Glad I could help, breh. Inverter generators are a dime a dozen now, so make sure whomever you copping from, be it a store or whomever got some kind of customer service branch you can reach out and shout at if your shyt starts to act up, but you in 'merica so servicing, parts and all that should be WAY easier than what I have to do here, in the Caribbean, which is call toll free numbers and get the run a round.
Surprised you read all that rambling, but if you did, I might as well give you a few hints/tips on generator use so that your shyt lasts longer than just the season you bought it.
1) NEVER fukkING RUN A GENERATOR INSIDE A HOUSE OR SHED FOR ANYTHING, EVER. This was a MAJOR problem in the Caribbean when folk got way too negligent in dealing with safety and only cared about their convenience. After Irmaria (Hurricanes Irma and Maria portmanteau) kicked all our power lines off cliffs'n'shyt and we had like NO powergrid, we spent more than half a year without power and that saw alot of folks cop generators to the point where that's all you'd hear. Generators of all kinds humming/buzzing and sputtering.
While Generators aren't built for constant daily use like that, with proper care and maintence you can pull alot of time/power out of these things, but once people get accostomed to something, they get lazy and grow negligent and start making mistakes that are VERY costly not just to the unit, but to you as a person.
Now as I said, everyone relied on their generators for power, and while most ran them during the evening into the night since that's the time most people who still had jobs/livlihoods to tend to were home...some people threw caution to the wind and started running them INSIDE their houses to combat the rain since they were too lazy or at times ill equipped to shelter said generators during the rain.
Now I know people that claim to have done this in some setting on some "Trump looks at the Sun and don't get hurt" type nonsense, but like with that idiot and his deluded way of thinking, NEVER test fate by trying to get away with this shyt because it WILL fukk you up if not kill you. There were a few families that got poisoned by this shyt with one group straight up fukking dying through the night because they were too lazy to build a little shed to put over their generator for when it rained. Sad...but completely avoidable breh. Don't do this shyt.
Keep it outside, keep the exhaust pointed AWAY from the house.
2) Never fukking refuel a generator while it's running! The amount of folks that did this shyt and STILL do this shyt irritates the fukk out of me because people tend to take that "Well, I've seen him do it and it ain't never happen sooooo..." approach and then the next thing you know they walking around looking like they got Vitiligo with that 'to the white meat' skin patch. This happened alot when lazy folk wanted to extend the run time of their power useage by pouring gas DIRECTLY into the tank WHILE it was running...too fukking lazy to POWER it down and give it a solid 10-15 minutes to cool down. All it takes is an odd jolt, a spark to catch the fume pouring out the bottle....and that's it. Let your fukking Genny cool down before you throw in more gas. And while you at it, make sure you respect the fukking limit they set.
3) Maintenance is key. Now I ain't gonna even front and say that I maintain my generator as diligently as I may sound giving you all this shyt, especially after we got back power and it wasn't a daily requirement for me to use it, but alot of the problems we faced dealing with damaged generators was from lack of maintenance. That comes from simply changing the oil after a certain amount of hours, NOT FILLING IT PAST THE FUEL LINE. Gas has to expand and whatever pistons are working within the engine, can't work as efficiently if it's being smothered with gas PAST the recommended line they give you.
You may think you getting away by squeezing more time out of a Genny by adding MORE fuel, but you just fukking yourself in the long run, as excess gas starts to seep into the carb, the inside of the generator itself, and other parts where you shouldn't be getting gas at all. Dont' do that shyt. As for changing the oil...you can read the book or do like me and change it atleast once a month, but keep in mind my shyt was running every day around that time, so I had way more hours than you normally would have using it for a smaller period of time. Also cleaning the dust filter if prime, same like you would your car. Simple wash and dry and you good.
4) Try to never move it while it's on. That's another common thing people tend to do with these portable gens, is move them since you got a handle, while the thing is running. Never a good idea. I've had people do that shyt and their gen's started flipping the surge breakers every minute cause shyt got messed up internally. It's even harder to deal with the intricate parts of these inverter generators since they are all housed in that compact unit, so unless you looking to play doctor with your new device, try and make sure wherever you start it, it's a prime location and you don't have to move it. But in the event you have to...turn it off before you do.
5) Storage. Now when you done with it, the urge to just leave the bytch where it is and go about your daily is STRONG. Trust me, but you gonna need this thing again and if you spent your own money and been diligent in dealing with it so far, you wanna protect your investment, right? Right. So on that note, you should start it up every couple of weeks (I'm not super keen on doing this same as maintaining it, but I never let more than two months go by without me revving it up, which ain't ideal, but still somewhat alright) so that that old gas doesn't settle inside of it and damage the Carburetor. Something that's happened to ALOT of Gen's since 2017. After Dorian passed, I had to go check out atleast two Gen's where they simply rolled it out of some dusty crawl space, Gas dormant in it from late 2017 to early 2018 and complained that it wasn't starting.
Don't be one of those folks. Either drain it completely of Gas, or throw in one of those fuel stabilizers that keep the gas in working order if you'er gonna tuck it away for a minute. However with most inverter generators, it's a bit of a chore to get INTO the fuel tank compared to the regular ones....so I just run it for a few hours when I'm there to monitor it, every two to three weeks until it runs dry, then store it.
Take what I've said on here with some extra reading, because I'm no expert on this shyt despite these solid bodies of text. I'm just detailing alot of the shyt I've dealt with dealing with Gens through my situation as a relative newbie, but these things ain't hard to use or maintain at all.
Cop and enjoy, man. Glad I could help.
What food should I get
I'm holing up with my aunt and uncle. They shop at Sams Club bi-weekly. Bout to go threw their snacks
Hope moms and them safe over on the east coast
Thank God
Breh wildin
