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I am NOT new to the whole preparation thing, and have the metal cans, use Sta-bil and such.
I am looking for an opinion whether there is any benefit to storing "summer blend" gasoline vs. winter.
Normally, I treat and store for a 12 month period. As the 12 months come up, I use the stocks on hand and refill with new and fresh.
Until now, I normally store only premium gas, figuring that if it degrades a little, I'll still be ahead of the game.
What say you.
As long as your rotating stock it won't matter much. That said, unless one or more of your uses REQUIRES Premium fuel you really are wasting your money just to "feel good" about your system.
Oh yes, 12 months is a bit to long to keep fuel stored. A 6 month rotation is better to keep all the easy to bleed off aromatics in fuel fresh.
I'd shorten the rotation to three to four months if storing ethanol blends. If you really want to rotate out on an annual basis I'g go with AV gas (Avation fuel) - no ethanol.
Yeah, it costs more but you can fill the cans add the preserative and drop them off in a cache or at the cabin and not worry about the quality when you need it. .
With the Yemen war heating up and Saudi oil fields and refineries on fire, we may be looking at gas shortages. For sure we will be looking at climbing gas prices. We have sold plenty of bombs to the Saudis, so they will probably take out Iranian refineries and oil fields. It's impressive that Iranian missile targeting can accurately hit targets in Saudi Arabia from Yemen. It's hard to tell if this was a one-shot or if they have more missiles ready to go.
In any case, it looks to be a wise time to increase gasoline (and diesel) storage. A 55 gallon drum full of E10 and marine Sta-Bil will give useable fuel for up to a year, but E10 has a water content and eventually it will grow slime.
Non-ethanol gasoline will last longer. During WWII, small planes in the Pacific refueled with old gasoline at island fuel dumps by filtering the gas before they put it in the plane. Call it a field expedient. I don't know if I would want to bet my life on that gas, but it was a war. They were actually flying small planes on gas that had been stored in the tropics for a couple of years, I think without benefit of Sta-Bil.
Does anybody know if a 55 gallon drum of gas goes bad slower than a 5 gallon can? It stands to reason that a tight seal would make a difference.
Some years back I read a discussion on this topic, and there was a guy who seemed to know what he was talking about, but I had my doubts. He said he pressurized a 55 gallon drum of gasoline with butane to prevent evaporation of the lighter fractions. Eh. I think maybe the guy had worms in his head. First, if the drum is sealed, how can anything evaporate? Second, at 100 degrees F, butane evaporates at 40 psi. I would want to pressure test a drum before I put anything flammable in it.
More likely a regulator and relief valve would be necessary. Without testing, I would not trust a steel drum to more than 5 psi. Butane hits that pressure at around 25 degrees F, though I don't know how it would behave dissolved in gasoline. Propane vapor pressure drops if it is mixed with butane. I wasn't able to find any info on a gasoline-butane mix.
Why mess with it at all? As you tap the barrel, you are going to admit air. If your stored fuel usage is high, that may not matter, but if all you are doing is running a small generator, you could be looking at hundreds of hours of run time. If you don't only use a generator once every 3 to 7 days for laundry and showers, a 55 gallon drum of gas could last over a year. Keeping oxygen out of it might be a good idea.
This is just a thought. The US is almost petroleum self-sufficient since the Permian basin has been developed. It's unlikely we will see gas shortages like we saw in the '70s.
To those who claim that gas can only be stored for 6 months or less, I'll add that I commonly store it for a year to a year and a half. I do use StaBil (just regular, not marine) added to mostly winter blend. I have done this for more than a decade. My personal experience is that vehicles, lawn mowers, chain saws and generators run just fine on this, even after a year and a half. It runs like fresh. It's regular E10, not avgas. I store it in plastic 5 gallon containers.
I don't know where the 3 month or 6 month urban myths come from - possibly gasoline dealers. This is silly. My experience is quite the opposite. Buy it up, store it however you wish, add stabilizer, and stop worrying about it. It would probably be good for 2-3 yesrs.
For gas cans, I only buy ethanol-free gas. Not only does it store better, it is more efficient. Gasoline contains a lot more energy than alcohol does and generators can put out more wattage when using it, or burn less fuel at lower wattage. The amount is probably insignificant in a 10% blend but since I'm already buying it because it stores better I'll take it.
