Gas Can Design - Why Do We Do This to Ourselves?

GA for this one.

My only bitch is that I should have to do it. Why can't the gubment allow manufacturers to put these on there in the first place (as they used to do). I have at least 3 cans with a nice plastic vent that you pop open with a flick of the fingertip (or opens automatically if the pressure builds up too high) already. Somehow that technology has been lost (or rather legislated out of existence)...

It's not "why can't the government allow..." It's "Why don't we just do it right ourselves", and tell them, OUR representatives, how it will be.

Nullification, it's the NOT law.

I think you got it right Ozzb. Most people drastically underestimate the danger of gasoline. Sure it sucks when a pressurized can is vented but it is a controlled release; you get to choose when and where the vapors are released.

There has been alot of progress in the industry through the years to control gasoline evaporation. The transition from open roof or open vent tanks to floating pan or pressure vacuum vents to limit evaporation was a big step.

If you think about the average suburb and all the gas-cans sitting in sheds & garages they might only evaporate a teaspoon each but all combined evaporate more than an entire tank farm of bulk storage tanks.

Drew K

Some smart-a$$ will only suggest doing it outdoors instead. Sheesh!

I am sure that you can blame congress.

But I have to wonder if the lack of a vent somehow ties into the ethanol that we are being forced to use.

Does it evaporate faster?

Will venting it render the gasoline useless after a few ventings?

I wonder......................

No but ethanol does attract moisture. Something we'd rather not do.

Put a vapor recovery canister on it. Then put a gas recirculation system on it.

I'm just kidding...but look at all of the crap they put on cars now just to prevent the hydrocarbons from escaping your non-vented tank system. It used to be that gas caps would let out pressure as needed. Now, you loosen the cap and it only draws air in if there is an imbalance. The vapor recovery system releases all of the vapors to the intake when you start your car.

The thing that gets my panties all bunched up is that these "newer" cans have an unpredictable pouring characteristic that makes spills almost inevitable when I am re-fueling my lawn mower. (After letting it cool down for four hours of course )

I prefer these cans...

"Eagle cans feature environmentally friendly Lead free Technology . Spring closing lid with neoprene gasket vents at 5 PSI internal pressure . They feature deep drawn 2-piece no-weld construction with no top or side seams non-sparkling brass pour spout and flame arrestor and a spring-closing lid with neoprene gasket"

problem is, I had this happen to me trwice in my life. fortunatly none in the last 25+ year.

You run you car out of gas, your screwed unless the car is only a few miles from a station. You can only get a splash or too in the car with most type of gas cans.

The version of these I have used the funnel can be removed and used independently of the can. Self-venting, spill-proof and the metal won't inflate like the plastic ones. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Prefer the ones with the hose attachment, without it, spills will occur, and even with the hose attachment, you can only get about half the contains in, because the can si so close to the side wall of car/truck.

Would there be an easy fix? How about drilling a very small hole, near the top, and fitting it with a plug of some kind; one that would pop out under too much pressure. Drilling in a completely empty and dry container. The plug could be attached to the container. Another thing is to just leave the yellow top unlocked. It should pop off by itself before the pressure gets too high. I have had that happen. Maybe just drill the hole in the plug. Maybe a golf tee would make a good plug.

That was a dangerous situation. It could have ended very badly.

this one vents a bit by itself

& are easier to use than

The offending can was exactly like the lower version. I went to a national car/parts chain and they had the upper version. The woman behind the counter kind of laughed when she told me they are just as bad and as much a pain in the posterior as any on the market. I think it looks like a better design, but I am not sure that I can talk myself into buying it without a vent!

The britz can is much easier to use, give you much better control for things like chain saws & weedeaters

another benefit with non vented cans is that they don't leak if they tip over in the back of your truck or car coming back from the gas station

I have one of the top ones and it looks like the good year blimp in the evening after I mow and a squashed can on a cool morning. If it vents at all it is a surprise to me.

I think the best answer is a 1/16th in. hole drilled strategically and kept away from flames. You can also sdd a screw to plug it when you want to seal it totally.

