A search online will turn up numerous propane conversion kits, especially for Briggs and Stratton powered gensets. Upgrading my tank from 500 to 1000 gallons was supposed to cost me $100 for removing the old tank and setting the new one, but they liked me filling the new one up all at once so much they waived that fee. I have to buy all my propane from the tank owner, and at least certain quantities per year to avoid tank rental charges, but this company has had consistently low prices, and my normal needs fill the tank leasing requirements without paying rent so far. You also have options in the 100 pound and 20 pound propane tanks. I think the 5 gallon "barbeque" tanks weigh 20 pounds. You can even fill one pound tanks for lanterns and camping stoves from larger ones with the proper hose, fittings and a very small amount of know-how. I also have around 160 gallons of gasoline storage, not counting vehicle tanks, in a 110 gallon metal tank with handpump and digital gauge, plus numerous 5 gallon containers. Frankly, all of it scares the hell out of me. Filling the small containers, transporting them, storing them, using them, all risky business. The big tank is worse yet. It's properly grounded, but one spark with the cap open, one kid tearing the metal with the lawnmower, one spark if it leaks, or while filling the car, and it's not going to be pretty. You also have longer term storage issues with gasoline. I think it begins to gel after 12-18 months sitting, putting needle valves in carbuerators at risk. I use Sta-bil on mine, and get up to two years storage without degradation, but that's one more iteration of "opening up the bomb" in my backyard. Most preppers I know think another product is better for this, but they don't sell it around here so I use Sta-bil. It's a low grade anxiety, not abject terror, but in comparison, the only worries about the propane tanks has been finding them empty by surprise, I just don't worry about explosions or fire like I do with gasoline in quantity. It may be subjective, I don't know, I just know that stored gasoline makes me very uneasy, while much greater quantities of propane don't bother me at all.
its idiotic to store large amounts of gasoline just for this reason. it is dangerous and gasoline today has a short shelf life. depending on temperature 6 months to a year and its no good.
This is farm country. Every house I drive by has one or more fuel tanks outside. On the flip side, of the neighbors I know well, at least half their tanks rtemain dry and empty, year round. They have the same worries I do. I saved a lot of money last summer when gasoline prices went up like they usually do. I bought at $1.45 per gallon, retail, and used it to avoid gas prices for seven weeks when they hovered between $2.75 and $3.00. About $250 in savings, give or take, as compared with the $600 total cost of the tank, vent, ground, hose, pump, nozzle, filter, and gauge. Even so, I feel storing gasoline is a calculated risk. If it ever goes, I lose the tank, my garden shed, some hand tools, and my lawn tractor. Once the pole barn goes in this summer, I'll just lose the tank and contents, since I will be able to site it further away from anything of value. I still won't like it, or enjoy messing with it.
well, if you can cycle it out so its always fresh you should be ok but some people are putting tanks in their garage in the city to just store it. that is stupid.
Natural gas is abundent in Texas... pipe lines run everywhere. Oil and Gas in general is abundent. No worries here.... if the shit hits the fan....We will just send the Texas Guard to the State Line and keep the shit from roll'n in. Drug lords on the Border end are busy killing each other so no worries ....on that front.
