Generators do sit for long periods. At least mine does. Every three years or so we will have a snow and outage that will last a day or two. Then there is always the driver that runs off the main road and hits a pole. This is every year, yet the outage is usually very short, so I don't fire up the generator. One never knows just how long the outage is going to be. I tend to forget about doing maintenance on the generator. Its a 25 year old 4400 Watt Homelite generator that only does 120 Volts.
Two years ago, we had a major snow/ ice storm where we lost power for 11 days and could not get down the hill to the valley; too may trees fell over the road and the snow was higher than anyone's 4WD truck or car could deal with. We all, up the hill were isolated.
To my surprise, mice had eaten the fuel line on the generator, and wasps had filled the receptacles with dirt, making nests. Mice had also chewed through a number of extension cords.
Fortunately we had lots of fire wood, stored food and water, candles, oil lamps, D Cell radios and lots of diesel and gasoline. At the start of any storm, we fill the bath tubs with water to flush with. Wife's car had a built in usb charger for the cell phones. The land line had also failed.
It took two days to get the generator working again cause it was cold, cold makes things difficult, and I couldn't get down the hill to get any sort of replacement parts. Do with what you have.
Once running, the generator spit out its entire muffler system. Again, do with what you have. Got it to work with some old water pipes I had around.
After two days, we did make a comfortable, live-able house, and the generator was a main part of that for the next days, while I chain sawed the fallen trees and used the tractor to clear a path back down to civilisation.
We have backups in our heads, yet, a back up is only as good as the last time you tested it.