Rich Hurd

Let us not comment on storing flammable liquids in a hot garage, not knowing if there is an open flame in the space you are using to transfer gasoline, knowing the container is under high pressure (like a basketball) but opening it anyway, etc. Instead, let us make guesses about what happened. When you stored the gas can, you left the self-closing spout attached to the can. If your can is like mine, it takes much force to open the vent, so gasoline can get into the vent when you start to open it. The problem here is the air left in the can from the 50 degree ground temperature fill. When the can warms up to the 90 degree garage, the free space in the top of the can has to contain both the additional volatilized gasoline and the air. The air in the basketball needs to be vented - outside. With the can on a stable flat surface, partially unscrewing - slowly - the cap or spout to equalize the pressure is all that is needed. Tighten the cap (or spout). With no vent, you do not get water being pulled into the gas from the atmosphere, and the storage is stable.
This venting is needed whenever air is allowed to enter the can and the temperature rises.

Honestly, I do (and did) know the garage was as safe as any other place (including outside) to open the can and vent it. There are no sources of flame in my garage (except when an engine is running) for very obvious reasons. Don't even keep matches in a box in the garage. I also have windows on two sides that are ALWAY open when the weather is hot, and both OH doors were open due to it being "chore time". Plenty of cross breeze and no fume build-up.

Actually taking the can outdoors and opening would just stir up the contents of the can worse, and I am thinking it would have only made matters worse. The only advantage gained would have been the exercise gained from the travel, and perhaps a little less hassle for my wife: she might not have had to rebuild the entire house, just bury her husband's badly burned corpse and bull-doze the charred remains of the woods!

I don't think the insurance company would appreciate me keeping the gas in the bedroom, so by default it ends up in the garage!

Why can't I just buy a gas can that is safe AND works???????

I will make the modifications that the first poster showed, and leave the caps off when in storage - only using them while the cans are in transit from the station to the house. MUCH safer and as functional as any. The pain is that I should have to do anything to fix that problem. I can't think of any other industry, where you can douse a person in flammable liquid, and expect NO lawsuits pending...

This works GREAT - except it would make for a very boring 4-wheeler!

I guess nobody is reading what I am writing and linking. I apologize in advance for this rant.

Let me put this simply:

There is a reason gas cans are no longer vented, it is based on scientific fact.

We have cleaned up the oil and gas industry but there is still room for improvement as we learn more about fuels and technology improves. Did you know crude oil used to be stored in earthen tanks made by bulldozing topsoil into diked tanks? Today, nobody would think that is an acceptable method of storing oil. Allowing millions of gas cans in sheds and garages across a city's suburbs is not good for the environment. If you don't like it don't store gasoline in a can, it is a bad idea to store methanol blended gasoline anyway.

If you don't like the way it pours, vent it but be responsible and contain the vapors. And don't blame the politicians, it was the environmentalists who are trying to protect us from ourselves that push us to build steel tanks with vapor recovery/containment devices instead of open earthen pits.

Drew K

Don't blame the politicians ?? I think you missed Franks point there. Read again carefully, note the effect of opening a non vented pressurized can. then resubmit.

Politics is the art of: Looking for trouble, finding it, whether or not it exists, incorrectly diagnosing it, then applying an incorrect solution, too late to effect change.

Sundog 1/9/80

Yes, there can be a problem opening a pressurized can, more than you probably are aware of ???

Funny... D Eng, google it. Sundog

Drew, I hear what you are saying, here, but I do still think the point got missed. My point is the politics vs. the engineers stepping in and coming up with a real solution to the problem.

We worry about the teaspoon of gas that might evaporate - therefore we write a law that says no one can make a gas can that has a proper vent feature. We outlaw the vent feature that was available and actually WORKED. Mostly because SOME people were dumb enough to never close it and therefore EVERYONE must suffer.

We also make this happen immediately because the tree huggers say it is a good idea (and probably also a little because of the political reasons listed below by coldspot). The urgency of the wanting to feel like we are doing good makes us demand "improvements" without thinking and proper engineering to make sure they are actually improvements first.

The perceived problem: A teaspoon of fuel might evaporate.

