Fuel can is hard to handle!!!

   / Fuel can is hard to handle!!! #101  
i use a lrg funnel works great but you still have to hold the gas can up there ,i guess you could buy a small gas pump system from like princess auto or some place lie that
 
   / Fuel can is hard to handle!!! #102  
I saw a news story that said the government put a company out of business that makes these fuel cans. All the regs made it impossible for them to make a can cheaply enough to sell. So the cost of gas cans will keep rising. It's just plastic, folks!
 
   / Fuel can is hard to handle!!! #104  
I saw a news story that said the government put a company out of business that makes these fuel cans. All the regs made it impossible for them to make a can cheaply enough to sell. So the cost of gas cans will keep rising. It's just plastic, folks!
I wonder who printed (broadcast) that government regs shut them down?

Defending 42 product liability lawsuits to people who got burned bankrupted them.

Google returns several articles describing Blitz cans exploding without proximity to fire from static electricity alone, causing major injury. For example a small girl burned to death where it first appeared that her father doused her with gasoline and set her on fire. The article by Dan Rather (pdf) is interesting. He reports that ATF testing related to prosecuting that father showed a Blitz can exploded 13 times in 17 tests, so charges were dismissed. Blitz repeated the tests and the can exploded in three of their four tests.

It looks to me that static electricity around gasoline is just as much a risk as the blatant misuse that we thought was the problem.
 
   / Fuel can is hard to handle!!! #107  
image.jpg I bought this started keeping my fuel in a 55 gallon drum. Now all I have to do is drive in garage and fill her up. Worth every penny!!!!
 
   / Fuel can is hard to handle!!! #108  
this is a very interesting thread, particularly for me, in my sixties, bad neck, bad back, and yesterday lifted a very full diesel can up on the hood of my Kubota,
cursing the idiots who ever put the filler up that high. Maybe the only place to put it in an L, but sure hope the M's have a lower fill.
Lifting a forty pound can of diesel up high in the air, rest it on the loader arm, then over to the pad on the hood, what an ordeal.

I still have to deal with five gallon cans, have two, one with the push button mechanism that works far better than any before, but still is slow. I like the idea of putting a vent hole in the can. They always used to have that little plastic plug, I guess that went with vapor issues. Time to put one back in...

Actually, I love the pump arrangements some of you have. I have to go to a gas station to get diesel, now 4.09 around here, down a little finally, and
so whatever solution I come up with has to work with those cans, nothing larger.

Will go back and look at all the good examples here and pick one. Going to fill both cans this morning, lots of work to do.
But I still hate fueling the tractor. Just not a good design.
 
   / Fuel can is hard to handle!!! #109  
bcp, I watched the first two videos, the second one was the clincher for me.
This is a very simple case of product liability and a reorganization bankruptcy that will
absolve the new company of the overwhelming liabilities of the old.
There are hundreds of millions of these plastic cans out there.

We all have some crappy old
ones kicking around. So we give an old one to a friend, and his explodes on his family, likely
caused by human error, but who cares. The can did not prevent the operator from hurting himself due
to misuse. That's what the plaintiff attorneys want.
I have one of the 80 dollar safety cans that I bought thinking
I might carry one on my trailer. Never did, and the can is horrible to use. Heavy, high effort, and didn't flow very fast
either. Maybe I had to take some restrictor out of it. But that seriously expensive gas can is now sitting in my garage empty
and gathering dust. Like I'm going to hoist that metal can up on my tractor's hood and scratch it up? No thanks.

I'm sure not the one to do it but I'd like to see someone duplicate one of these exploding gas can fires with one of these safety cans.
I can think of all kinds of ways to misuse it and get a catastrophe going.
In some ways like guns, it's the person not the gun, but that argument didn't fly here.

They say the "cure" was a part that added one dollar to the can. If it was that easy, which I'm sure is a going forward requirement,
why did they still pump so many "old style" cans out to the public? Because they cost less. Cans should have had big warning signs on them
like a huge flammable insignia. Some people need to read the signs... but at real issue are the ones who don't read or heed anything.

In this burn case, it was caused by an accident, the gas can got knocked over. But who in their right mind keeps a full gas can in the same room
as their heater. That's insane. It should be out in the shed, or at least by the garage door with nothing "sparky" around it.
But in a basement? This is called contributory negligence. So they write off 20% of an enormous judgment and put Blitz out of business with the rest.
There is no way Blitz could have carried a commercial umbrella policy big enough to pay for the potential exposure here. They simply had to go into bankruptcy
to survive. I wonder if the UL sticker or NFPA? approval designation was on the old can? And when the rules change, and the old cans are still out there, and plastic
sure does last a long time, well this is an insurance and liability nightmare.

Glad Blitz is going to continue. I hope their "new" product specs allow them to make a product that is safe enough to prevent lawsuits. But for how long?
Someone drives over their gas can with their excavator. They suffer burns. It just goes on and on. Everyone who does something stupid wants someone
else to pay for it.

But since we are all human, and we all do stupid things, insurance pays for them unless they were intentional acts, but beware of the "risking a catastrophe" clause buried in some policies. If you store dynamite in your house your policy may not pay for the pieces left. Gasoline is so common due to lawn mowers that it would not be considered an exceptional hazard. I'm just sorry this poor kid got burned because his father was dumb enough to put the gas can down there. Didn't see the father mentioning that in his explanation...
No surprise there.
 
 
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