A generator question.

[Dave Zellers]

So life here in eastern Mass last night was powerful to say the least. 70% without power. Thankfully we bought a mid sized portable generator 2 years ago.
Mostly need it to run two refrigerators and charge my Makita batteries for light. Oh- and the coffee maker. I run it till the fridges are down to operating temp and then shut it off. My question is, is it ok to leave them plugged into the generator when I go down to start it up again. IOW, is that brief moment when it starts up a problem for the electronics or the compressor?

[Bill Dufour]

I would not try to start a generator under load. That is asking too much of the starter motor. It could strip off some teeth or just never get going fast enough to run.
Bill D.

[Dave Zellers]

Thanks. Glad I asked. I disconnected them the first time and will continue to do so.

[Dave Zellers]

Although I don’t think I have a starter motor. Pull cord. Will still play it safe though.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Although I don’t think I have a starter motor. Pull cord. Will still play it safe though.


Output voltage isn't reached till motor is up to running speed. The voltage is set by adjusting the engine speed, so the answer is a generator shouldn't start, or stop under a load. When the generator runs out of fuel, you have to wait for it to cool down before refueling. If your generator had a fuel pump, it could draw directly from your gas can, or car fuel tank. FYI, many cars have "roll over" check valves in the fueling neck that would prevent this

[Dave Zellers]

Very good to know. So unplug the fridges before shutting down and plug in after starting up.

[Kev Williams]

My generator's front panel-
467129

And a couple of places in the owner's manual:

467133

I hardly ever wait 5 minutes, maybe A minute before I plug stuff in ;)

So yes, good idea to start AND stop generators with no load-

[Dave Zellers]

Wow really glad I asked. I was talking myself into thinking I was being overly cautious.

[Tom Giles]

I do what is mentioned above, start the generator and wait for the motor to stabilize for a minute or two then plug in. I unplug before shutting down. Consider installing a transfer switch to your house power panel and you can use your house wiring instead of extension cords. You wire it in to only the circuits you need and that the generator can support.

Hurricane Charlie knocked my power out for several days and the extension cords on the floor really got on my nerves. I set my transfer switch up a couple weeks before hurricane Irma knocked my power out for 8 days. It was nice being able to live as normally as possible with only the noise of the generator being different.

[Jim Becker]

The cautions folks have made make sense...the auto transfer switch on the whole house unit at our old property doesn't switch over until the generator is running fully; hence, the approximately 15 second delay from when the mains go out and the generator power is flowing to the house.

[Ronald Blue]

Many generators have a breaker you can flip to cutoff power flow and flip back on to reconnect. Part of the purpose of auto transfer switch as I understand it is that it takes you off grid also eliminating the chance of a dangerous backfeed into the grid.

[Bill Dufour]

It will be easier if you have a power bar with a switch rather then have to pull out the fridge to unplug and plug it in. Another choice would be a wall switch mounted high, out of the way to control that outlet.
Bill D

[Jim Becker]

Many generators have a breaker you can flip to cutoff power flow and flip back on to reconnect. Part of the purpose of auto transfer switch as I understand it is that it takes you off grid also eliminating the chance of a dangerous backfeed into the grid.

Yes, that's the primary function of the auto-transfer switch, but it also isolates the generator while it's starting up and getting stable before doing the actual transfer. I was just using that as an example to reinforce the idea to the OP that it's best not to have the load on the generation during startup until it's running and stable.

[Dave Zellers]

Well, the power is back on so today I read the manual. (That's the proper procedure right? :D) Sure enough it says to let it warm up before connecting and disconnect before shutting down.

Much thanks to all the sherpas here for their guidance. After 30 years of tolerating outages, Hurricane Bob was 10 days, we bought this generator 2 years ago and this was the first time we've really needed it. Putting up with cords everywhere and getting up at 5:30 to start the generator to keep the food in the fridges cold was nothing. We were thrilled to not throw any food away, and most importantly to be able to make coffee in the morning! :p

[Tom M King]

Even though I run non-ethanol, and run all the gas out of the carb before storing ours, I still keep a spare carb on hand because sometimes it goes years between uses.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Due to costs,I run ethanol gas in my generators. I run carburetor dry before shut down. Did monthly test on two of four today. Also place a load on them during test to prevent loss of magnetism. Every month, drain one, add fresh fuel with Startron added. Run old fuel in truck. This way none have fuel over four months old in them.

[Tom M King]

I have way too much small equipment, and other things that have to be done, to do that sort of preventative maintenance. A lot of my stuff sits for years without use. I only needed the spare carb once, when there were probably 6 years between hurricanes. It took maybe ten minutes to swap the carb, and get it back to work. That was also a time when ethanol gas was all I could get. No problems with fuel issues since running non-ethanol.

I don't run the fuel out of any of my 2-stroke stuff, because the last few revolutions are without lubricant. I have a number of pieces still running that were bought new in the '90's.