I'm from Illinois, it's everywhere here
I've worked in quite a few ethanol plants too, so i don't mind too much, thanks guys! A chainsaw revs wayyyy higher than your chipper motor, so i think it's more justified to spend the money and run only the best. But you likely don't buy only ethanol free for your truck, and that's an even bigger and more costly engine than the chipper, which i assume is carbureted? I grew up doing a mowing business, so I'm pretty familiar with fixing small engines, and so i let stuff slide more than most because i know can fix it and get it going without too much bother at all. I usually don't stabilize it, i simply react if it needs it. Any regular gas will degrade with time, the volatiles evaporate leaving varnish, and all will absorb water as it condenses in the tank and runs down into the gas, ethanol more so obviously. But they also let gasoline sit in big tanks until it's used, so So any gas sitting is too long is bad. But it'll be n good longer than you think because its usually easy enough to clean it up with some additives like seafoam to get it to run so you can work it and let it burn it all out. If you know it's gonna sit for awhile you can drain it and put it in your truck or something, but i usually let it sit, usually up to 6 months, sometime more
And yes that means i don't drain the mower at the end of the year.
Everything i have is carbureted so that makes it easy to fix, and at most it usually just needs the carb torn down and cleaned a bit. I usually cut my own gaskets out of a cereal box so i don't even need a kit unless i need to replace other parts like the needle valve and seat, or you can have gasket sheets handy too. If you're gonna go do a job ideally get it running a few days before if you can, so if you've treated the fuel it can sit in the lines a bit and clean them. First I'll try to fire it up, often with it sitting long enough to need a jump. If it's not working right away I'll drain the carburetor bowl till i get good smelling gas, in time you'll be able to tell right then and there if you can get away with it or if it needs drained and burned in a bonfire. If i get it running and able to make it stay that way I'll add new gas to help dilute the old, and maybe dump in some seafoam/naphtha if it sounded rough or fought getting started (or if i think it's been sitting long enough to warrant). Fire it back up again then go do something else for awhile, letting it run wide open and clean itself.
If that didn't do it I'll dump the bowl. If it was really bad ill fill the bowl with naptha, cycle it til it pops, then kill it and let it sit. If that didn't work it's time to pull the carburetor once confirming its not a wet plug from the air intake or failed attempts of starting water filled gas. Take it in the shop on a clean table (an old countertop works great) and split it, and start spraying carb cleaner in every hole you can see. Clean the bowl, and pull the needle valve under the float and clean it with carb cleaner and a paper towel (ideally the shop kind). Clean the seat, and put it back together. You can also count the turns in to stop on the adjustment screws, write down how many turns to get back to where you were, pull them out and spray in there and clean the screws taper seating area. Blowgun if you have one to make sure all crap is cleared away, and clean any gasket surfaces. Then you're ready to cut your gaskets.
Some dykem works best, but you can literally paint one mating surface with a sharpie and press it on the gasket material to mark it. A cheap hole punch set is awesome for cutting bolt holes, but you can cut the whole thing out with a razor blade, carefully cutting just outside the lines to leave a gasket I usually lightly coat the mating surfaces lightly with neversieze and put your newly cleaned and semi rebuilt carb back. Set it where it was or to the factory startup specs found online, and tune it when it warms up a bit. This goes pretty quick when you've done a few of them, but since you're wanting your chipper for jobs it might not be a bad idea to have a second carburetor sitting on the shelf so you don't need to rebuild it right then and there and you're ready no matter what. A good cleaning like that fixes it usually, if it needs more rebuilding the only other parts would be swapping the screws, valve, and seats that you simply cleaned, and the kits are pretty cheap. Considering how little money and effort that is i don't bother much, and honestly with a bit of naphtha when you want to fire it up, maybe some isopropyl alcohol like heat (both are ingredients in seafoam), and some fresh gas to add and you're off to the races.
