A generator has no boom, no tracks and no load to tip. Yet of all the machines in this section it is the one that kills fastest — without moving, through a gas you cannot see or smell. Nothing said elsewhere in this section applies here: different family, different danger.
Your manufacturer’s manual prevails. This page gives the order of the steps and what is specific to this family; every figure — output, capacities, clearance distances, service intervals — must be read in your own manual, and they differ markedly from one model to the next.
1. Carbon monoxide
A generator NEVER runs indoors. Not in a house, not in a garage, not in a cellar, not under a closed shelter — and opening a door or a window, or adding a fan, does not protect you. The manufacturers put it in those words: carbon monoxide is invisible, odourless, and it kills within minutes.
What makes this gas so dangerous is that it warns you of nothing. You do not feel it coming: you fall asleep. The rules that follow are simple and admit no exception.
- Outdoors, always, and well away from windows, doors and air inlets — otherwise the exhaust gases come in wherever the air does.
- Clear space on every side. The manufacturers consulted give different distances — Champion asks for at least 1.5 m from any object, Honda for about a metre all round plus clear separation from the building. Use the figure in your own manual, and take the more demanding one if in doubt.
- A carbon monoxide alarm in the building being supplied. It is the only device that will warn you.
2. Backfeed
Never plug a generator into a household socket to “power the house”. The current then travels back out to the grid, where it can electrocute a line worker who believes the line is dead. And when mains power returns, the generator can catch fire or explode.
Connecting a generator to a building’s installation goes through a transfer switch, fitted by a qualified electrician, compliant with local rules. This is not a comfort measure: it is what separates an installation from a hazard to third parties you will never see.
Everything else plugs straight into the generator, through sound extension leads of the right rating.
3. On delivery, before you sign
- Walk around it before you sign: casing, tank, sockets, breakers, handles and wheels.
- Legible data plate: it carries the real output.
- Earth terminal present, and the manual supplied.
- Cables and sockets undamaged: a cracked socket or a nicked cable is claimed the same day.
- Photograph what you find, with the truck in frame.
A generator almost always arrives dry: no engine oil, no fuel. Starting it without oil destroys it within minutes — and that failure is never covered by warranty.
4. Before the first start
- Fill the oil, set level, with the oil type given in the manual. Check the level on the dipstick rather than by the volume you poured.
- Fuel outdoors, engine cold, no smoking, away from any flame.
- Locate the breaker, the earth terminal and the fuel tap.
- Earthing to local rules — the manual gives the principle, your national regulations decide how it is done.
5. Refuelling
Engine stopped and cooled down. The manufacturer consulted asks for at least two minutes of shutdown before opening the cap. Fuel spilled onto a hot exhaust ignites without warning.
- Open the cap slowly, to let the vapour pressure drop.
- Do not fill to the brim: fuel expands.
- Close and tighten before restarting.
- Never straight from the pump: fill an approved can, then decant.
6. While it is running
- Keep it dry. Never in the rain, never on soaked ground, never with wet hands. If it must run in bad weather it needs an open shelter, one that does not trap the exhaust gases.
- Do not exceed the rated output. An overload trips the breaker at best and destroys the appliances at worst — and many generators quote a peak output distinct from the continuous one.
- Hot surfaces: the exhaust stays burning hot long after shutdown.
- Short break-in. On these small engines it is the first hours that count, and the first oil change comes very early — the manual gives the figure, often far lower than you would expect.
Next
What makes a generator last: oil kept topped up and changed on time, clean fuel, an air filter kept an eye on, and storage without stale fuel left in the system.