The Governmental "Solution": Bypass the engineers, approve a can that has no vent and a self-sealing spout seal, make sure it does not work with less than both hands, so you have to be close to the spout when you relieve it.

The Result: A cup of gas is spewed directly into the atmosphere where 3/4 of it rains back down onto said operator where it re-evaporates back into the atmosphere IF it doesn't ignite, that is... For fear of a teaspoon of evaporation we have CAUSED a cup of evaporation and endangered a life in return.

All because we legislate a "problem" away before we actually try to solve it!

I fully understand why we wouldn't want to vent directly to atmosphere all the time, but I don't understand why we can't solve the problem, rather than legislate it away. I thought we had the solution 10 years ago when we could get gas cans that had a cap for the spout and a flip-top vent that was on the opposite end of the handle. They worked great, and if you pressurized the can, you could take your finger, flip up the vent and relieve the stress WITHOUT getting a bath. The vent would also pop open and relieve the pressure automatically if the pressure became great enough to cause the situation I got. SAME problem - a BETTER solution than available now! Now the best one can do is drill the hole and always vent it - as you pointed out yourself a bad idea...

Now, thanks to the new law, if someone did come up with a way to eliminate the internal pressures (which indeed is necessary), the can would be illegal to produce.

What is the solution to the problem (how to vent the can without hurting the environment)? Can we actually meet the intent of the law? It appears that the law precludes the intention! Furthermore the law, and perhaps the environmental offense, are somewhat exclusive to safety - it appears.

You miss the point

"Now, thanks to the new law, if someone did come up with a way to eliminate the internal pressures (which indeed is necessary), the can would be illegal to produce."

If you add 'the effect of' between "the"' and "internal", you have a suitably strong container.

That container comes with a pressure relief system - known as a cap - which you 'crack' to relive the pressure 'when use of contents is required'.

It's also called "not wasting resources".

However another law we may require, is one to prevent the "waste of power" by people who clean out light live sockets, with their tongue.

A teaspoon of fuel seems to be the problem for you. The problem for the big picture is a teaspoon of fuel in millions of gascans and gastanks across the nation, across the world. A teaspoon is what might evaporate in a large can that is pressure sealed, given enough time the entire can will evaporate if left open. It is actually worse for people who use their cans often and leave unvented because they will never realize how much they are loosing.

As I said before, this is progress. We used to store fuel in dirt tanks uncovered. Today they conduct inspections on tanks that have floating roofs that reduce the surface area exposed to evaporation to a thousandth of a percent of the cone roof tanks (which only store heavy fuels or oil). Those inspections measure the gap of imperfect seals on the sides of the floating pan. Eventually they will be also forced to improve the seals just as gascan manufacturers are forced to improve their design to reduce gasoline evaporation.

I am willing to bet there is a way of venting the pressure off your can without spewing a cup onto yourself and surroundings, you just want to figure it out.

I can tell you the reasons behind the design change, I believe in them. If you don't do the research yourself as to who and how the designs were accomplished. I bet the gascan manufacturers have an answer for you in the frequently asked questions tab in their website; or you can email their PR department the question, or contact their engineers and ask them if you still don't buy into it.

Drew K

I think your are right. Low-flush toilets are another example. Here in California we have to conserve water, so our great politicos decided to require low-flush toilets everywhere.

Now, instead of two gallons going down the drain with the cr*p, you have to flush twice and use a plunger. 3-4 Gallons later the job is done.

So much for low-flow. There's more flow in more steps. Every time we have a party, the toilet overflows, I have to clean it up, unplug the stuck toilet and instruct grown up adults in how to flush twice and plunge.

If there is really a need, then the market can decide what works and what doesn't. Legislation only serves to lock in failure, and very rarely serves to lock in success, if ever. Engineering is a dynamic science, so locking in one solution is cutting off any avenue of improvement.

Some of the gas cans may work better in some of the situations and with some fuels, some of the time. Others may be better. But if only one design spec is locked in by legislation, then any solutions that go that way are moot, and lost to us.

Low flow toilets may be tolerable if your water supply is locally limited, but they are a pain in the arse when multiplied by a million households. Same is true of gas cans. Certain cans make more sense in certain situations, while others make more sense in other situations. All of them require care and intelligent and informed use because of their content.

