My Honda Black Max with GCV 160 engine has performed like a beast on several lawns, though I got it from Craigslist a month or two ago after I had a mower stolen from my trailer. Some of the lawns quite large, no quitting problems; and, even today, I did a dry, dusty central Texas lawn, no problems, just before I came to my current small ("Lawn Love") lawn. (Lawn Love is sort of an Uber-type phone app, for folks who want to mow lawns or have them mowed, & I get paid direct deposit plus a 1099 form at year's end & THEY get you customers). I decided to mow this lawn despite the (rare) August rain that just began; did half the yard, (no choking needed due to previously mentioned lawn I just did). Doubt sparkplug issues developed instantaneously as I mowed either. Halfway thru, it quit, not exceptionally heavy grass or hot weather today; I then refilled gas, tho not yet empty, started it with choke, it died 2 min later, repeated; then repeated & I cleaned dust from paper air filter which was wet but only 1/2 wet, on bottom side; repeated & stalled; removed filter entirely (in case any remaining damp dust in paper filter was somehow choking engine) - also added oil: though bigger Honda engines have oil level cutoff switches if oil is low or engine tilted, I'm virtually sure this one doesn't, but again died after a minute. Letting it cool, hoping to finish back yard 1/16 at a time so as not to have to return; hope engine runs well again after drying; one person at least mentioned wet grass...hoping electrical issue but no permanent damage is cause... it's been great til today! Conclusion: rain cleared; left mower on covered porch while I edged; 15 min was enough for it to finish full last half of back yard: did run a little rough and surged a bit; in still thinking rain was an issue & possible ignition related - I'll find out after the rains clear in a day or two, and update this post.

I'm not sure if I really want a Rain Garden, but as rexanne said, if all else fails -- I need a plan of something I can do/try. I choose to avoid fighting with the city early on, and the city really did help me out a lot in geting my larger drainage issues solved with several other parties that probably would not have helped me otherwise. They gave me power when I would have had little to none otherwise, other than paying a lawyer and hoping to recoup the costs later in a settlement. The city still has leverage with builders in other ways (even beyond permits) in that the final handover of all the builder development owned/maintained drains, sewers ... has to be approved by the city before handover occurs. So the builder pays maintenance on all stuff till its good enough for the city to take over and becomes property of the utilities dept. But if the city tells me to live with it ... then all I can do is whine and take it to a political level and whine to city council, etc. So far, they have been pretty good and actually wanted the best for me. I cooperated on this project and made is easy on them, as they could have dealt with 5 difference property owners instead ... so dealing with just me was easier. Besides a rain garden, I can only envision putting in a drain to the underground sewer (costly, but very effective) or some kind of all-season, low volume pump (like a sump or pond pump) ... but would be potentially problematic and would require electric runs throught the yard and into the wet zone ... not exactly appealing either. This is all assuming I can get them to pay for this without spending an arm and leg myself.

On your first picture, look at the tube - just to the right of the little notch. There appears to be a pin hole there. I think there is a tiny screw that goes in and connects to another small hole in the side of the handle that is not shown in your other picture. Those little screws are common, and need a special tiny screwdriver. Check on the floor for the itsy bitsy screw.

We have hot water heat. It's zoned in our big house so we can really lower temps in those areas of the house we won't be using, or using at night and want it cooler. Due to the age of the house and the difficulty of piping through triple run brick walls, it's not zoned quite the way I would have wanted it, needing to heat some rooms and therefore heating others I wouldn't want heated, but it beats one stat. Yes, it takes longer to respond to temp changes and doen't have a fast response time. I do adjust the stats occasionally like when the weather is going to be balmy enough to kick off the system entirely and open windows for a couple days to air the house out and take advantage of outside ambient heat. But, I don't wait until it's really cold and uncomfortable in the house to kick it back on. If the thermometer on the stats start to signal the room temps are dropping to below the comfort level and where I'd normally keep the stat, I turn the unit back on, so the rooms don't need hours of the boiler working to produce heat. Aside from that, I don't monkey with the stats much. This means I likely set the stats a bit lower than someone with forced air heat, so I won't have to be adjusting the stats more than a few degrees up or down. Our system seems to ba able to handle that without running more than usual. Even heat from my cooking or baking can keep the rooms warmer in winter and I use this "waste" heat to crank the stats down a nudge and there is no extra firing of the burners. But, like said, the shifting up and down of the stat a good amount to save heat when we are away from the house isn't done here unless we plan to be away for days. It's a bit of a different ballgame, but I love hot water heat. It's just so consistant and gentle and there are no periods ever when you get that cold feeling between the burner fires, like you do with forced air. It made me uncomfortable to stay at my parents house with their forced air furnace cycling on and off, because although they were used to the small temp fluctuations and didn't notice it, I did. It was like having hot flashes.