We live at the end of a very long power run. If there's going to be an outage, it will be here. Our outages last a very long time, because we are low priority. Hurricane Sandy knocked us out for three weeks.

As for how we prepare, I have a Reliance transfer switch which handles heat, sump, water pump, fridge, and a couple of rooms. It has an outdoor connector into which I plug my portable generator.

Generator is an ancient Coleman 7000 which I maintain myself. So I know the carb well. There were two possible carbs used...a three screw and a four screw, called such for reasons that will be obvious when you disassemble.

The carb has an integral fuel pump. If you don't exercise the generator, the carb dries out and the diaphraghm goes bad. It's all of ten minutes to rebuild the carb, but the constant RPM linkage may be a puzzle.

The old Colemans had Briggs and Stratton motors, so any lawnmower place can fix them if you don't want to DIY. If you DIY, I can shoot you copies of the parts book and engine manuals in PdF.