a truck and he doesn't so I agreed to deliver it the next day.

The next morning I go in the garage and smell gasoline. There is a puddle under the carb so I grab my stash of fuel line and install a new section of fuel line. Now, it's leaking worse than before. My wiggling the fuel line into place cracked the plastic valve coming out of the tank. My buddy said bring it over any way and he'll install the new valve (I purchased and had shipped to his house). When the part arrived, he went to install it and it turns out the gasket between the valve and the tank was bad too.

I guess the moral of the story is be careful when changing out fuel lines, and it's a good idea to have the plastic tank valve and gasket on hand too.

In the $500 price range just replace the generator with a new one every 5 years. Sell the old one for $400. No maintenance issues , fresh carburetors , no leaks, no issues. I’m also of the 2 is 1, 1 is none camp. You can get a Champion 2000 watt inverter for backup for $429. Runs all day for pennies too. Good to have when loads are less. My 2000 watt inverter will run a fridge, stand-alone freezer, and window AC unit at the same time and all day long too...

Hope you get things workable.

As an aside, I got away from storing things ‘dry’, out of fuel. One usually never gets ALL the gas out, residual is left to dry up.

For occasional use engines I use the non-ethanol fuel, helps with leaks & plastic decay.

Ideally I like to have 100LL aviation fuel run into the carb for storage. That’s all coming up this time of year as I make my last mows.

I failed to continue monthly generator starts, and ultimately came into the garage with a flooded corner...where the flood came from the aircleaner assembly of the generator. The carburetor was unable to prevent the gravity-fed fuel from passing through its needle valve. Yes, I am an ID10T.

I found it appropriate to clean the petcock screen, as well as the entire carburetor.

Yes, I use ethanol-free fuel. And now I have to go start the generator again, thanks to this thread.

I forgot to shut the fuel valve one of the times I ran the generator, and we had an accident-related outage so I went to fire it up...

Whoops... instant thunk with the starter... that's not good! Removed the plug and turned it over, got some gas splash from the hole.

Checked the oil level, and gas came out from the dipstick hole. Yikes!

Gave up on wanting power that evening, and grilled supper.

The next day I drained the oil/gas mixture, and filled with fresh 10w30 conventional. Replaced the air filer, and fired it up. Smoked like a bastard for a while, then calmed down and ran clean.
Ran it for 1 hour every night for 3 days, and did an oil change with 10w30 synthetic. And remembered to shut the fuel line off and drain the carb bowl this time!

Still can't believe I did that, never forgot to shut the valve before.

Put a fuel stabilizer in the tank and ran it before storing, fired right up at beginning of Hurry Cane season.

Bought it back in 04 when Charlie ran us over...

Theoretically speaking you shouldn't need to shut the fuel off between uses. I do, and let it run to starvation, because I subscribe to the belief (old wives tale?) that leaving fuel in the carburetor for long periods will gum it up. But you shouldn't need to. Problem is: All it takes is the most minor bit of dirt to get into the carburetor bowl needle valve seat and you can end up with what 4MUL8R or Gibb did.

I start up our generator once-a-year, let it reach full operating temperature, shut it down as noted above, pump the gasoline out and replace it with fresh. I use nothing but Rec Gas, now, and add Sta-Bil.

The gasoline that gets pumped-out gets used in the lawn equipment.