Oil changes -natural gas engine

[repairman54]

My 10k Generac see's winter temps down to -30F in winter. Weekly exercise runs 10 min. Stick on oil pan heater on the motor support plate and a battery heater controlled by a ThermoCube turns them on at 20F. No overpriced Generac kit for me.
0-30w M1 oil. Iridium plugs in it at first plug change.
Unit is going on 9 yrs old now and zero issues. It's a critical unit as it powers a getaway place to keep the heat on in winter in an area famous for 6-8 hr. outages. Oil gets changed via the service monitor and its about every 2 years. Oil looks good enough for mower use when it comes out.

 

[Chris_J]

My 10k Generac see's winter temps down to -30F in winter. Weekly exercise runs 10 min. Stick on oil pan heater on the motor support plate and a battery heater controlled by a ThermoCube turns them on at 20F. No overpriced Generac kit for me.
0-30w M1 oil. Iridium plugs in it at first plug change.
Unit is going on 9 yrs old now and zero issues. It's a critical unit as it powers a getaway place to keep the heat on in winter in an area famous for 6-8 hr. outages. Oil gets changed via the service monitor and its about every 2 years. Oil looks good enough for mower use when it comes out.

I'm assuming these -30F temps aren't in NJ?

 

[fedvet]

Hi all,

I have what might be a dumb question but maybe not.

I have a 10kw portable generator I built that I store in a conditioned crawl space. It runs on natural gas using a B&S 570 vtwin with spin on filter. The engine was built by B&S for natural gas, it's not a conversion.

I've got Mobil 1 extended performance in it, I think 5w30.

My question is under these conditions is it still necessary to change the oil once a year even though it's got maybe an hour of run time on it from exercise? There's very little moisture, no soot and no gasoline running into the oil in this situation.


The oil literally smells new. No signs of moisture etc but I have no idea if the oil is oxidized etc from just time.

Run it 20 minutes or so each month to get it in heat cycle and spin the brushes. Natural gas as clean a burn as you can get. I’d probably go 3-5 years before changing oil if that’s all you do. If you end up at DEFCON 1 and actually operate it for emergency, I’d default to draining the oil at manufacture suggested hours when under load or sometime in the Fall for a seasonal service. Weather usually at its most moderate then, get er ready for winter into summer.

 

[repairman54]

I'm assuming these -30F temps aren't in NJ?

NY ADK's not NJ. Those are normal Jan. winter lows.

 

[z71bill]

What did your 10KW generator cost you?

$1,200 - $1,500 maybe a little more.

What does it take 2 or 3 quarts of oil and a $10 filter?

So $25 - $30 to change it - not even $.10 a day!

I am a cheap bastard - I like buying stuff on sale and I like saving money - but I don't cheap out on oil changes.

What you are buying is being ready to in an emergency have back up power that you may need to run for a few days straight.

I would want my equipment ready to do that if the situation does happen.

I guess if you really wanted to - you could have the stuff to change it on hand - so if you do have a situation where it will need to run for a few days you could change it - but I wouldn't want to be scrimping on a 5 year oil change interval and then need to run it hard for 5 days on old oil.