After the mess with Duke Energy doing some blackouts, I decided to fire up the generator. It had been about a year. I keep the battery on a tender when not in use. Hooked it up and nothing. You hear a click but not electric start. I proceeded to pull start about 20 times and nothing. Frustrated, I hook up propane, and it started right up. Switch back to gas and still good. Electric start is dead, waiting on an answer from Champion on what it could be.

Don't forget to start them up regularly to avoid mess like this.

It's not just starting them that is needed. You need to put a load on them periodically to make sure it's actually generating power.

Back when I had a portable generator my goal was quarterly starting it, letting it run on idle for a few minutes, letting it run 10 minutes running both a fan and my microwave leftover from my renting days, letting it run on idle a few minutes, and then shutting off.

I currently have a Kohler whole house generator. It runs every week automatically without a load. It gets a load twice a year during maintenance so my goal is in between maintenance to put a load on it. If there is an actual power outage, I skip the maintenance load.

Does your carb have an electric solenoid in the bottom, if so these are prone to sticking, removing it and cleaning so that it functions is key to fuel flowing.

Same happened to neighbors, we validated fuel flow, it would start on LP, local shop said pull the solenoid and clean, did that and hit it with starting fluid to prime and it fired right up with gas.

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:

I currently have a Kohler whole house generator. It runs every week automatically without a load. It gets a load twice a year during maintenance so my goal is in between maintenance to put a load on it. If there is an actual power outage, I skip the maintenance load.

This, except mine picks up the load during the weekly test. On mine it's selectable via the maintenance interface on the generator.

While we're on the subject, a youngster I've more-or-less mentored since he was a pre-teen dropped by to see if I had a generator he could borrow. Dug my old 4KW Coleman gasser out of the back of the shed and spent the next two hours getting it running for him. It had been sitting in that shed since I had the big Kohler put in (10+ years) with bad gas in the tank and all the things you're NOT supposed to do when storing engines. Long story short, carb off 3 times before I decided to swap the plug. VROOOOOOOOOOMMMM! As a rule plugs either work or they don't. The old one would fart and burble and run for a few seconds and then quit. Can't recall ever having seen that before.

Tatortodd, I usually do put a load on it while its running. I'll run my air compressor, charge batteries, etc. Might as well use the power while its running.