Not a hickup. It burns about 5 gal a day (16 hours) and seems to burn about 2oz of oil a day. It runs everthing in the house (if we're carefull not to run heavy items at the same time). I drag it to the well pump about every six days to top off the 1200 gal water tank (it's 1500 gal, but we don't fill it to the top). I usually change the oil then, also. I have a "constant-use" spark plug for it but have not installed it yet (if it ain't broke, don't fix it).