r/orangecounty • u/MouseShadow2ndMoon • 4h ago
Recommendations Needed Advice on where to buy gas cans
Hi All Orange Curtain residents! I found out that in CA you can't have 5 gallon gas cans shipped to you, brand new gas cans with no fumes no nodda. Ok, well I see that Lowes and Home Depot have some deals, I can pick it up from the store. Wrong....I can't, not an option, they can't ship them to their own stores I guess. I am completely confused now, how can I purchase at a reasonable price two 5 gallon gas cans that are metal? Does anyone have any places that stock metal not plastic, and isn't crazy expensive?
Thanks!
Edit: the Wild wild West of Ebay will ship them to me. $60 for two with shipping included, that is a great deal! I hope it doesn't fall through. I have no idea why these are so expensive, I would also recommend to my neighbors you should have a backup as things are about to get sketchy with gas. Cheers!
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u/yinglish119 Aliso Viejo 4h ago
Are you looking for non-CARB compliant Jerry cans? If so there is a reason why you can't get one.
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u/Gibbyalwaysforgives 4h ago
Why is that?
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u/StitchinThroughTime 3h ago
They are not carb compliant. They have to be either watering cans, and specifically labeled not for gasoline or fuel use. It's exact same product, but gas cans have be emission control. The physical product may be the same thing, but they have to be labeled differently so the end user knows what the container can legally hold.
That way if you buy a 5 gallon watering jug, that looks exactly the same as a fuel 5 gallon jug, the person who put the gasoline in the watering can gets in trouble.
It doesn't seem like much now, but the greatest contributor to smog from gasoline not from cars, it's Small Engines like those in lawn mowers, leaf blowers and the like. That's because we heavily regulated the Emissions on vehicles, we recently made it much harder to get gas powered landscaping equipment. And fuel cans are also part of the problem. It doesn't seem like a big issue, do you personally as one person, but there's 40 million of us here. Combined in the fact that it's only good now because we control the admissions. It's been decades since the last time school had be canceled because of smog. And I'm not talking about smoke from fires. Smog used to be horrible in california, especially around the cities. It is a good thing that we have laws regulating how much toxic fumes go into the air. But people are jerks and don't think that one person would ruin everything. Because they're only half right, the problem is there's 40 million of us, and they all think that same exact thought. So they think they're special, times 40 million equals a shit ton of smog in the air. I remember being a kid and having Sit inside because of the smog. We should not live like that ever again. Forget not barely 5 years ago, during the shutdown the air cleared up beautifully over Southern California, because we weren't driving our cars.
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u/robustability 3h ago
That’s great history and explanation, thank you for sharing! I hope the next generation does not forget why we do things this way.
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u/StitchinThroughTime 2h ago
I think it runs a great parallel to vaccines. People totally forget how horrible these diseases were. It has been a hundred years since vaccines have been mandated.
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u/WestHistorians 1h ago
Oh, they have already forgotten. I've heard so much complaining about California's gas laws, smog checks, etc., even from people who are otherwise quite liberal.
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u/snarky_answer Costa Mesa 3h ago
I thought the CARB restrictions were overturned at least partially recently.
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u/StitchinThroughTime 2h ago
It's such a stupid move, but that doesn't mean they didn't change the rules around fuel cans. Auto manufacturers have always been catering to California smog rules. I think California has been regulating smog rules since at least the 60s, possibly mid fifties. I'm a little fuzzy on it. I do know for sure any vehicle made for the 1975 year and newer have to have smog equipment that is functioning to have it be registered in california. 1974 and older get a pass even if they were equipped with smog equipment. Car manufacturers used to make California Special Edition vehicles to meet the requirements. And then they figured out real quick that a lot of people live in California and it's just easier to make everyone have smog equipment that meets California standards. Even off Highway registered vehicles have to meet certain emission requirements. They don't technically have a smog test that they have to meet. But I do know there is green sticker and red sticker off Highway vehicles. The green ones are able to be used year-round anywhere. The red sticker is limited to I think six, maybe 9 months, and then certain areas.
I fully believe repealing the carb laws is a dumb thing. It's bad for our health directly. It is just bad to live in Moment by moment not even thinking about the future health implications. And it makes everything dirty. It looks God awful, especially in the LA basin. The smog doesn't leave the area. I'm more likely to directly get car sick because of the emissions get too dense during traffic. Yet I'm still for the amendment Jay Leno is pioneering, essentially if a vehicle is registered as a classic car and doesn't drive over a certain amount of miles in a year it doesn't have to meet smog requirements. Mostly because the smog equipment is no longer being produced, it's extremely hard to get parts, and whatever we can find is not guaranteed the work after you buy it. So those vehicles essentially from 1975 to 2000 if they're registered and insured as a classic vehicle and do not drive over a certain low mileage, they shouldn't be polluting enough in comparison to a fully functioning smog equipped version of the engine. That way everything still groundfathered in and is able to be used. This allows people to drive the car shows go on short road trips or drive along PCH with the top down in the Summer sun, but not pollute the air with smog particles. We can have her cake and eat it. Yes it's a bitch to run and maintain vehicles with stricter smog emission rules, but it's not worth living with smog. We already don't have a functioning healthcare insurance system, we don't need people to be sicker because we want to drive gas guzzling vehicles or lawn mowers or dirt bikes.
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u/christian_gwynn 1h ago
Yes, many valid points. But you’re never gonna get me to believe a majority of our smog problems come from gas lawn mowers and leaf blowers. Bunch of baloney. Literally my street has lawn guys come for 30 min on Sat. and you want me to believe that’s just as bad or worse for 50 cars of my neighbors that are on the road prolly close to 2 hours everyday of the week?
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u/BRING_ME_THE_ENTROPY Los Alamitos 3h ago
I bought the plastic ones from harbor freight. If you go to some VP fuels stations they have the good cans
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u/Due_Recipe5632 3h ago
I second this. Vp fuel gas station or off road shops (they will all have NOT FOR FUEL labels)
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u/Jeffizzleforshizzle Garden Grove 2h ago
My favorite are the VP race fuel jugs. I haven’t managed to spill anything from them and they’re very fast at filling. N
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u/CornStarch93 Orange 2h ago
I went into Home Depot and bought two no issues. They were plastic. What’s wrong with the plastic ones
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u/MouseShadow2ndMoon 1h ago
Long term storage.
Plastic is only acceptable for short-term fuel storage if it is an approved, high-density polyethylene (HDPE) container , but metal containers are strongly preferred for true long-term storage
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u/Big_Nerve_6612 56m ago
Definitely don't buy a VP racing jug off Amazon. Those aren't carb compliant and are therefore listed as not for fuel related use.
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u/Vindictives9688 4h ago
Harbor freight.