There is one problem with old furnace oil tanks not being mentioned. The bottoms do tend to rust out from the inside. Condensation and the occasional bit of wet fuel leave water in the bottom of the tank. The tank is rusting from inside so it looks fine from the outside until it finally rust right through and leaks all over your basement.
If you are considering using diesel power you are better to put a new tank outside.
You should consider draining or pumping out the fuel in the tank you have and getting it out of your basement before it empties itself on your floor.

Consider also that diesel does rot in storage. There really are bacteria that break it down.

The generator was installed during our house renovation, which is a mild word. We gutted the place, took a year, moved back in in March. So, it's been in since early this year.

When it cranks up Thursday shortly after noon, it only idles. There is no load put on the generator. It's only turning over to keep things lubricated. It runs for less than an hour, but I have not timed it.

The generator is a Guardian Elite 10KW model.

Thanks for the info, Dan.

I think that in most places the generator will not be able to have a load put on it, when it is cranked up for only a scheduled exercise. If you put a load on it, the load would need to be for providing power to something off the grid. Anything else risks running power back into the grid, which I something I am sure that the power companies do not want to happen if it's not within their power to manage.

I had been thinking about this as well, but at some point I had a gestalt and thought... Hmm. Maybe putting a couple of solar panels on the garage roof might be better. No gas to worry about, and no noise to attract unwanted attention...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000MS8SHM

-john

Mostly that's for safety, so you don't energize a line that's being worked on. I'm surprised you don't have an isolation switch -- that's mandatory under Code up here.

I think a generator should be tested under load. It's easy enough to unplug your refrigerator and air conditioner from the grid, connect them to a 12 gauge cord, and plug directly to the genny. Otherwise, how do you know what you really have?

My 0.02

I recently upgraded from a 14 year old 5,000 watt with a briggs and stratton to the Honeywell with a Honda engine and 7,000 watt, sold at Costco. It' also the electric start which is great for me as the pull start on the old one was getting hard for me. I've ran a test and real happy so far. I too thought of going propane as storing gas can be a real pia. I do have acreage so I keep about 30 gallon in a shed during the winter months, that's a good 400 feet from the house and rotate in my truck about every 3 months. If I didn't have secure storage a good distance from the house I wouldn't go with gas.

Consider a Listeroid: Big, dumb, slow, low maintenance, and the most efficient design in terms of diesel consumption. They seemingly always start:

http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/001011.php

The Rocketboy link especially is an enjoyable and informative read: http://www.f1-rocketboy.com/lister.html

Blast, I was just doing some reading of an old--but still very informative--thread. That Harbor Fr link now points to some other product. Could you provide an updated link (if they still have it) to what you were referring to so I know what you were talking about?

Doesn't sound like an off-the-shelf option, but intriguing.