Interesting story about home automobile gasoline filling stations in residential property

I have 10 five-gallon Blitz gasoline containers & a 55 gallon drum where I pour them into, about once a month or so (as needed). So most of the time the 10 red cans are empty (caps loose, open to the atmosphere) and the 55-gallon drum is how I dispense gasoline to two vehicles with a gasoline pump.

The neighbor can see into my back yard, as I can see into his as there are few surrounding trees - only small shrubs which afford no great means of privacy unfortunately.

Once a month or so, I fill the 10 5-gallon portable gasoline containers at a filling station and use them to refill the 55-gallon drum. Other than that, they don't 'move' around my property.

No way would there be an odor. There is way too much wind for that. Plus there are no vapors to speak of that one could smell. They're all closed containers when full. However, the neighbor 'can' see the whole operation from where he sits as he is slightly elevated over me and there are scant foliage to hide my perfectly legal activities.

No. I just fill my vehicles as needed. It takes about four to eight weeks (average might be about six, but it varies) to empty the 55-gallon drum, which necessitates a refill.

No. Just your average tools. Riding mower. 2-stroke blower. Stile chain saw. Four-bladed edger & cultivator. Weed trimmer. 2-inch wood chipper. Just the normal stuff. Why do you ask?

One motorcycle. Two cars. A half dozen regular yard engines. Normal stuff. But they all use gasoline to the tune of roughly fifteen or so gallons a week (give or take a few).

Actually, as far as I can tell, gasoline doesn't spoil all 'that' fast.

I use up the entire 55 gallon drum in just a few weeks, depending on my driving of course. It generally takes less than two months to use it all up.

Even California blended corn-o-haul easily lasts two months from what I've seen in the literature. HOWEVER (and this is a big but) ... EVERYONE says gas doesn't last long but NOBODY actually has a length of time specified that anyone else will agree to.

Hearing people say gas doesn't last is about as useful as hearing people say life isn't what it used to be. It's meaningless the way it's used.

NOBODY but nobody can tell me how LONG gasoline REALLY lasts but EVERYONE I talk to says two months is just fine. I even called Chevron and they said there is no problem using their reformulated California gas months after it was dispensed. They said WATER is the main culprit in gasoline going bad - and they said that as long as you keep water out of the tank, it should easily last the time I'm using it. They said heat also matters, but, at outside temperatures, it doesn't matter as much as water does.

So, if anyone can find an actual TIME that others will agree to that gasoline lasts in outside storage - I'd be the first one to listen to them - but two months seems, by all accounts, to be well within the agreed-upon stable storage period.

Actually, it's a 55 gallon drum and I don't seem to get even 50 gallons into it, strangely enough. But I generally fill it before it goes empty so I haven't filled it from empty since it was new a few years ago.

I use the gas up within two months (generally a month to a month and a half is when I refill) so I really doubt the seasons matter all that much

- especially in California where there is really only one, maybe two at most, seasons anyway. There is a cool dry summer and a slightly cooler wetter winter - neither of which has a temperature swing you can't get in a single day in most other northern parts of the country.

My gas tank is about 20 gallons. The wife's tank is about 20 gallons. The bike is about 5 gallons. And the lawn mower and a half dozen other engines around the yard takes another 5 gallons.

So, a single fillup (which in practice rarely happens) will empty out the

Don't you guys have a car for you, and one for the wife, and maybe a secondary vehicle? Don't you have lawn mowers? Don't you have other yard equipment? I would think 55 gallons is the bare minimum since all it does is fill the tanks just once.

What I 'really' want is TWO 55 gallon drums. Actually, I'd love a 200 gallon tank - but once you get over 60 gallons, you start getting into fire marshall permits & transportation permits and anything over 260 gallons for delivered fuel gets you into air resource board requirements.

So, 55 gallons seems a bare minimum, at least to me. Maybe you guys go to the gas station a lot more than I do? Or you and your wife drive the same car?

:)

Cigarettes don't light liquid gasoline like they do in the movies, simply because a cigarette is about 475°F (plus or minus 25°F) while the ignition temperature of liquid gasoline is just slightly above that at around 500°F. So, of course a very hot cigarette 'could' ignite liquid gasoline - but not one thrown over the fence at me by my neighbor! :)

Fire is, of course, the biggest realistic danger.

