COLONIAL HEIGHTS, Va. — As this winter storm approached, you may have spent the past week looking at and purchasing a portable generator, or you may have pulled one you already own out of storage to crank up.
New and old generator owners have one thing in common: a search for special gasoline.
For Wilkinson Oil in Prince George County, the past five days have been hectic as customers planned ahead of the storm.
"Well we've been selling heating oil, propane and also this non-ethanol gas " Robert Wilkinson with Wilkinson Oil said. "The gas is generally used for people's generators."
Wilkinson said they sold more than 1,000 gallons of non-ethanol gasoline ahead of the storm.
"I'm out here today getting a little bit of an insurance policy, in case new lose power dying the storm. Already pretty filled up, deployed and ready to go, this is just to kind of top things off," shopper Kyle Bain explained.
Most portable generators can run on regular gasoline, but one ingredient is cause for concern for many owners.
"Specifically I'm getting the ethanol free cause it will last a lot longer and stabilize and you don't have to worry about it going bad as quick," one shopper said.
Regular gas has ethanol and some say ethanol can lead to major issues with the carburetors in small engines and that ethanol gas can go bad as gas often stays in generators for a long period of time.
"The gas stays in the tank of the small engine for long periods of time so it will gum up if you don't have the non ethanol," Wilkinson explained.
Wilkinson also said it's important to make sure your generator is full of oil and that the oil is changed on a regular basis.
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