Anybody using STA-BIL should consider switching to PRI-G. Unlike STA-BIL you can add more PRI-G to the gas after a year and extend it for another year. For many years. And what exactly is STA-BIL? Look at this non-answer from their web site!
"MYTH #4: “STA-BIL BRANDED PRODUCTS ARE JUST KEROSENE.”
Here’s our official answer, direct from Chief Chemist and V.P. Of Product Engineering Mike Profetto:
“STA-BIL brand additives use a highly-purified petroleum distillate to deliver our additive package to the fuel. This solvent allows the additives to quickly blend completely into the fuel. The additives themselves would be too concentrated to blend easily, especially in cold weather. Use of more flammable solvents like gasoline would make shipping and storage too dangerous. The addition of the recommended dose of STA-BIL product to fuel has always been safe. Dozens of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) have confirmed this by testing and recommending our products.”
I try to rotate my PRI-G stabilized gas so I never store it for longer than a year, but sometimes that just doesn't happen and I've gone as long as 20 months. ONE time my lawn mower was running rough on 20 month old gas (my car never complained) so I added some PRI-G and the mower ran like it and the gas was brand new. That convinced me the PRI-G is more than a stabilizer it's also a fuel restorer.
The most important thing about old gas is not to leave it in your carb. That's where the damage is done. If you are running old gas in your generator, don't shut it off. Shut off the fuel line and let it die from running out of gas.
If all else fails consider other options. One time I was driving a Ford Explorer pulling a trailer through the Yukon territory and I got some bad gas. The engine was sputtering especially going up hills. Refueling at another station didn't help so my guess is that the bad gas was coming from the fuel distributor. I put some "STP gas treatment" into the tank and the problem was instantly solved. But the next time I gassed up, the sputtering resumed. I was having to add a can of STP at each fill up or else the SUV felt like it was going to die. The ironic thing was that most stations were out of STP or only had one can left. I was buying every can I could find to keep the vehicle running. After we got to Alaska the problem disappeared with our first fill up of USA gas. The primary ingredient in STP gas treatment is.... kerosene.
Location: “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who
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Quote:
Originally Posted by terracore
For gas cans, I only buy ethanol-free gas.
Not to jack the thread but has anybody tried removing the ethanol from the ethanol blends before storage?
I did and its a pretty handy tool to have in your ole bag of tricks. It worked fine in my gas weed eater and mower and chainsaw. It can also clean up dirty gas by washing out the rust / dirt particulates.
I have been thinking about making a couple of producer gas stills to use for my genny. If it just charges my batts and gives me a little hot water it might be worth it. I'm all electric with most of my yard and shop tools so a stationary producer gas still might work just fine for me.
I think I might try to convert an old V6 or V8 truck to keep under a tarp, just in case the oil stops flowing. Lots of different designs online but i will use the KISS principal as usual.
Well, just to clarify, both Sta-Bil and STP gas treatment have kerosene as a solvent to "carry" the active ingredients into your fuel. The kerosene is just a safer to store/ship solvent. It's not like they are selling you a little bottle of kerosene at an inflated price.
One should always make informed decisions. The worst thing about PRI-G is that it is hard to find.
An important distinction is that their products are generally consumed by companies who run fleets of maritime cargo ships, oil-fueled power plants, etc. These are corporations who need to use fuel additives to meet strict EPA and other requirements and run their own independent tests on fuels, emissions, performance, etc. Their consumer product sales are somewhat limited. What I like (other than performance) is one bottle treats over 250 gallons. Their products are generally purchased by the thousands of gallons and the efficacy tested and verified by the buyers. These are refinery-grade additives, not "snake oil".
Until now, I normally store only premium gas, figuring that if it degrades a little, I'll still be ahead of the game.
"Premium" blends have higher octane. This prevents pre-igntion of the fuel in higher compression engines. If you have a performance vehicle that requires it, older vehicle that used unleaded or small engines it's beneficial.
It doesn't have longer shelf life and no benefit for most vehicles designed to run on 87.
If you are looking for fuel for long term storage find station near you that offers non-ethanol. It's a little more expensive, where I live about 90 more cents per gallon and it only comes in 89 octane. Store in container that is completely full.
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