Of course you can all do as you like, and the "wet or dry" argument is like religion.
I have chosen dry, for a number of reasons:
- my power washer, and usually my mower, have a winter resting place in my basement. No gasoline is going into my basement.
- If I've read one, I've read dozens of posts in OPE forums from people who developed a float needle/seat problem during storage. One "store it wet" guy went into his shed to find the best part of a gallon of gasoline doused all over everything beside his snowblower. My in-season OPE lives in my attached garage, under a bedroom, with my car and other things in the same place. I don't need gasoline running all over without my knowledge (who does?). If there's no gas in the machine, it isn't possibly going to leak anywhere. If you have sheds, workshops and outbuildings maybe you don't care but I do.
I run stabilizer all year round in my OPE fuel. Sometimes the grass stops growing or snow starts falling and suddenly it's been weeks since you use something.
When storing dry I only ever had problems with my Tecumseh H80 on my 1986 Toro snowthrower. My Honda and Echo OPE carbs look like they're new from the box. The first year I replaced the original 1986 Tech carb. Even with Sta-bil the Tech w/ new carb still had problems the next year. With Amsoil AST - clean as a whistle. The Tech started in a half pull a few weeks ago, which shocked me given that it was out of its temperature tuning range (70F+ that day).
I realize that the HM80 carb is a sensitive piece of questionable quality. After tearing down the brand new one after storage I found soft white deposits. Without Sta-bil I've usually seen HARD white deposits. Sta-bil did something, but not enough for the Tech. AST has been great. I've also heard good things about PriG.