Personally, I would prefer a composting toilet to a plunger and a low flow. I would prefer a steel Jerry can to the plastic leak-master environmentally-mandated fuel can.

I don't think the design is locked in, it is the requirement to reduce evaporative pollution. It is up to the designers and engineers to come up with the best way of reducing pollution. Same goes for low flow toilets, some designs are probably better than others.

If you don't like the designs that are out there, come up with your own and sell it to a gascan company. Same for the toilet, or shop around and find one that works better.

Different cultures do approach the problems differently, in many European countries the toilets have a double flush system where it only uses a little water if there are no solids to flush, and a larger flush if you need to remove solids.

You probably do use less water at your parties even if everyone double flushes to remove solids because of more people who are only flushing liquids...post a sign, "double flush solids" and perhaps you will have less problems.

I would prefer composting toilets and waterless urinals in my home too, and if I needed a gascan more often than I do now I would modify it or find one I liked.

Drew K

You don't shop around for toilets that work better. You can't test them in the store! And the only cans on the market are the ones "approved" by the legislation, which was probably written by the company that sells it as part of their lobbying for the legislation.

I would agree with you except it isn't possible. What worked for a toilet was the one that was there before.

What worked for a gas can was the many ones that were there before the legislation. How many different designs are available now? 4 displayed in this discussion, two of which are the only ones for sale here in California. Two.

I've put in & used a few low flush toilets in the past 20 years

funny the cheap ones don't work as well as the more expensive ones

I used to have 5 gallon army style gas cans. Are they still available. I don't recall any problem with them.

Hey Frank

Frustrating eh. Drill 1- 3/16 inch hole in the uppermost part of gas can. Install 1 golf (game played by goofy dressed people who are limited in vision and the ability to pick clothing, probably those who wrote this mind numbing law) tee.

Store outside in the shade, Do not store on BBQ grille, Chain it down, hire security staff to prevent vapors from escaping, Register can with EPA's division of common freeking sense, which due to cost overruns occurred during the passage of the "GAS CAN ACT" has yet to be instated. Switch to coal fired products, Convince Republican party that vapors (since invisible) really don't exist and be secure in the knowledge that most idiots in this country will follow them to the cliff and do the lemming hop, thus eliminating the need for non vented gas cans.

Note:BMW The ultimate sucker punch.

Sundog

I've been using non vented cans for 15 years here in cali

less problems with old gas

all the good sparkely stuff stays in the can, it doesn't get contaminated with water

when I see a puffy can I vent the pressure off before I try to fill up

all the hand wringing about the government is hysterical

times change, practices advance

if you are going to use a tapered wooden golf tee for a plug why not a rag or a fuse

How do you vent it wirhout a vent?

If this baffles you

Should you be operating power equipment?

Garthh

My comment was in jest, sorry you missed that part.

Oh and a rag or fuse required hazardous proximity. I would use a pxy-4 remote detonator with primacord.and a n40 fuse.

I love our Govt. as long as I get my VA checks all is well, if not, see above

Sundog

Perhaps this is a case of "Being an engineer - and evidently vastly smarter than the average Senator - I knew the problem was the complete lack of a vent in the can" but lacking the gas physics and trades based skill-set, I.......

In construction, fuel is often left in full sun, sitting on truck trays.

This can be a few gallons through to 50 ^{_{(US gal)}} drums.

If a container is "like a basketball" - it is substandard and should be replaced with a rated one. Many people think a used oil, or coolant, or similar plastic container is a fuel appropriate storage. This is both wrong and stupid.

As Drew said - it must be capable of resisting the 7 or 8 psi fuel vapor produces.

Even so, hot fuel under this pressure behaves like warm shaken Coca cola.

If you suddenly release the pressure, it froths, so ejects more fuel, in a more dangerous form than simple vapor.

So trades skills;

Visually inspect the container for signs of bulging and/or weeping or signs of vapor escape at caps or plugs.

Feel the container for heat and 'tautness'.

Move, or rock, the container (gently) to ascertain fluid level.

Manipulate the cap, or bung, you intend to open to the highest point, chock as required.