Everyone manages that risk daily - for example, a one-car garage has roughly 20 gallons of gasoline in it in metal or plastic gas tanks; a two car garage has about 40, and a three-car garage has about 60 gallons of gasoline in them all the time. It's way more dangerous to have gasoline in a garage than outside, in a very airy structure to keep sun and water off the equipment.

My gasoline is kept outside, in a very well ventilated shed (it's almost not a shed, it's that well ventilated). Gas fumes in and of themselves are not flammable but when mixed with air, then of course, they're highly flammable in the right concentration near the floor of any enclosure.

The biggest danger is static electricity igniting fumes.

This can happen while fueling the vehicles at roughly 15 gallons per minute from the automatic-shut-off 1/4 HP 12VDC electric fuel transfer pump. To ward that off, the setup is well grounded, of course, with two copper rods (for redundancy), and a 10BC fire extinguisher is always nearby, just in case.

But a home filling station is no more dangerous than a commercial gasoline filling station is, and, in fact, less dangerous if the puny amounts of gasoline (55 gallons) are taken into account.

Why can't you fill your car at the gas station like everybody else???.

At the moment the gas goes to the 5 gallon tank ( 10 times) to the 55 gallon drum (10 times) then to the car. Why all the stuffing around ??? Do it once!!!

If you want to upset your neighbor order him a dozen piazza or a load of shingle.

clipped

Calling code enforcement is a good way to start a neighbor war...gotta be careful where it goes. I called code once when condo neighbors all had gasoline cans sitting outside their doors for boats...some never used their boats, so the gas was probably years old. We had already had minor thefts and vandalism, so didn't want the vandal critters to be inspired by having gasoline at hand. One neighbor was gone a lot, so his son took one of his gas cans and put it inside the condo! The FD enforced .. very nicely .. using the right kind of can, away from the structure. The gas cans were stored outside front doors after I called code enf. to get rid of recycling bins (full of trash) outside front doors. The recycling bins, prior to my arrival at the condo, replaced open trash cans that were the dining area for rats. They changed from open trash cans to (free) dumpster, which helped. Another neighbor had called code enf. about attic rats - there had been very heavy infestation - and the code guy found only "dust balls in the AC duct"; had he checked the attic, he's have found lots of rat sign. After one elderly neighbor passed away, I helped organize the estate sale in his condo unit..great big rat trap on his closet shelf. These are not poor folks we're talking about...

You should ignore the insults and irritations or respond with a scorched earth policy.

If you reply to your neighbor's affronts with piddly responses, like sending him a fire engine at 3:00 a.m., this tit-for-tat business will go on for decades, causing continuing fluxations and causing you (and him) to nearly itch to death.

Now by "scorched earth" I mean doing something, probably illegal, but that has a consequence orders of magnitudes greater than a mere inconvenience.

• Find about three of your like-minded neighbors. Visit your neighbor and beat the shit out of him. I mean sufficient to put him, if not in the hospital, at least in the emergency room.

• In the dark of the moon, plant some Marijuana shrubs in an out of the way place on his property. Wait a week. Call the fuzz.

Consult the book: "Make My Day." Get it here:

Negotiations continued for several weeks, but finally both the telephone company and the cemetery found ways, at no small expense, to accommodate his request.

He then took out an "ad" in a local suburban newspaper, disguised as an obituary, of the target attorney. The legal-specialty newspaper in his community picked it up and republished the faux death notice.

By this time, both the cemetery and the telephone company were pestering the object attorney with demands that he come right down and sign some papers.

Then it got worse for the lawyer.

I suspect that with someone who is doing what you say you're doing there is probably plenty more you're doing to piss off your neighbor. I've known a lot of people and seen a lot of things, but I never saw anyone trucking gasoline home in 5 gallon cans and maintaining a 55 gallon drum in their backyard to routinely fill their autos.

As for being the same as using a gas station, it's not. Gas stations have been required to have vapor recovery systems for years now. That's why the nozzles now have a rubber covering that must be pressed against the tank for the fuel to flow. As the fuel flows in the system sucks up the vapors that come out as the air is displaced. It prevents those vapors from getting into the air. Is what you're doing a major environmental deal? No, but is sure doesn't help and it sounds pretty loony to me.

You also don't say exactly how close the neighbor's house is to where you're storing and pumping this gasoline. He sees you screwing around with at least a 55 gallon drum of gasoline, filling it, pumping it, etc. He doesn't know exactly how much you have or what you are doing. He does know that it sure is strange and I think he had every right to call authorities to make sure it complies with safety regulations.

