- Joined
- Jul 16, 2014
- Messages
- 29,128
- Location (City and/or State)
- South Eastern Florida (U.S.A.)/Rock Hill S.C.
The shelf life of diesel is much better than with gasoline. Especially modern gasoline. As long as you use a long term algicide. Diesel lasts for years.If you need truly reliable backup power diesel is the way to go. Compared to propane the running costs are easily less than half, even with diesel prices today. People with 25kw whole home propane generators are stunned when they figure out it can cost several hundred dollars a day to run them. Storing enough propane is tough, a 250 gallon tank with 200 gallons of propane will be used up in 2.5 days at 50% load if you could squeeze every last gallon out of it. You are at the mercy of the gas company coming to refill your tank that often. I know that our gas company would flat out refuse to come that often and we spend staggering amounts of money with them, 5,000+ gallons a week during cold fronts in the winter.
Trying to run a portable LP generator on a 20lb propane tank is an exercise in futility with each tank lasting only ~4 hours IF you can get it to run on a tank that small. If you are doing this with pre filled tanks from 7-11 you are burning though at least $5/hr in fuel.
Natural gas should be cheaper to run that LP but you need to have a plan for the utility company to turn off the gas for at least some period of time after a natural disaster.
Diesel generators have significantly longer lifespans that gas generators as well. Gas generators run at twice the RPM and are built as cheaply as possible for mass marketing.
Storing diesel isn't a walk in the park but it isn't as bad as commonly believed.
I've personally gotten an old FORD diesel tractor running. And running well on 8 year old diesel.
If that were gasoline, it'd turn into varnish. Even with stabilizer. Eventually.