About Keith Schneerer

I’m Keith Schneerer. There’s no content team here and no ghostwriters — just me, working through the same failures you’re dealing with and writing down what actually fixes them. Here’s where the experience comes from, so you can decide whether to trust the advice.

The military side

For 19 years I served in the Air Force as an F-16 fuel and hydraulic systems technician, finishing as a Technical Sergeant (E-6). I deployed multiple times to active war zones keeping fighter aircraft fuel systems running, and I was a hazmat responder trained to handle hydrazine spills — the kind of work where a careless mistake has real consequences. That background drilled in two habits I carry into every repair: diagnose before you replace, and respect the fuel and the electricity.

The commercial side

After the Air Force I spent about nine years repairing commercial food-service equipment in supermarket delis, meat departments, and bakeries — mixers, slicers, ovens, and refrigeration running all day, every day. Equipment that runs hard fails in predictable ways, and you learn fast which parts wear out, what a problem really costs to fix, and when a machine is telling you it’s about to quit.

Why generators

A portable generator is a small engine, a fuel system, and an alternator bolted together. The same diagnostic logic I used on flight lines and kitchen floors applies directly: trace the symptom to the system, test the cheap stuff first, and don’t throw parts at it. Most generator problems come down to fuel, spark, air, or a single bad component — and you can fix the majority of them yourself with basic tools.

How I write these guides

Every guide is first-person and based on real repair work. I give frequency ranges (“about 60% of the time it’s the carburetor”), honest cost estimates, and a clear point where I tell you to stop and call a pro — usually anything involving an automatic transfer switch or whole-house wiring. I don’t pad articles with filler, and I don’t recommend a part I wouldn’t put in my own machine. How I research and verify is on the Sources page.