laid off?

Originally Posted by hills

It varies on how much i keep on hand. Depends partly on the season. Maybe 25 gallons give or take ? I usually use fuel stabilizer so in "theory" it should keep for a year. In practice ... i usually rotate the whole batch out every 2-3 months. I just dump it in our vehicles and then refill the cans.

We were using about 1/2 gallon per hour to run the generator the last couple of storms.

I work at a gas station so 24/7 access to fuel isn't a problem.

There are a couple of things about gasoline to keep in mind. The first is that it's blended for the season so you could run into problems with running a summer blend in the winter and vice versa. The second is that our ethanol blended fuels don't have a long shelf life. The ethanol and gasoline are blended at the tank farm just before being loaded onto the eighteen wheeler delivery truck. Years ago, a sales rep for the company advised us that it should have a stable shelf life of 30 days in the tanks at our gas station. After that ... all bets are off. It can start to undergo phase separation.

I've started moving toward propane as our prime generator fuel this year. Just bought a 100 gallon "pig" and had that filled. Picked up a used home standby unit last month and plan to have that installed & operational by the end of summer. Shelf life isn't a factor with propane.

I have taken the things you have mentioned into consideration and have come to the conclusion there is some truth to it, but it is not hard and fast rule like the leaving a raw chicken on the counter for five days "hard rule".

At ten gallons a month, the gas get cycled every 5 months, worse case scenario.

The ethanol issue is not really important in that amount of time. Ethanol does not spoil, and any separation (I would be more inclined to believe it would evaporate out rather than separate) would be reversed by the act of pouring into the car.

I do not use Stabil because the fuel is rotated far quicker than the need for Stabil would be required to address.

As long as the five gallon can is full, no problems. If the can has had some taken out, I will loosen the cap on it to reduce the vapors from building up pressure. This seems to be a better solution than popping the pouring vent. That seems to allow the gas smell to be much stronger... More evaporation.

Summer/winter blend? Yeah, when the heck is it ever "winter" in Florida? As I understand it, summer and winter blends are more of a pollution mitigation than a internal combustion issue.

Over at least 12 years of following the fuel rotation I outlined, I have never had any issue with the gas or the vehicle I run it through.

This is not to convince you to change anything you believe or to contradict anything you have said or get you to change your gas storage strategy, it is to let you know what I believe and what I have found in my experience and why I do the fuel rotation in the way I do.

I have considered a permanent home back up generator and decided against it for these reasons...

Very expensive. For what you will pay for an installed back up generator and installation, you could buy five or more new, fairly large capacity, portable generators and be able to take them where them anywhere they were needed.

A back up generator should not just sit and wait. You have to run them once a month to keep them "fresh". I worked at a retirement home that had a huge diesel generator capable of powering the facility during power failures. I had to run it once a month and check to make sure everything was in order... oil, fuel, coolant, power output.

Again, this is not being said to change your mind, it is to give my reasoning on an issue that is likely to be considered by many here on the board, and alternate viewpoints are an important factor when considering your/their own personal position.



Good luck through this hard time.