Back in 2010, I saw a house with a wall box and outlet in the garage.
We were house shopping, so I was curious about the box and asked the Realtor: “What’s this?”
“That’s so he can plug in his generator if the power ever goes out,” was the answer.
I thought to myself: “How extremely cool and practical.”
We didn’t find a house we liked that year, so we bought five acres and had a house built, with exactly such a box and plug-in for a generator included in the garage wall.
We didn’t have a generator at the time, but soon acquired one. A Troy-Bilt with 6250 watts. I figured that was plenty of juice to keep most of the household functioning in case of an outage.
I fired it up and let it run a while, with a mental note to start it maybe every month or two just to be sure it would be ready in case we needed it.
We have Canadian Valley Coop electricity, which has been bullet-proof. Other than an occasional blink, we didn’t lose electricity for a full decade.
It was nice, knowing that the lights would always come on anytime we flipped the switch.
The generator was still out in the garage, but after a couple of months I got out of the routine of starting it.
Then came the Great October Ice Storm of 2020. You remember it, I am sure. We got about an inch of ice just before Halloween and it knocked out power through wide areas of the state.
Our house lost power, too, but not to worry. The trusty generator was out there in the garage, ready to spring to life and keep us warm, fed and connected to the Internet.
So I wheeled it out to the driveway and yanked the starting cord a time or two. Nothing. It had always started on the first or second pull, so something was obviously wrong.
I mentally ran back through the calendar and realized I hadn’t started it in a little more than nine years.
That was when I realized: I probably left gas in it, and it had evaporated and left the carburetor too clogged to run.
It was cold outside, way too cold for taking off and cleaning a carburetor, so I went back in the house and got the fireplace going.
A few hours later, the power was back, we had all the amenities of country life and the clogged generator carburetor was filed away as a project for the future.
Turns out the future was last Saturday. Kindra and I were cleaning the garage and needed to move the generator, so I thought: Why not check it out now?
First, I needed to know how big of a container it would take to hold the old gas in the tank, so I unscrewed the lid and peered in.
No gas visible. I wiggled the tank to make a ripple in the gas, but still couldn’t see any.
Surely it hadn’t all evaporated. Then, gradually, a light bulb came on over my head.
The last time I had started it, had I let it burn all the gas so it wouldn’t have any extra to clog up the fuel line and carburetor?
Turns out, that’s exactly what had I had done. And then promptly forgot about it.
Then came that icy day in October when it was so cold I forgot the No. 1 rule of Shade Tree Mechanics: Always check the gas first.
So I poured in a few ounces of gas, yanked the cord and the generator came alive. I mixed some Marvel Mystery Oil with a gallon of fresh gas and let it run it until it was out.
So, now I feel better knowing: a., I hadn’t really stored the generator improperly, as I had thought; b. if we lose power again, this time we’re ready.
Meanwhile, though, this was slightly embarrassing and I’d hate for it to become too widely known.
Could we keep it just between us and not mention it to anyone else?