Best way to conduct Emergency Fuel Storage?

[G-forceJunkie]

FUD. According to you I have a 28 gallon "gas bomb" in my truck parked in my garage. I agree the OP's idea of "saving money" has nothing to do with the idea of storing gas at home for emergency use (generators for power outages are a prime example such as San Diego last week). You would need to be buying in and storing in the hundreds or thousands of gallons to do that. Now, if one is going to store fuel a their home, there are many ways to do it safely ie proper gasoline rated steel drums, not storing it in enclosed (unventalated) places or places with ignition sources (furnaces, dryers, etc.) One should also be familiar with safe fuel handling practices such as dealing with static electricity, proper grounding, etc.

[Cali-Shooter]

The dangers of storing gasoline in your place of residence, and doubly so in your car, far far far outweights the savings you would ever realize if price was to, say, quadruple, in the next week.

Do the math. Assume price change = $6/gal (this would mean gas price increase to $10/gal), and avg. 10gal tank/2wks => $120 savings/month @20gal. You store, say, 5 months worth to save $600. In the mean time, your house = bomb. and if bomb goes boom, you lose everything ELSE you've worked for.
That's the most savings scenario.

In any other case where price gradually goes up and you're constantly rotating the gas you store b/c of degradation, you would be spending the same amount of $ (in time AND gas/car depreciation running back and forth btwn your place and the gas station with your 5gal bucket) as you would save due to the price increase. Add in the increased danger posed by your gas bomb in garage, and your formula doesn't pay out well.


If you lived in rural area w/ big huge backyard, sure. If socal subburb, Probably should rethink that plan.

Yes that is a concern, come to think of it. If one were to say store gasoline containers in their garage, then he must keep fire extinguishers nearby, and keep the containers in a secure area, so that if some people visit, they won't knock them down or something.
Also got to make sure to check up on the containers daily, just to make sure there is no leakage or other problems which might cause/contribute to a fire.

In terms of the danger and liability, I would say, if one were to be concerned about the fire hazard, then don't do fuel storage. And if you do, have steps to contain a possible fire and implement measures to prevent accidents as much as possible.

There really is not that many options on where to store gasoline containers, you can't bury the containers, otherwise water/moisture will get in no matter what.
If one had a non-working/unused car parked in their backyard, or a mobile home trailer, then that would be a nice, more-secure-against-fire-hazard place that I can think of, but how many of us have spare cars/trailers lying around in our backyards?