Outdoor power equipment

Small engine and battery outdoor equipment care.

Scope

Care of lawn mowers, handheld outdoor equipment, pressure washers and portable generators. Procedures here always start with the machine stopped and the ignition source disconnected.

Common failure modes

• An air filter blocked by grass and dust
• A blade or a chain that is blunt, bent or out of balance
• Stale fuel left in a machine over winter
• A machine stored wet and left to corrode
• A cooling intake blocked by clippings

Sections

• Lawn mowers

  Walk-behind and ride-on mowers: air filters, blade inspection, deck cleaning and storage, always with the ignition source disconnected.

  4 published

• String trimmers, edgers, blowers and saws

  Equipment you carry rather than push: string trimmers, edgers, leaf blowers, hedge trimmers and saws. Line and blade replacement, guards, intakes, and the storage that decides whether the machine starts next season.

  9 published

• Pressure washers, nozzles, hoses and pump storage

  Petrol and electric pressure washers: nozzles, inlet screens, hoses, couplings and seasonal storage. Every procedure here starts the same way — the machine switched off, the water supply shut, the power source removed and the trigger squeezed until the stored pressure is gone. That release step is the reason the rest of the page is safe to do.

  7 published

• Portable generators

  Portable generators: inspection, test running, fuel and storage. Placement and exhaust safety are covered in full, because carbon monoxide is the hazard that kills people who did everything else right.

  4 published

All procedures in this category

• Inspect a pressure washer hose, couplings and O-rings before useA leak at a pressure washer coupling is usually a five-cent O-ring, not the hose. This page walks through both: examinin
• Check that a water supply can feed a pressure washer before the machine is startedPrevent pump damage by testing water supply adequacy before starting a pressure washer. Measure inlet water pressure and
• How to choose the right pressure washer nozzle for the surface you are cleaning, and what the colours actually meanPicking a tip is the decision that does the damage. The narrow nozzle looks like the powerful one, people reach for it f
• What size and shape of trimmer line do I need?Every string trimmer head has a maximum line diameter, and it is a property of the head, not of trimmers in general. Tor
• How to clean or change the air filter on a lawn mowerAlmost everybody searching for this wants to clean the filter and put it back. The manufacturers do not publish that. Br
• Why a leaf blower loses power, and how to clear a blocked intakeA blower that has gone weak has usually not broken. It is breathing through a screen packed with grass dust, and the fix
• How to grease the gearbox on a string trimmer or hedge trimmerMany gas-powered string trimmers and hedge trimmers carry a small gear housing where the engine's drive shaft turns the
• What chain fits my chainsaw? How to check pitch, gauge, and drive link countEvery chainsaw chain has three critical measurements stamped on it or marked on your guide bar: pitch, gauge, and drive
• What size blade fits my mower, and how do I check the length, center hole and mounting pattern before I buy a replacement?A replacement lawn mower blade has to match the mower it goes on in several ways at once, and "universal fit" on the pac
• Level a riding mower deck side to side and front to rear on flat groundAn uneven mower deck cuts grass at different heights and leaves visible stripes. This procedure levels the deck side to
• How far from the house should a generator be, and which way should the exhaust point?A generator is the one piece of equipment most people buy, store, and then use for the first time in the dark, in bad we
• Replace a chainsaw guide bar and check whether the drive sprocket is worn tooA new guide bar must match your saw and chain specifications. Before you install the new bar, check the drive sprocket f
• How to change the blade on a lawn edgerAn edger blade is a steel disc spinning inches from your feet, and it is held on by one nut. That makes two things matte
• How to change the spark plug on a lawn mowerChanging a mower spark plug is about ten minutes of work wrapped in twenty minutes of looking things up, and the looking
• How to put new line in a string trimmer, and what size line to useRefilling a trimmer head is a ten-minute job that goes wrong for one reason more than any other: the line is the wrong t
• How to clean or change the air filter on a portable generatorThis is one of the few filter jobs where the manufacturers really do publish a wash-and-reuse method, and they are unusu
• How to check and change pressure washer pump oil, and how to tell if your pump even has oilA pressure washer has two engines' worth of oil to think about, and most owners know only one of them. The engine has it
• How to tell if a chainsaw chain is too loose, and how to tighten itA chainsaw chain that is too loose can leave the guide bar, and one that is too tight wears the bar and the chain and lo
• Sharpen a chainsaw chain with a round file and a depth gauge, and know when to stop filingA dull chainsaw chain makes the saw work harder, produces fine dust instead of chips, and increases the risk of kickback
• What size generator do I need, and how do I work out running watts and starting watts for the things I want to power?Almost every "what size generator do I need" answer you will find is a table of appliance wattages. This page does not h
• Choose an extension cord for a portable generatorAn undersized extension cord can overheat and cause fire. Match the wire gauge to your generator's amperage and the dist
• Clear a blocked pressure washer nozzle and inlet screenPressure that drops off, a spray that surges, or a pattern that sprays sideways usually comes from one of two cheap part
• How to use the soap or detergent injector on a pressure washer, and why nothing comes out of itA pressure washer that will not spray soap has not necessarily failed. On most machines the detergent only draws through
• How to winterize a pressure washer pump before freezing weather, and what to put in itA pressure washer that goes into the shed in October with water still in it can be scrap by March. Water left in the pum