be prepared.

Tip no 1: if you have a vehicle fill up the fuel tank when it reaches half not when it reaches empty. this is because A. if you drive until empty your probably driving on the fumes. B. if you only fill up when empty you are stirring up all the crud in the bottom of the tank. C. in an emergency event you will have at least half a tank when everyone else is driving on empty and going mad trying to find a petrol station that still has fuel.

I like this idea, and I notice it is not on my pepper's list of things to have covered. I will add it now thanks again for the reminder. I have always though about like saving gas in drums and cycling through it over the year so that you always have at least a drum of gas to draw from that is still fresh and combustible. Or maybe like always keep like ten 2.5 gallon containers of gas. And then knowing how long it stays active, just take it with you on the next fill-up, utilize it during the fill-up and then refill it with the fresh gas. Next month you repeat for the next container that will sour soon. And so on.

Does that sound sustainable or is that too much effort??

a reply to: bigpaul

Personally, as long as there are roads, I think run-flat tyres are also interesting.
Daily driving with them makes the ride more noisy and a little less comfy but you get rid of your spare wheel.
And if you have a small European car like mine, it saves room in the trunk.

a reply to: DYepes yep, some people are doing this, I cant because of tenancy rules. fill up as many cans as you want, but do the same as your food stocks-rotate,rotate,rotate, use on a regular basis and refresh with new fuel, that way when "the event" happens you'll have cans of fresh fuel. in general Petrol will last about 6 months before it starts going "off", Diesel about 12 months, you can buy stabiliser additives to make it last longer but I personally wouldn't bother but go the "refresh regularly" route.

a reply to: theultimatebelgianjoke I personally wouldn't drive anywhere without a spare tyre, especially on some of the back roads I drive on.

yea having stopped flying since 2012 I get to enjoy annual road trips across the country with the family (yup even working at Wal-Mart without food stamps and welfare checks). I prefer not to fly just because I no loner trust aviation with how easily it can be remotely hijacked by malevolent entities with huge resources to create a tragedy that fuels an agenda. or they just up and disappear as of late as well. But there are definitely many places in the backroads of America would not enjoy ending up stranded at. that stretch of 287 from Dallas Ft. Worth to Amarillo being one place I would not enjoy. You listen to the radio stations out there, man they are serious about their religion and in a world ending scenario would be very zealous about enforcing their beliefs on any outside influences who could be corruptions In their eyes.

I don't fly, take trains or go on buses, if I cant drive my own vehicle somewhere I don't go there. its about being in charge of my own destiny, if I'm on public transport I'm not in control someone else is.

Keeping your tank above half all the time is just good common sense. If there is a local disaster, you may need to get out of town and everyone will get gas and the stations will go empty. Even if there is no disaster, minor disasters effecting you may occur and having to rush to see your relative who had an accident three hundred miles away may mean you need to go quickly or miss seeing them before they die. Gas stations are not always open around here at night.

I try to keep ten gallons of gas in the garage, but I only have about four right now. I had to put gas in the tractor for winter. I need to fill up at least one more six gallon jug again with premium non corn gas.

a reply to: rickymouse yes, I am on the edge of a small rural town and we have a small filling station, which due to the delivery schedule of the fuel companies runs out of fuel on a regular basis, there is another one 6 miles away but after that its a major journey to get any fuel. I started topping up my tank from half about 40 years ago when I once ran out of fuel, it was a heck of a job to restart that car as the new fuel had stirred up the crud in the tank, so I never did that again. it just makes sense even in an ordinary day to day existence driving around with an empty tank is asking for problems.

Also keeping the tank full gives less room for condensation I'm told. I use startron in my fuel now also. It disperses the water evenly that is in the tank. It has other benefits also and acts like a stabil treatment. If it's put in containers that will sit for a while it should last much longer. Great idea OP and it should be a concern. A problem with gas availability would cripple many.

a reply to: Schwallyjdog and it dosent take long for filling stations to run out of fuel, as we found in the UK when we had the fuel protests, 24 hours will do it in most places.

a reply to: bigpaul

To keep the tank full does not cost more than keeping it close to empty. You keep filling it up when it is down say four gallons. Many people stick twenty bucks worth in there when it is empty. They can't afford to fill it up or don't have time to fill it up because they are in a rush.

My wife always waits till the car beeps to fill up the car, she feels she is not normal if she fills it up before it is low. Conditioned by her own beliefs in what is considered normal. I am not going to change her either, but I try to keep the other car above half a tank and some gas in reserve.

a reply to: bigpaulO

Odd, my wife and I were just talking of this, but in our case decided heading out in a car from the coast of Fl. would be tantamount to suicide, all road would become clogged. So we keep enough fuel and supplies to outfit our old sailboat and would take our chances at sea seeing as we live on the coast. A few years ago, I mentioned to a friend I had many choices of even larger boats, sail not motor. I could take any boat if truly the shtf really happened, end of civilization thingy. He was set back and told me it would be stealing. I reminded him, no, they would become part of the scenery, no one would be coming back to these places.

a reply to: rickymouse we only run the one vehicle but we both drive it, I'm the one putting the petrol in though and I ALWAYS fill it when it reaches half without fail.

It's not just the stations running out of petrol to be worried about, remember that they are all computerised so if the power goes out or theres a big emp then you can't buy fuel anyway.

Be carefull storing fues, A taxi driver who lived about 70 feet away from me a few years ago stockpiled fuel in the big crisis a few years ago.

He stored it in a 240 litre wheelie bin in his basement.

The fire brigade reconed he could have taken out about 15-20 houses if they hadn't found it before the fumes went up.

a woman in the fuel protest was playing about with petrol in her kitchen next to a hot oven!! big mistake. anyway that's another reason for keeping the tank full as much as possible.

He stored it in a 240 litre wheelie bin in his basement.

Don't store fuel containers in a closed space. That should be a given.
Obviously, small gas cans in the garage aren't a big deal, but the amount above, in a basement?
Asking for trouble.