Regular unleaded prices seem to be hovering around $1.32/l at the moment, this is the cheapest I have seen in a long time. If you were preparing a fuel supply for a backup generator for the event of poor power availability, when would you purchase your fuel?
Firstly, petrol does not store well. Diesel does but you're asking about unleaded I have two jerry cans that I cycle through. When my wifes car has just under half a tank I pour in one jerry can and fill it up at my leisure. Next time it's half full I use the other jerry can. That way my wife has a tank and a half of fuel available at all times.
Don't bother ,petrol has a life span of about one month But diesel has other issues ,there are 4 different formulas for diesel due to weather conditions It congiels & gets glugy
Petrol can last ~6mo or 1yr with long life additives... the biggest problem is resin precipitate out with time and block fuel filters and do nothing good for your engine. Deisel least ~9mo but biggest issue is with algae growing and eating it and blocking up the filters.. you can ad long life algicides to it to lengthen it's life or adding an inert gas over the top stops interaction with oxygen
Problem is that about 3 years ago, some of the most effective algicides (diesel treatments) were watered down/removed from the marketplace making storage >9 months difficult. I dare say, that a similar thing has happened to additives for petrol. Just for the record I stack small quantities of diesel.
On the farm we stack both petrol and diesel in 1000ltr tanks. On farm delivery costs more, still cheaper than driving into town to fill up. You pay a lot more per liter, but not having it on hand could be more costly. So the initial purchase price would out weigh any savings as you cant store it long enough.
I keep a fair bit of fuel in reserve and rotate the jerry cans through my car on a regular basis. Petrol starts getting pretty poor after a few months..but if it gets hot, you'll lose your octane rating in no time (hours). I use a fuel stabiliser (boaties use it for keeping the fuel in their boats fresh for long periods on the trailer)..but I also use an octane booster so that it will still have some kick when it's needed. Petrol companies say between 2 to 3 months is about it for petrol. Stabil advertises it will "keep fuel fresh for 12 months".
200ml/hour * 3 hours/day * 7 days * 26 weeks = 110 litres. Yep, I think I can take a gamble on that! I'll add a little STA-BIL for safety. The wife's car is a diesel and I'm not going to be using much petrol these days myself, so can't cycle it unfortunately. $140 for 6 months of energy security though is good peace of mind in my books!
Sound thinking. If you're going to get Jerry Cans I recommend the squat plastic 20L variety available from "Masters" hardware. They don't bulge out to the sides or won't topple over anywhere as easily as the 'traditional' upright jerry cans. They make less noise when they 'bang' on something, won't rust (inside and out) and are harder to damage than the steel ones.
We get automatic deliveries, they do all the farms in the area same time, we never run out, cant afford too. So both tanks get filled monthly, how long it would last before going off cant really say. Over xmas we cut out some deliveries, fuel still good after 8 weeks. Again we hold a fair amount, storing say 500 ltrs may not go off as quick as storing smaller amounts?????