I also suspect there is more to this story than that you use the gasoline to fill your personal automobiles. More likely it's being used for some business, which of course would be a zoning violation.

I suggest you just let this thing cool off, and dont do anything that will make it worse... "Getting even" can get you into severe trouble with the law if you are not careful.

Just my 2 cents

Other than the unexpected inspector visits, it's just so very much easier to fill up once every two months at the filling station.

It's all about the sheer convenience of gassing up at home.

On a different scale, it's the same reason you get water out of the tap, instead of bringing a bucket to the village well every time you need a drink.

I would have to agree with you. I never understood the charm of just being able to pull into a gas station and buy gasoline on demand and let others deal with transporting and storing it. And even worse there are three local cash only stations that charge less and pump it for you...

Not at all, you said you go to a gas station to get a flammable liquid and put it in containers which you transport home and dump into another container which you then transfer again. How exactly is that more convenient than pulling into a gas station and saying "fill it up".

there are alternatives.......

use your motor vehicles to fuel your lawn and other type stuff.

many modern vehicles have a schrader valve under the hood for service purposes. its a quick disconnect type device....

open hood, connect line, turn on key so electric fuel pump goes on and your all set. ,minimize amount of gasoline around but still keep some

just quit filling the 55 gallon drum, or if you want to fill it and add fuel stabilizer..... it can sit for at least a couple years. always be prepared:)

neighborhood wars are never a good thing....... everyone looses

I don't disagree we're not at all on speaking terms - but that has nothing to do with the convenience of filling up at home.

I have no idea how many 'other' people prefer the convenience of filling up at home. My friends astounded me when I told them because they considered it 'additional work'. I consider it less work. Especially for my wife who hates going to the filling station.

I guess it's all in your perspective of 'work' or 'effort'. To me, it's trivial to fill up once every six weeks (or so). It just takes a bit longer to pull the cans out of the pickup bed and fill them - but otherwise, it's less work for my wife (for sure) and just a bit less work for me (since I only have to fill up away from home once every six weeks).

Gas stations fill up thousands of cars a month. I fill up only a few times a month. Big difference in the need for vapor recovery nozzles.

However, I 'could' add that little rubber vapor recovery boot to the nozzle if I wanted to pay the extra hundred dollars for it. But, not only is there no law saying I must do so, it's my understanding that there are still states out there that don't even bother for their thousands of gas stations.

I may be wrong though. Are there still states that do NOT have a rubber boot around every gas pump nozzle?

I realize you're being sincere - and - I know you're a major contributor to the alt.home.repair newsgroup, so I respect your opinion. And, I wish to debate that, serious, with you.

Bear in mind, ALL my friends think the same way as you do, so I do understand that you may think it loony. However, I don't. I really don't.

I liken it, albeit I'm perhaps pushing the analogies a bit to far to why you have a well to deliver water to your faucet instead of driving down to the village well to carry a bucket home every day.

Or, why you buy canned food so you don't have to go to the village to buy fresh food every day.

Or why you stock up on batteries in case the power goes out and the generator doesn't kick in during a power outage - instead of just driving to the center of town to pick up batteries during open hours.

Or why you have more than one set of clothes instead of just washing the same pair every day.

Or why you bring more firewood into the house than you need so you don't have to go outside every time you run out of wood in the fireplace.

To me, it's the same concept. I do realize that most of you don't think this way, but some of you don't have solar panels, a whole-house electric generator, 1,500 gallons of propane tanks, multiple wells, a septic system, solar pool heaters, etc., for the 'utilities' of your house either.

For me, it's simply one more household utility that needs to be replenished every six weeks. (I wish I could go longer but regulatory problems kick in once you reach tank sizes of 60 and 260 gallons).

Do you at least see a 'hint' of my thinking (if not the convenience, per se)?

Good question. He's above me, on an open hillside. No house here is closer than a few hundred yards apart, some are miles apart. Most are, I'd say, about a quarter mile apart.

However, the lands abut. So, at the property line, he's only an inch away, so to speak. He 'can' see my tanks just as I can see his clothes hanging on the line (I, for one, use a gas dryer for the sheer convenience of drying my clothes even though we have an absolute abundance of sunlight).

I asked the cop about my suspicions. The cop shrugged and said there was nothing I could do since it was circumstantial. He said there's nothing wrong with someone complaining to the authorities.

And, to tell the truth, he's right. I only 'suspect' it's the neighbor (who else 'could' it be?).

