Every August and September, the same story plays out across the country: a storm knocks out power, homeowners haul the generator out of the garage, and it either won't start, doesn't have fuel that's still good, or is buried behind three totes of Christmas decorations. The generator itself isn't usually the problem. How it's been stored is.
If you own a generator, pressure washer, chainsaw, leaf blower, or any other piece of fuel-powered equipment, here's a 20-minute check you can run today that fixes the three most common failure points before you actually need the thing.
1. Give fuel-powered equipment its own zone, away from ignition sources
Gasoline and propane don't belong wherever there happens to be floor space. Water heaters, furnaces, chargers, and anything with a pilot light or spark potential should be at least several feet from stored fuel and fuel-powered equipment. If your water heater lives in the garage, that corner is off-limits for the gas can and the generator.
The fix is simple: pick one low-traffic wall or corner, away from any heat or ignition source, and make it the permanent home for fuel-powered gear. Once it has a dedicated spot, it stops migrating around the garage and getting boxed in by whatever got stored last.
2. Check the fuel, not just the equipment
Old gasoline is the number one reason generators won't start when it counts. Gas begins breaking down in as little as 30 days without a stabilizer, leaving behind varnish that gums up carburetors. If you're storing gas for a generator or other seasonal equipment:
- Add fuel stabilizer at the time of fill-up, not months later.
- Date the can with a piece of tape and a marker so you know exactly how old the fuel is at a glance.
- Store no more gasoline than you actually need. Most residential situations don't require more than 5-10 gallons on hand.
- Keep cans upright, sealed, and in an approved container, off the ground on a shelf rather than directly on concrete.
3. Run it before you need it
A generator that hasn't been started in eight months is a gamble. Most manufacturers recommend exercising a generator for 15-20 minutes every one to three months, under load if possible. This does two things: it circulates fresh oil and fuel through the engine, and it tells you right now, on a calm Tuesday afternoon, whether it actually works, instead of telling you during a blackout.
Put it on a recurring reminder. The generator only earns its keep if it starts on the day you need it, not the day you bought it.
4. Keep the access path clear
A generator stored perfectly but buried behind a kayak, a stack of storage bins, and last year's patio furniture is functionally unavailable. This is where a lot of garages quietly fail: the system for daily-use items is fine, but the emergency-use items get treated as long-term storage and disappear under everything else.
If floor and wall space is tight, moving seasonal and occasional-use items overhead frees up exactly the kind of accessible, ground-level space that fuel equipment needs. A wall-mounted cabinet or shelving system built for a garage environment, like the options in our Storage & Cabinets collection, keeps that zone organized without stacking anything on top of the generator itself.
The takeaway
You don't need to overhaul your whole garage to fix this. Pick one afternoon this week: relocate fuel-powered equipment away from ignition sources, stabilize and date your fuel, run the generator once, and clear the path to it. That's the entire system. It costs nothing and it's the difference between a generator that's actually ready and one that just looks ready sitting in the corner.