SLOWLY crack the cap or bung seal until some small escape is heard. Stop

Wait until the tautness is relived. E.g. top of drum pops back flat

Undo cautiously, as some caps bungs will reseal at a lesser, but still significant, pressure. It may take up to 4 steps to reach a safe pressure.

Do not finally unscrew a cap or bung, which does not 'rattle loose' on the tread. This means pressure remains. Rock the cap or bung to promote a leak until it is loose.

-------------

I might add; never uncap fuel indoors. Never store fuel in unventilated areas. Never store indoors where such as pilot flames may be present. Especially in the case of a cellar below the store level.

Fuel vapor is denser than air and will migrate as a layer at floor level. Much as LPG will.

This also applies to equipment containing fuel, as those tanks are vented.

If the can is expanded from the temperature rise, leave it in a refrigerator or cooler with ice for a half hour, it will reduce the pressure and make it safe to open.

Yeah, Cause it's a great idea to keep a can of pressurized, carcinogenic fossil fuel in the same container that you keep your food.

It's not that big of a deal... if you notice that the can has built up pressure, then you should already know that you ought to SLOWLY relieve the pressure in the can before it's use.

Do not store Gasoline in your refrigerator, or cooler... Do not store Gasoline in an enclosed non vented area, and do not open a tank of gasoline if it looks like a basketball unless you relieve the pressure carefully. Why are we still talking about this?

"Why are we still talking about this?"

Pretty much the usual reasons. 20 odd posts 'empathizing' with a retrograde misinformed redneck approach, causing 'white noise of opinion' to override the contribution/s of the actual resident expert in matters of fuel & handling (DrewK, ex USAF refueling).

"Highlights";

A. the marking of one Drew post OT, ^{_{(neutralized by me)}}, presumably for 'getting cross with the herd': an etiquette crime in the mind of the 'Phantom Coward Voting Idiot'.

B. the 'tongue in cheek posts' taken as gospel, and vice versa.

C. the clown, who has never heard of static, or vented spouts, or sealing threads, filling his truck with shreds of plastic

Prompting another (me in this case) to write it out as the "bleeding obvious" - with luck, offending the 'environmental, fire, physics and chemically ignorant rednecks' (and hopefully, mortally, the PCVI)

Bonus being, scope for others to now pop up and say - "It was always obvious", or words to that effect.

Aka - everyone is having CR4 fun.

Or did you mean: "Why Do We Do This to Ourselves?"

DrewK clearly knows how manage USAF fuels and his comments are accurate and valuable. However, I hope that he was never trained in pouring gasoline into a jet airplane from a plastic can, either vented or unvented, though it would be interesting to hear about it if he was. The vapor pressure of jet fuel i believe is lower than gasoline, and the storage and transfer equipment is much safer.

The reason we are still talking about this is because the Physical Chemistry 101 facts are missing from the discussion. Why do some cans blow up like a balloon, others shrivel up like a prune, and still others just sit there doing nothing? A full statement, including the roles of each molecular component of the gasoline - and there are many - is unnecessary. Here are the basics:

• gases enclosed in a space, like a gasoline can, behave like they are alone.
• when a gasoline can appears empty, it is actually filled with air.
• when any amount of liquid gasoline is present in a confined space, like a gasoline can, the liquid will use the heat available in its surroundings to evaporate, turning some of the liquid into vapor phase gasoline until the pressure of the vapor phase gasoline reaches its stable level.
• since heat is needed to evaporate the liquid, a higher temperature gives a higher pressure of gasoline vapor.
• the actual pressure measurable on a gauge in the can will be the sum of the gasoline pressure and the air pressure.
• since the air pressure starts out at 15 psi, if the gas pressure goes up to 8 psi, the total will start to go up to 23 psi, and if there is no vent, it will go to 23 psi.
• if there is a vent, the rise in total pressure will cause the mixture of gasses in the can to escape through the vent, until enough of the air has been removed to lower the partial pressure of the air to 7 psi (15-8=7).
• however, since the gasses behave like they each are alone in the can, the air outside the can will try to diffuse into the can and the gasoline vapor in the can will try to diffuse out of the can into the atmosphere.
• it requires a special (more expensive) cover on the vent responding to the total pressure to stop the diffusion, so usually there is (or was) just a cap, which can be lost, stripped, broken, or else.

