Storing Gas

[Nyboy]

When Sandy hit my business was without power for 3 days. I lost a lot of money those 3 days. I purchased a gas generator after, I would like to keep about 50 gallons of gas on hand for it. Question is how long can gas be stored, I once made the mistake of storing a lawn mower and weedwacker over winter with gas still in tank. I will be keeping gas in a unheated shed. Is there something like dry gas I should ad to keep it fresh? Now that I am more prepared for a blackout it willbe years till the next one.

 

[Smart Red]

There are products that stabilize gas for longer storage. One is shown here. . .

STA-BIL, Fuel Stabilizer, Ethanol Treatment Products | Gold Eagle
www.goldeagle.com/brands/stabil/‎
STA-BIL products keep gas fresh for up to 12 months for quick, easy starts after storage.

I don't know about a longer storage product. It may be 100 years before another Sandy. Suspect your 50 gallons won't last that long. However, if you plan to use and replace the gas each year, a fuel stabilizer should work just fine.

Edited to add -- you can find this stuff at just about any automotive products store. I'm not suggesting an internet source.

 

[canesisters]

I would think that if you rotate the gas through, you should be able to get several months out of it using the stabalizers.
Maybe fill your storage tank - then after a few months, use some to cut/split wood, some to run the mower and mulch leaves, some to till the garden. Don't forget that you need to start up that generator and put a 'load' on it once a month too - an hour or so doing a 'dry run' on the house is good practice.

 

[dickiebird]

Gas with Sta Bil will last for a while. They say a year but it's more like 6 mo.
I'd start using it up now, if it were me.

THANX RICH

 

[majorcatfish]

yes all my gas toys get sta-bil year round,as winter time gets closer will switch over to straight gas <non-ethanol> but still add sta-bil and keep all the tanks full. plus at least once a month will fire all of them up and run for awhile.

dw wife says ever since i have been taking bean-o it has taken care of my bad gas problem....

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

you probably already know how to do this but thought it might help others who didn't know to do this when they have bad gas in a tiller/mower, etc.

to help you out with the bad gas issue in the machines without loosing all the gas, park the machine on either concrete or a paved driveway. drain out all the gas into a container, let it settle for about an hour and at the bottom of the gas you should see any sediment and water that got into the fuel. you can still salvage the fuel. slowly and gently pour the gas back into the machine or into another container, don't let the sediment and water get poured back in. add the dry gas, but just make sure you use any treatments for machines that can't handle the ethanol due to a non lined tank (i have this issue with my Subaru engine Ariens tiller)

 

[MontyJ]

I use Sta-Bil every year. It works great for me.

 

[bj taylor]

dh recently bought two fuel storage tanks. one gas & one diesel. he cycles it. we put the fuel through our machines & he refills the tanks when they reach a pre-determined level (I think that's how it goes). his intent is to have fresh fuel at all times in the event we can't get any.
he uses the stabilizers also. too bad it doesn't store indefinitely.

 

[Mapdoctor]

If you can, get non-ethanol gas for small engines. Can't tell you how many carbs and fuel lines that have gone bad before I stopped using the 10% ethanol in them.

 

[ducks4you]

I don't know if you can do this, but we moved into our house (1999) with an old generator that was in great condition, hardly used. We converted it to natural gas, after "Julie" showed us with the flags that we HAD natural gas hookups in our yard. We have a trickle-charge to a deep Marine battery, and when needed, we manually switch it on. It runs as long as we need without having to fill it with gasoline, like it was originally made to run on. It has kept us from freezing pipes more than once.
Imagine my surprise when I watched "This Old House" and they did the same thing to run a brand new Kohler generator. THIS generator is more powerful than ours and has an automatic, 6 second turn on, but the principal is the same.