Generators and Fuel Storage

I started posting a comment in response to Jessica's questions on the Defrosting Freezer post here and decided the topic merited a post of its own. My camera is MIA right now or else I would have posted a few photos of what we have.

Generators - We went for the large potable Troy Built one that we could get locally. We waited until we had a 10% off coupon for the store and used it to save us some money. We researched sizes and capacities and decided if we really did have a big power outage we would be grateful to have a generator that could handle more items. We could run our freezer, fridge, and even our microwave off our generator at the same time.


Fuel Storage - We have a couple of 5 gallon gas cans that we keep in the garage along the outside wall as far from the house as we can. It would be better if we had a shed, but we don't yet have that at this house. We also never let our gas tanks in our vehicles get below half full so we could siphon the gas out if needed. This is really the safest bet for longer term storage. It is constantly being rotated and is always available.

To keep a freezer cold, keep the door shut and then run a generator 1 hour in every 4 hours. The frozen food in the freezer will last quite some time without even running the generator especially in the winter months when we are more apt to have a longer power outage due to a severe winter storm. I can't remember for sure how long 1 gallon of gas is supposed to keep a generator going. It seems like it is either 3 or 5 hours. If it is 3 hours then 5 gallons of gas will give me 15 hours of usage which will actually allow me to do the one hour on, 3 hours off cycle for 60 hours. So 10 gallons would give me 120 hours. With our gas cans and our vehicles we have more than 30 gallons so we could last quite some time.

Hope this helps -