Thus it is that preventing large amounts of gasoline vapors entering the atmosphere requires either more costly (and less marketable) cans or more careful users. Which do we want?

I believe I briefly mentioned in layman terms the evaporative effect in post 19. Your physics seem sound, but considering many visitors to CR4 may not be familiar with absolute pressure and observed pressure, I thought it best to keep it simple.

Jet fuel is much less volatile than gasoline, and it could be transferred to an aircraft with plastic cans just as easily as any other vehicle; it would just take a bit longer to fill up the aircraft. I imagine it has been done sometime in the military because if the mission is important enough any means necessary will be used to refuel.

The storage and transfer equipment for just fuel is very similar to ground products. In fact we have occasionally converted jet fuel trucks to temporary avgas to refuel WWII aircraft for special airshows with just draining, flushing and changing the filter / separators. The main difference is in the safety equipment and clothing allowed in low flashpoint fuels refueling safety zones.

You do make good valid points, and one I overlooked about an additional problem related to leaving gas cans vented. The alcohol in gasoline is hydrophilic (I think that is the term) and will absorb water from the humidity in the air. I have heard many people complain about gas going bad in small cans. It sometimes happens because the can is left open to the air and given enough time and diffusion the alcohol / water will separate from the fuel.

Drew K

It IS NOT your elected representatives!!

The people who make asinine rules are weasel-like little bureaucrats with too much time on their hands. Many of them also have ulterior motives, like directing work to certain manufacturers or contractors, guaranteeing the same undeserved privilege they have to union brothers, etc.

If you doubt what I say look at the codes and standards business in your own state!

Anyway - about gas cans - I agree. One of mine has this odd thing on the end. When I use it to fill up the lawn mower you have pull it back like the foreskin on my penis.

Then there is trying to interchange spouts - they change the molds with every run I think. I would say the approval process for gas cans manufacture keeps a lot of molding companies out, but a few very well off - probably thanks to your neighbor government employee!

I've never tried these, but they look good.

Watch the video...............no spill Jill is hot.

http://www.wix.com/orde85/nospill

Looks like a 'different version' of the chainsaw 'auto level' spouts (no button required)

Looks like this with spouts 'out'

Spouts inverted (to stay clean and not get lost) it looks like the red one of similar twin tank design on this site.

Note all have 'recirculation spouts' in order to comply to a National Standard (which includes pressure).

I'm still at a loss for why this is even an issue.

Vented gas containers, (with the small vent plug in the back), worked fine in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and I'm sure before that. That's only as far back as I can remember.

I haven't read every post, has anyone linked the actual law, and why it's here?

My current gas container is unvented, and gurgles gas out................I just blamed it on my own stupidity for not taking a closer look before I bought it.

Ethanol does indeed evaporate far faster than gasoline.........along the lines of acetone.

I'm still not convinced that this whole unvented container thing is to prevent the ethanol from cooking out of the gasoline and leaving behind something that just won't burn. I've looked around, and I have zero proof of that, but I think it's a valid theory.

Read Drew's post

it's not about whether your gas evaporates, leaving the remainder unusable

it's about cleaning up the air we all breath

I'm sure all the owners of gas stations with leaky underground tanks tried to argue against mandatory replacement. after all on the grand scale what's a few gallons of gas in the world wide aquifer?

Good enough.

I guess I'm just an accidental "greenie". I hate waste, I hate inefficiency, and making efforts not to destroy our air and water seem like a no brainer to me.

I do tend to be anti big government, but I guess I'm really just anti-stupid. There seems to be a lot of that going around, both in the government and beyond. The leaky underground tanks should have never existed in the first place.

Apparently we needed the government to tell us that leaking gasoline into the ground was bad. We needed the government to tell us that inhaling cigarette smoke is bad. We needed the government to force us to buckle our seat belts...............

I'll admit that I'm guilty, (that as far as this stuff goes, _{not the crazy posts}), of thinking that people tend to think like me. I know what's good and bad.

