I have a 12 year old 1000w generator that I bought after a house fire. I managed a 500 liter reef tank for 6 months with no water or electricity in the house. I have not seen the thing for at least 11 years now and I decided it was time to make a plan for power outages. Cleaned off the spark plug, checked to oil level, put in some gasoline and pulled until my arm came off but it did start finally and is running as smooth as can be. I was inspired by two short outages the day before yesterday. They were just rebooting systems after a bird damaged some comm lines so it was just a few minutes but now I'm ready for an extended outage. The price of livestock dictates a minimum of insurance. The generator cost about 250 dollars. Some no name thing made in Italy that looks suspiciously like most major brands with an ugly green case.