How to store gas for your generator for years | Cooley

[Music] more and more of us are keeping a generator and fuel on hand around the house because of threats of power outages from floods from storms from earthquakes from wildfires here in California are under threat of widespread power outages to make sure we don't have wildfires so let's figure out how to fuel your generator but more nuanced how to long-term store said fuel now I'm gonna base all this advice it's a big boy on the most common generator I see everywhere these Honda EU 2000 I shall it'll read Honda's this is a generator that has a four-stroke engine inside of it that's key because the four-stroke engines the kind of engine you have in a car and that means these use the same kind of pump gas not the kind of gas where you have to manually add oil that's like on a chainsaw it's a two-stroke engine everything's hunky-dory until you wait for a disaster and that's what we do by definition so fuel sits around sometimes for years and that may not be good for three reasons first it's subject to oxidation there's always some air in any fuel tank there needs to be to allow for expansion and the fact that the fuel gets burned down when it's in the generator oxidation is kind of like what happens to metal when it rusts it's not good for fuel it degrades it the second big issue is water not pouring water in but water seeping in from the environment now gasoline is hydrophobic it wants nothing to do with water it repels it and doesn't blend with it but the ethanol that you find in pump gas today in almost every part of the US is hygroscopic it brings water in from the environment now that's okay to a certain small percentage a gasoline ethanol mix can absorb one-half to one percent of its total volume of water and keep it blended and bound together after that point you get what's called phase separation the water starts to overload the blend the alcohol and the water marry separate from the gas and can create a separate layer that the engine doesn't want to drink that's when things begin to tip to a running generator as a third issue I think it's less of a problem are microorganisms believe it or not there are microbes that can live in ethanol enhance to gasoline I think the ethanol is what actually attracts them they can live off of that feed off of it and then there excretions are acidic which can attack the metal parts in a generator and start a slow process of corrosion so there are three things you want to do here to keep your fuel tidy to keep this guy ready now you may have noticed you can get gasoline for your car almost anywhere and it's pretty rare that you're gonna get some bad gas and causes that thing to conk out so what's the big deal the big deal is that this is a small deal this is a little tiny gas engine in here as we mentioned with a little teeny tiny carburetor I mean look at this guy if you're familiar with automotive carburetors at all this is the part that blends air and fuel and sends it into the engine this thing is dinky and if you go further and pull this guy out and remove the jet this is the little tiny valve that meters how much fuel is going in to blend with the air there's a hole in there so small our camera literally can't show it to say it's a pinhole would be grossly over exaggerating its diameter it's one of the tiniest holes you'll ever see in an automotive part that could be so easily overwhelmed a little bit of water in the fuel looks like a tsunami to this thing so these have a very sensitive need for good clean gas let's see how we do that over time now before we go any further since this is that rare CNET video where you can actually kill yourself some safety steps I want you to follow handle gasoline in big open well-ventilated areas ideally outdoors but we're here on our set which is a big auto shop and it's got the big roll-up doors on both sides wide open I've got big ventilation here so I'm okay because the second thing is be aware of vapors whenever a can of gas is open vapors can escape they're heavier than air they go down low and crawl across the ground and if they then meet up with a source of ignition a pilot light or a spark you've got a problem that you didn't see coming third wipe up spills and take care of those rags they should go outside don't keep oily rags indoors under any circumstances that goes for paint varnish and gasoline and the fourth thing is make sure you got a fire extinguisher around that is among other things berated because the B is for petroleum and oil fires this is the one you want to have if it has other grades that's great but the B is the right one for working around cars and gas now let's get going finding out what gas your generator takes usually isn't on a label on the fuel filter like it is on a car it's probably in the manual here for this Honda it says let's see unleaded gas 86 octane or higher and up to 10% ethanol can be blended in we call that e 10 for the automotive market right so pretty common pump gas you can find but there's also a note in here that says that ethanol blended gas should have some kind of corrosion inhibitors and chemicals to keep it all together this is where it gets interesting a shortcut around that is to use gas without ethanol at all which is also fine this guy can tolerate ethanol but doesn't need ethanol and again that's all about fighting the instability of fuel over time so you've probably heard about these fuel additives that claim to do exactly that you add a little bit of this to the fuel in the tank of your generator and then slosh it around in there and you should be good to go for it says about a year it's not that long but it's buying you more than the six months that we're told is the rule of thumb for untreated gas but if study by the University of Nebraska found that only two of eight brands of fuel conditioner meaningfully increased fuels ability to deal with water in ethanol blended pump gas which brings us to our final rather heavy and rather expensive option and that is to buy fuel that doesn't have ethanol in it at all but is otherwise perfect for our generator this is a Sunoco fuel they sell this in cans as part of their race line 95 octane so it's more than this engine wants but it's not crazy it's unleaded that's critical it has no ethanol in it whatsoever and it comes sealed up factory fresh in a nice little pour out can like this they say it's good for in excess of three years ship like this and I'll bet that's conservative so this is a great solution and it's everything your generator wants the downside is cost here in the San Fran Cisco Bay area anyway when we get ripped off anyway this was $68 for a five-gallon can that's what twelve or thirteen dollars a gallon but that may last you five years or more of peace of mind that's actually pretty cheap insurance so it depends how you look at it now if this has been sitting around your garage for five years or so or maybe in your generator you may say wait a minute even that's too old what do I do with it you could pour it off into your car it's just high octane unleaded gas pretty good stuff no ethanol that's okay most cars don't want ethanol most air quality regulators and other authorities want ethanol so your car doesn't care but you might technically be out of compliance where you live by running this inside of an on-road motor vehicle just bear that in mind finally where do you keep this stuff obviously away from in the open flame like in your garage far away from the furnace and ideally like in a garden shed outside that's really good cuz it's ventilated and it's away from ignition sources in most municipalities and again check your local codes you can keep one or two five gallon or smaller containers of gasoline or other type combustible fuel on site if you get beyond that either larger containers or more total volume they typically want you to have some kind of a fire rated outdoor storage shed that's your fire marshal in your area who requires that play it safe think long term get yourself set so you don't need to worry about this every year but when the lights go out you're ready to have yours stay on you

Channel: Roadshow

Views: 370,487

Rating: 4.7381763 out of 5

Keywords: gas storage, How to store gasoline, How to store gas, How long will gas last, how long can you store gasoline for?, what is the shelf life of gasoline?, fuel storage for prepping, how much fuel should preppers store?, gas, gasoline, fuel, jerry cans, metal jerry cans, plastic gas cans, fuel cans, PRI-G fuel additive, fuel additive, sta-bil, brain cooley, cooley, on cars, cooley net worth, cnet, cnet on cars, bloopers, car reviews, roadshow

Id: 93A9-05y6I4

Length: 8min 15sec (495 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 23 2019