Maybe stupid has become such a runaway train, that we will continue to need stupid government decisions to attempt to reign it in......................

kramarat....................the antistupid.

Speaking of cigarettes, one of the first antistupid thoughts I ever had, was when the government set off to spend untold millions on proving that smoking was bad.

I was maybe 6-8 years old at the time. I had 2 questions:

1) Why is the government spending time and money trying to prove that smoking is bad?

2) Why would anyone ever think that inhaling smoke, (constantly), is not bad?

It doesn't require taxpayer subsidized studies.

I remember my pediatrician was 300 pounds & chain smoked Lucky's

the underground tank thing was about $

it cost money to put in a tank that wouldn't rust out. without regulation who would care what would happen 20 years in the future?

after the tanks did rust through, it was still more expensive to replace it than just accept the small loss of product

no free market incentive to do the right thing

I guess I just need to stop worrying........................either our own stupid, the government's stupid, or a combination of the two, will eventually get the best of us. Cheers!!!

Happy Independence Day....................we depend on the government, and the government depends on us.......................yippie!!!!!

It will be interesting to see how things play out as the numbers of stupid us, and stupid them, continue to multiply.

Somehow I don't see a happy ending.

It all takes time....at least thats the master plan. And once they have all of our dependance. That we can have rebell all over again.

did you see this one?

http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/17276#newcomments

Yeah. I'm not subscribed, but it's fun reading.

They don't blend in ethanol until the fuel is being loaded onto trucks going to gas stations. This is to reduce it's ability to absorb water in storage and transit and so it won't evaporate out.

The gasoline that went through my company's pipeline had an octane rating in the low 60's. Blending in the ethanol raises the octane to the regular, mid and premium grades you see at the pump.

Perhaps keeping modern gas in an old or modified gascan will allow the ethanol to evaporate and leave you with gas that will pre-detonate in your engine and cause damage or not run at all.

Drew K

I'm just confused as usual. The small vent plug on the back of the older containers seemed to work fine. I always left it closed until it was time to pour gasoline. When it was time to pour, pop the vent plug, vent the container, leave open while pouring, seal cap and vent plug when finished.

I could even do it without dumping gas all over whatever I was filling.

People that don't understand how it works, should not own a gasoline container.

Obviously passing a law that containers be unvented isn't going to do the trick.

I'm not saying that the OP is stupid either.................I could see what happened to him, happening a lot. It could very well become a law that results in more spilled gasoline.

I am sure you have seen at least as many older gascans with that small flip vent cap broken off and lost or not used at other peoples garages.

I hope I have not suggested anyone is stupid. I don't like the gascan design the OP used any more than he does. We used one recently to fill a friends motorcycle and left it in the back of my truck...it ballooned sitting in the sun half full of gas and made me nervous as I vented it (believe it or not, fuel vapors can generate a static charge passing through a plastic tube and orifice).

Even though I didn't like the design, I accepted the frustration because I understand the reason for containing the vapors is as important as containing the liquid.

Drew K

No. I wasn't suggesting that you called anyone stupid. Many of the current, "acceptable", designs are stupid.

The plastic container I have now is unvented and has one of these eco-spouts on it. Glug, glug, glug.................the problem is, if you're near full, and it happens to glug, you end up overfilling.

I can prevent it from happening, but it's still a pain.

NOW we get back to my original point!

I was certainly not pointing out my own stupidity - though perhaps I did inadvertantly. I can certainly take some blame for not loosening the bung a tad (I didn't because that takes time, and frankly I did not fathom that it would do what it did). I did not expect that the opening of a spout stopper in a half full can would result in a gasoline shower - the liquid is at the bottom of the can and the spout is 1 foot above it. The ONLY way this happened is that some gas was trapped in the spout from a prior fill, and therefore was in there evaporating into the atmosphere anyway! It was also an extreme fire hazard - I suspect my insurance man would have a coronary had I told him I spent a week storing an OPEN "pan" of gas in my attached garage.

