Toller wrote:
I have a 4 year old Honda EU2000i with about 200 hours of use. I
have done the proper maintenance on it.
I leave it with gas and gas stabilizer, and start it up for 5 minutes
once a month. When it gets hard to start I change the gas; that is
about once a year.

Tonight we had 2 brief power losses, and since it is 5 degrees out, I
thought it would be a good idea to warm up the generator. It wouldn't
start. I brought it in the house for a half hour, but that didn't
help. I changed the gas; that did the trick. As I understand it,
the most volatile parts of the gas evaporate, leaving something
behind that is inadequate to start the engine; is that correct? Is
there anything I could add to the old gas to revive it? Everything
worked out fine (no outage so far, and the generator finally started)
but I would hate to have to do this in the dark during a real outage.
(I mean, besides changing the gas more often...)
Thanks.

If you are using real stabilizer and if you are replacing the gas at
least once a year you should be fine, I think for your use I would switch
out the gas every six months..

The usual problem with old gas is not evaporation. Gasoline is usually
stored in air and gasoline proof containers. The problem is polymerization.
where the smaller molecule combine into larger ones.

You can burn that old gas in your car, but don't add a couple of gallons
to an almost empty tank. Fill it almost up and add about a half gallon at a
time. It will not hurt your car.

--
Joseph Meehan

Dia 's Muire duit