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As America makes the transition from snow blowers to lawn mowers, there are some things you need to know about the ethanol that's likely in the fuel for your small engines.
"Adding alcohol -- ethanol is an alcohol -- adding alcohol to a fuel dramatically alters its shelf life", says Kris Kiser of the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute.
This means if your lawn mower has been sitting up in storage all winter with ethanol-added fuel in the tank, performance -- and even engine parts -- can suffer.
"That combined ethanol and water can corrode the fuel delivery system, predominantly the carburetor," says Consumer Reports' Peter Sawchuk. "It clogs it up and it can't start."
"Ethanol is an alcohol and it absorbs water," says Kiser. "The longer you let it sit, it will phase separate; the fuel frankly separates from the water, and then you have either a starting problem or a performance problem and a corrosive problem."
The claims, backed by Kris Kiser of the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, are backed also by experts at Consumer Reports who say exposure to too much ethanol is even worse with snow blowers and generators.
"Both of those tend to sit in storage buildings where it gets warm, you get great variations in temperature and you're going to get this problem", says Sawchuk.
Boats motors or for that matter anything with a two-cycle motor, are vulnerable to ethanol.
"A lot of chain saws and lawn and garden equipment are two cycle," says Kiser. "It inhibits the ability of the oil and gasoline to mix."
The solution, they say, is to use fuel with ethanol of 10-percent or less -- and even with that, drain the tank before storing.
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