My friend Suzie is a fountain of knowledge. She is always the one everyone wants on their quiz team. She is also the first one you call if Google can’t help and you need a quick answer about something. I keep trying to encourage her to go on game shows but she won’t budge. Not her thing she says.What she has to say is always interesting even though you dont quite know when you may have a use for some of the pearls of wisdom she imparts. For example, last week while we were having a long involved conversation about free radicals she comes out with two ‘interesting’ gems that she just had to tell me before she forgot. One was that men are 6 times more likely to be struck by lightning than women and the other was that a female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate.
I never quite know what to do with this information and often wonder if her little knowledge bytes actually have deeper meanings. Like in this case, was she trying to tell me that if I don’t find a decent man soon I will either die or I’ll run out of possibilities? I am always left wondering.
Anyway, every now and then she comes out with something that I do find particularly practical. She sent me an email today about ways to save on gasoline costs. So here are Suzie’s tips and I hope they help you in some small way….its something we all face…unless you have converted….to other fuels…..that is
1. Only buy or fill up your car or truck in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. All service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground. The colder the ground the more dense the gasoline, when it gets warmer gasoline expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening....your gallon is not exactly a gallon.
2. When you're filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode. If you look you will see that the trigger has three stages: low, middle, and high. In slow mode you should be pumping on low speed, thereby minimizing the vapors that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapor return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some of the liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapor. Those vapors are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you're getting less worth for your money.
3. One of the most important tips is to fill up when your gas tank is HALF FULL or HALF EMPTY. The reason for this is, the more gas you have in your tank the less air occupying its empty space. Gasoline evaporates faster than you can imagine. Gasoline storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the gas and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation.
4. If there is a gasoline truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy gas, DO NOT fill up--most likely the gasoline is being stirred up as the gas is being delivered, and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom.