Nice read of the best case scenario. I agree. But "the herd" is nervous, looking at a lot of different worries depending on who and where they live. It will take much less now to spook them into stampede than it would in 2005, for example. Specifically, I worry about: 1. Bank runs and subesquent closures for that reason. There was a soft run in late 2008. I've been soft running my own accounts, in peaks and dips all thru this crisis, to build stockpiles of currency and PMs. A trader in New York reported in an interview that he watched $5 trill leave the US during October of 2008, and was thinking of buying guns, ammo, canned food, and an inflatable boat at Walmart, just so he could get off Manhattan Island. He still doesn't know why that run ended, before crisis, nor do I. 2. Bank holidays. Obama's in a tight spot, and it's getting tighter. his response is to charge the moon. He reminds me of a deadbeat running up every credit card he owns, because the deadbeat knows they are fixing to cut off the cards, and send out the repo trucks. Some libs are already making noises about seizing 401s or rolling them into dismal perfforming treasuries. Reckon they will give you plenty of warning, time to cash out, before they execute a move like this? 3. Government default, resulting in item 1 or 2 above. Or both. let's see, right now Greece, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Portugal are having trouble servicing debt. Iceland and Argentina already defaulted. Dubai got bailed out. I think some of the "green shoots" reported here are lies. That puts all such reports as suspect. The Feds here are looking at cutting postal service to 3 days per week. It's not just sovereign governments I worry about. Just about every state is showing budget shortfalls. Some are in real trouble. Cali is printing IOUs, but refusing to accept their own IOUs as payment. 14 states are looking to move to a 4 day school week. Mom will have to quit work or pay expensive child care. Municipalities are in trouble too. One city cut its entire police force. Another closed half of all its schools. Cops nationwide have been put on the street with instructions to generate revenue, ticket now, ask questions later. 4. Downturns in China. China has put every nickle in every sector, on "growth", the ball is spinning around the wheel and nobody knows where it will land. If any piece of the puzzle falls out, double zero, they could have a real problem, which almost instantly would become our problem. 5. Trade wars or disputes with China. They play hardball, we play hardball, nothing new there. But they are our bankers and we need their and other loans just to service our debt. Any problems in the borrowing pipeline can lead to default, wicky, wicky. 6. Corporate default. Off balance sheet debt. Insiders tell me one major bank still holds 600-900 billion of it, down from $1.3 trill before the 08 crash. Mortgages behind a full year are in limbo. The banks don't want the bad loans on the books and they don't want new RE tanking prices on defaulted RE currently on the market. Commercial RE is still a concern. Some big players in other fields tried to play ball with the banks and got into a ton of MBS and CDS, GE comes to mind. Toyota, GM and Chrysler are still in ICU. Any big corporate bankruptcy, especially any surprise bankruptcy, can lead to items 1, 2 or 3 above. My ML and Chase brokers agree that Q2 is the first quarter the US economy leaves life support/ stimulus. Q2 report periods, July-August, are a concern. 7. Bonds auction appetite. The "mystery buyer" is alive and well. Pretty obvious to me his initials are "QE". 8. Unemployment. It affects every risk on this list. 9. Unemployment benefit expiration. You ain't seen bad yet, but it's coming. The gubmint seems to be running out of money faster than people are finding jobs. See item 10 below. 10. Social services and entitlements cuts. There doesn't seem to be enough money to cover these. Gubmint is squirming and twisting trying to avoid this fact. These people were sold on hope, change, and "easy street coming." I talked to them before the election, numerous times. The quote I remember best was "Obama...or else." "Or else" is...a concern. Those are the big ones. The dominoes are lined up. Many of them are wobbling. The herd is uneasy. You say we squeak thru. I won't argue the prediction, but I lack your apparant confidence. I'm not betting my lungs on further dislocation, and I'm not betting against it either. I'm covering both.
Better keep some of that Guard in reserve. Word on the streets sez you may need to put a perimeter around Austin.
I looked into getting a handgun and might still for an emergency but do some of you people honestly picture a collapse in the financial system and then suddenly everyone will become savages? I mean realistically the problems that might happen would directly influence our standard of living so to protect yourself certain investments would be better but doubtful the end of civilization.
Let's hope not however, I have witnessed a few natural disasters firsthand such as earthquakes and hurricanes and it takes like 2 hours for shit to come unglued. Civilization in my eyes is more of a miracle than anarchy. Seriously, how does the world hold it together when so much crap is happening all the time? What if we get the natural disaster as causative agent? It doesn't necessarily need to be a primary financial event as much as any event which taxes a system already stressed to the point that further stresses cause the system to deteriorate.
I don't think anyone has a crystal ball, but our government is obviously doing nothing to eliminate our national debt like cutting spending or raising taxes. In fact, the only solution they seem to have for any problem is printing and spending more money causing our unpayable debts to keep rising at a rapid rate. It simply does not make sense to me that there is any way out of this financial mess without some sort of collapse. The collapse may be gradual with a resumption of the dollar decline and inflation which erodes the buying power of our dollars or a sudden collapse if other sovereign defaults cause a domino effect around the world or if we get into a big currency dispute with China and they dump their US Treasury holdings. The events that unfolded in Argentina after their economic collapse at least provides some modern preparedness lessons. I have read much of this book and it is excellent. He includes a lot of information about guns. A lot of the information is available in the blog: http://ferfal.blogspot.com/2008/10/thoughts-on-urban-survival-2005.html