OT: Battery backup

[Bill Campbell]

On Fri, Feb 25, 2011, Bob Rasmussen wrote:
>On Fri, 25 Feb 2011, Bill Campbell wrote:
>
>> The Honda EU3000IS we have is extremely quiet, and we've never
>> had a complaint from the neighbors, the closest being about 100
>> feet from it.  Powering 4 racks of computers including my office,
>> it burns about 3 gallons of gas every 8 hours.  I have to fill it
>> three times a day.
>
>One thing I've always wondered: how does one store gasoline, if you rarely 
>have to use the generator? How much do you store, how do you store it, 
>what happens if you don't use it for a long time?

I have enough 2.5 gallon gas cans to keep the generator running
for three days given that our drive is long and steep, and the
roads leading to it have been blocked by fallen trees in some of
the big wind storms we get.  We had a pretty big tree down across
the driveway during the 1991 storm, and trees down across the
access road in both directions once out of the drive.

The gas is OK for a year or so in these cans.  Normally I empty
the cans into my car during the summer, keeping enough on hand
for a day or so just in case.

The instructions I got on care and feeding of the generator were
to (a) turn off the gas and run the generator until it runs out
so as not to leave gas in the carburettor when not in uses, and
(b) to keep the generator tank full to avoid condensation when
it's not in use.  They also recommend running it for a half-hour
or so every 30 days to keep the battery charged, and to prevent
deterioriation from lack of use.  We get enough power failures
here so I rarely have to run it just to charge the battery.

Bill
-- 
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