The point here is that we legislate away the possibility of a vent cap being missing, a person not replacing it, and the potential savings of a half-teaspoon of gasoline vaporizing. The cost of that legislation is:

a gasoline shower consisting of a cup of gas!

severe safety concerns

the same exact evaporation of the same amount of gas we were trying to legislate away (not to mention the additional that was pushed through the spout to rain back down on the unsuspecting pourer).

preventable loss of glug control (two or three tablespoons per pour/glug) - that those who would leave their cans vented all the time would also fail to prevent (let's face it, human nature is not legislatable)

Constant intelligence, care, and diligence required while using (see note above!)

SLOW gasoline dispensing

Very leaky spout design - it seems to me that at least twice as much leaked from either of these cans than any of my old ones

STUPID end product design (even agreed to by Drew himself)!

Why??? Can't we allow the engineers to solve the problem (I agree that the decade-old design with the flip-up vent MIGHT be it, but frankly they also leaked some of every pour ever executed)? If any of my current cans loses its flip-up top, I can guarantee I WILL NOT replace it with the offending design. I can't get the old design that works, so I will satisfy myself with a broken workable design over a safety concerning non-functional non-problem-solving design, instead. The old style cans were about $6 each, and I replaced them when the caps broke. The new ones are pushing $10, and the two I bought to replace broken tops are now returned to the store, and I will use broken ones in the future - UNTIL someone puts one on the market that works as it needs to. I will also be testing one metal eagle can to see if it fits the bill, but it does cost $25 or $30 - two to three times the one that does not work and over 4 x the ones that always did.

I guess this is "progress"...

I've got the beginnings of an idea hatching. It involves a dual use single spout.

The idea is, rather than having to vent the container, have a tube that runs to the bottom under the spout, a filler hose that's long enough to reach the tank that you're filling while the gas can is upright, and use the built up pressure to pump the gas into the tank. Once the pressure is released by pumping gas, simply give the spout a twist, and pour gas normally.

The container would never have to be directly vented to the air.

I never thought you, or your thread were stupid. It's the unintended consequences of politicians forcing redesigns. Whether it's ethanol or gas cans, people end up getting rich from this legislation out of Washington. One day I'd like to be one of them.

I do like your idea, and as gas gets more and more expensive solutions like this will look better and better.

Something similar is already being done, but on a larger scale. In some places it is required to contain the vapors from gas station storage tanks as they are being filled. As the trucks drain into the underground tanks, a vapor line pushes the vapors back into the truck. The whole point is to reduce the release of vapor pollution into the air.

We don't think of gasoline vapors as pollution right now because it has always been done this way...but that doesn't make it ok. You would get in trouble if you vented off your LPG tanks, so why should it be ok to vent off gasoline when you don't have to? We also severely underestimate gasoline, the vapors released are just about as flammable as LPG vapors. Yes venting them at pressure is extremely dangerous which is why the gas cans on the market today are not optimal.

I might modify my next gas can to do just what you describe. You should send that idea to a gas can company or just start selling modified lids, it could save lives and it will save gas and reduce pollution.

Drew K

Thanks, I'm glad you liked it. I think it could work.

I'm probably not going to develope it though. I'm still in the frustrating process of trying to turn another idea into money.

Frank,

I don't think I am explaining myself well.

If you have a vented can, it will continue to evaporate gas the whole time it is vented. If you close the vent it will only evaporate until the pressure is equal to the vapor pressure of the gas.

So if you take a vented and a non vented can and monitor them, one will vent forever, the other will only vent for a few hours (if held at the same temperature). If the temp rises, the vapor pressure will also increase, but none of the vapors will escape until you vent it.

Drew K

Interesting, Becaue of this,

http://www.ihgascap.com/

Thats what happened to you.

My guess is that because the fuel will be transported, and some nut, spilled it in his car. ^{When he slammed on the breaks when he spilled hot coffee on himself while driving.}

This weekend, I was in a hardware store and looked at the gascans, I almost took a picture of the instructions which clearly state you must carefully open the can to vent before you start trying to pour!

Perhaps we are complacent and think we know enough to use a redesigned gascan without reading the instructions? I know when I used one recently I didn't read anything, I just looked at the spout and figured out how to use it and went to using it.

Drew K