Hi, I’m Peter Thornton with Duthie Power Services, also known as “Ask Pete” on our website. The question that I’m being presented with is – can the average person measure generator fuel usage on their generator? The answer is no, but there are many websites that give you a chart to estimate fuel usage depending upon the size of your generator and the engine that it uses. In fact, Duthie Power’s website has calculators for power requirements and fuel consumption. Additionally, all that information is readily available from the manufacturer and easy to get.

An important part of generator fuel maintenance is fuel polishing. When a generator has a fuel tank that is very large, for example we have one customer with an 8,000-gallon fuel tank, it’s not going to consume that much fuel. This means a lot of fuel sits. So, on a regular basis (generally suggested once a year) they should have that fuel polished.

Fuel polishing takes out the water that can get in and contaminate fuel. On a smaller tank, the generator burns through it more often, so that fuel is pretty much used and refilled, used and refilled, used and refilled. There’s less amount of time that you need to have that fuel polished. Ask about fuel polishing the next time you schedule service with Duthie Power Services!