But, I don't have any proof whatsoever. They all said it was an anonymous complaint. Plus, they've all visited in the past two months, and all left saying things were in order. One even said I used a lot of common sense in my setup, which met OSHA standards for commercial storage facilities, he said, except for the secondary containment horse trough - which I will add as soon as I find one locally.

You're not the first to suggest that - so I don't fault you.

I can only assure you that I 'wish' I had a second business making money for me on the side! :) I have lots of very hilly unusable land that I wish I could figure out a way to make money off of - but a single 55 gallon drum near the driveway isn't going to make me a whole lot of money in any way that I can envision as a business. :)

I might understand if you were buying when prices are low and using it when prices are high. The whole thing sounds like way too much of a hassle, more of a hassle than taking the car to the gas station.

Speaking of buying low, I paid $2.99/gallon earlier this week.

I don't know how long you can get away with, but I know that I can store gas for the mower in September and it's marginal but usable in March. So I would guess that is about the limit without adding a stabilizer.

--scott

I understand. Out here, everyone does 'something' against code.

For example, you're not supposed to grade more than a certain number of cubic yards of soil - but of course, nobody can even see you with a bulldozer, so people grade all the time.

Every once in a while a neighbor complains and they put a stop to it and stop them from touching the land for a certain number of years.

Likewise with cutting trees. Every single tree over a given diameter is a protected tree. You're supposed to apply for a permit to cut, even diseased or fallen trees (although the permit will be granted for sure for those).

If a neighbor complains, the inspector will come out and cite you for cutting down your own tree!

Similarly, there are quite a few 'unapproved auxiliary buildings' out here that have electricity or which are greater than 120 square feet. These buildings just go up without anyone but your one or two neighbors noticing the hammering and sawing noises. Since it's a scenic zoned area, you have to be away from the road by quite a distance (I don't remember how many hundreds of feet but someone once told me what it was and I was shocked at how far from the road it must be to be legal.)

Most of these well-lit too-close-to-the-road illegal sheds are completely ignored - but if someone calls the inspector out on you, you have to take it down.

There's even a guy whose pool layed unfinished for five years which I was told by a neighbor was because he tried to build it without getting it inspected.

Even the lines to 'my' built-in gas-fired barbeque I was told wasn't to code when the propane guy first inspected the house to fill up my new

Wow. I didn't know rats were a code violation. I have those big rat traps all over the basement! I get a rat a week on average and keep a jar of peanut butter in the garage just to bait the traps.

We do have vector control guys out here. There are three types.

One does mosquitoes. One does rodents & snakes. The third does bigger stuff like the mountain lions and deer and coyotes.

When the neighbor was foreclosed on, he put mosquitoe fish in their green pool and koi pond to eat the buggers and put up a big sign "DO NOT REMOVE THESE FISH" right next to the pool - so either the vector control helicoptor noticed the green pool or someone must have asked them to look at the pool.

As for the rodent inspector, I guess he would be the one to suggest there are rats, but, there are quite a few mice, moles or groundhogs (I never can tell which they are), rabbits, and rats out here that I wonder what you can possibly do that's illegal to attract them. Our garbage goes out weekly in three very large bins - blue for recycling, green for landscaping, & gray for trash (which is almost always empty as I can't imagine what goes in that bin other than food-soiled items not worth cleaning for reclying and not worth putting in the compost pile).

Likewise for the mountain lion guy. There's not really much he can do except tell you to fence your lifestock with a tall fence that has an overhang to protect the top. But I don't have livestock so I don't know what reason someone would call code enforcement on me for that. Out here, you can't shoot a mountain lion unless it's threatening you or your property anyway. We actually see them probably once every few years but we hear about them in the news about once every few months overall.

So, I guess I'm wholeheartedly agreeing with you.

We live in glass houses. There must be a code violation or two on almost every property out here, especially since I don't even KNOW all the codes (for example, I can't imagine what rat codes I might be violating just by setting the numerous traps).

You are beginning to sound like a troll. Typically when numerous people give you the same answer they may just be right. I have never heard of anyone doing what you are doing and it is definitely more effort. You are just rationalizing that it isn't.

It is pretty tedious to fuel a car at a gas station and it does waste a few minutes each week. So you could hop into the wife's car and go to the gas station and fill it up instead of filing multiple small cans and hauling them home and dumping them into a bigger container and then filling your wife's car right?

Here's an interesting story about a guy siphoning gas from his boat when a static spark ignited the fumes.