Help me decide - Gasoline and Diesel storage choices

[SupremePossum]

Situation is that me and my wife would both drive to work, and I had/have a gasoline portable generator. So, I decided to keep 14 x 5 Gallon Wavian NATO gas cans. I keep these rotated out, so I always have 70+ gallons of gasoline on hand. I have an F150 with the 36 gallon tank, and my wife had a Ford Escape. This kept me pretty well prepared for hurricane season.

Then, I started working from home, so my tank stays full most of the time, and I don't do much driving, so 36 gallons even during a disaster or shortage will last me a long time.

Then got a Natural Gas standby genset. The gasoline generator was my backup to that

Then my wife got an EV.

Now, I just got a Diesel generator as my backup, so I need to get some yellow cans.

I of course still have the gasoline generator, and I have another 3500w gasoline generator too, so the gasoline can still be used in an emergency.

Should I cut the amount of gasoline in half, and spray half of them yellow? Or keep all of them red and just add more storage? Having a lot of gasoline is the same amount of work as having less, as I still have to rotate it out

 

[eljefino]

What does your homeowners insurance think of all this?

Switching half to diesel and respraying yellow to match sounds like it'll lead to less work and more flexibility. Plus diesel stores better.

Next project could be finding a way to tap wife's EV so you can silently keep the fridge running overnight.

 

[97prizm]

You didn't mention if you are using ethanol free gas or not. If it were me and there was a high probability of severe weather or hurricane I'd go diesel or Avgas as weird as it sounds. Avgas stores for prolonged periods without degradation as GA aircraft may sit for months without use. A couple of auto museums use Avgas in their old collectible vehicles as it can sit then fire up.

 

[cptbarkey]

For diesel, 55 gallon drum, strapped on a pallet, fill it at your local red diesel station. use that new gantry you built to unload it (or a tractor/skid steer with forks). get a hand drum pump, transfer on demand, then you only need 2 yellow cans at most. This is my SOP at the ranch for various diesel engines, I keep 4 barrels full and rotate.

Dont get a tank on stilts, you will never be able to move it and the gravity feed is terrible. Those fancy truck bed aux tanks with electric pumps are for rich folk or those who daily construction/etc work.

Also, dont store gas in a drum, it would basically be a bomb.

Also, yes, your neighbors should be concerned, you have been going a bit overboard, buy some land and have fun, not in a residential area.

 

[SupremePossum]

What does your homeowners insurance think of all this?

Switching half to diesel and respraying yellow to match sounds like it'll lead to less work and more flexibility. Plus diesel stores better.

Next project could be finding a way to tap wife's EV so you can silently keep the fridge running overnight.

You tell your homeowners insurance of unrelated things to the policy? I sure don't. Homeowners has nothing written in about fuel storage, not sure about yours

For the fridge, I have several Ecoflow batteries, any one of them could run the fridge overnight easily, very handy batteries. Sadly the Mach-E has no V2L capabilities to speak of, but I did think about getting another 800w Ecoflower "Alternator" charger, but decided against it as I think the amount of generators and batteries I have at this point is getting excessive

You didn't mention if you are using ethanol free gas or not. If it were me and there was a high probability of severe weather or hurricane I'd go diesel or Avgas as weird as it sounds. Avgas stores for prolonged periods without degradation as GA aircraft may sit for months without use. A couple of auto museums use Avgas in their old collectible vehicles as it can sit then fire up.

Its not Ethanol free, everyone is so scared of ethanol here but I honestly don't know why. Yes, it can destroy carbs and fuel lines it sits in, but just don't let it. I keep the portable generator tanks full to the top and just rotate the gas every 6 months, and the sealed Wavian cans hold up excellent. I fill them to the very top so there is no room for humid air in the tank, and so far I've never had an issue even storing a test can for over a year. Right now I just notice when they are getting to near the 6-8 month range and throw them in my truck gas tank

For diesel, 55 gallon drum, strapped on a pallet, fill it at your local red diesel station. use that new gantry you built to unload it (or a tractor/skid steer with forks). get a hand drum pump, transfer on demand, then you only need 2 yellow cans at most. This is my SOP at the ranch for various diesel engines, I keep 4 barrels full and rotate.

Dont get a tank on stilts, you will never be able to move it and the gravity feed is terrible. Those fancy truck bed aux tanks with electric pumps are for rich folk or those who daily construction/etc work.

Also, dont store gas in a drum, it would basically be a bomb.

Also, yes, your neighbors should be concerned, you have been going a bit overboard, buy some land and have fun, not in a residential area.

Not a bad idea for bulk storage, I just wish I had something to rotate it into! I have been wondering if I should find an excuse for a Kubota SCL1000...

 

[Ride_Red]

Not a bad idea for bulk storage, I just wish I had something to rotate it into! I have been wondering if I should find an excuse for a Kubota SCL1000...

You're asking the wrong question. It's not "What can I use a Kubota for?" You should be thinking "What can't I use a Kubota for?"

 

[Ride_Red]

Should I cut the amount of gasoline in half, and spray half of them yellow? Or keep all of them red and just add more storage? Having a lot of gasoline is the same amount of work as having less, as I still have to rotate it out

How much gasoline do you really need? You only have one vehicle that uses it now. If you need to evacuate out of town, I would store enough gasoline to make sure you can drive a reasonable distance away (taking traffic jams into account). This would be my biggest worry for hurricanes. Maybe you resolve to always keep your truck at least half full so you don't need to store as much in jerry cans?

It sounds like diesel will only be used for the generator during power outages only if the main generator stops working. What is a reasonable runtime on the generator VS what is a reasonable resupply timeline? You can get a big yellow "Diesel" stickers from Amazon for the red jerry cans and save some work painting them.

For me, I only keep a few 5 gallon cans of gas that I cycle through. I'm in Michigan though, where air conditioning is not essential to survival, so I depend on a small Honda EU2000i inverter generator for essentials when the power goes out at a burn rate of about 1 gallon a day. I don't have any regional disasters to worry about either, so no need for evacuation gasoline reserves. If things get bad, I'll siphon from my boat and motorcycle.

 

[SupremePossum]

You know, the stickers may be a good idea, I don't know why I didn't think of that

Then I can easily back off and go back to gas if I wanted to, by just peeling the sticker

 

[SupremePossum]

End result

Unsure how far I will go, I don't really need as much gas anymore now so may just split it in half

This plus what's in the tank gives me just over 4 days runtime

 

[dlundblad]

I have a 30 gallon fuel caddy on wheels. I also added a canister style fuel filter/ water separator to catch any debris that may have gotten into my fuel cans. The less work my fuel filters have to do, the better.

The tank.
https://www.northerntool.com/products/roughneck-diesel-caddy-30-gallons-63495?cm_mmc=Google-pla&utm_source=Google_PLA&utm_medium=Fuel Transfer + Lubrication > Fuel Caddies&utm_campaign=Roughneck&utm_content=63495&ogmap=SHP|PLA|GOOG|STND|m|SITEWIDE|OOT|FuelTransfer+LubricationOwnedBrands|{adgroup}||19587228206|148349585234&gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=19587228206&gbraid=0AAAAADpPfbP6EXmv9LNRNzB_-Ki1NF4pz&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIj52o6O-xjgMV0DAIBR3MVhlxEAQYAiABEgK-7fD_BwE

The filter.
https://a.co/d/fyWYxWD