thinking of making a wood stove out of a 275 gal oil tank

Arborist Forum

Help Support Arborist Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Leave the fuel oil in it and you will get a much hotter fire.
 
Are you talking about making a wood boiler or just a wood burning stove? I've seen quite a few modified into outdoor trash burners. Kind of taking the place of the old steel trash burn barrels. These 275 gallon oil tanks seem to be a dime a dozen in the past few years since the price of fuel oil skyrocketed and I've been trying to come up with a good use for them. My local salvage yard has a ton of these and they cut them open and use them for storage bins.
 
When you burn wood in thinner gauge steel, it will rot the steel out on the bottom of the tank. I don't know how long they last, but I would guess not very long if it is used a lot. When the bottom rusts out, it makes the stove very dangerous. Be careful, and periodically check the bottom.
 
Troll- In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response[1]

I thought his topic was appropiate and on topic being this is a wood burning forum.
 
cedarman, I think people are looking at the quantity and quality of his posts, and how new he is, and assuming he's a troll.


I don't think so.
 
like the barrel burners, a good layer of sand on the bottom maybe with some insulation bricks on top of that ought to keep the bottom in one piece. Still that thin gauge steel will not withstand a bunch of abuse. Glows red real quick. Like barrel stove or an old potbelly unit it will radiate a lot of heat. Walls do not like that much localized heat. Best placement is middle of room.
 
Troll- In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response[1]

I thought his topic was appropiate and on topic being this is a wood burning forum.

He's asking about making a wood stove from a 275 gal oil tank. Most stoves are smaller than a 55 gal drum?
I can picture a 275 gal tank in someone's living room. lol...

Edit to add; I have a 250 gal gas tank behind my house. It's aprox 6 feet long and 3 feet diameter. Would make a hell of a wood stove! :D
 
Last edited:
Though he's been here a long time there is little doubt he's trolling in his recently started threads.

I dont get it..... So because he hasnt been on here in a while and he asks an open ended question, he is now labeled by the forum guru's.... a troll?

I always thought a forum was a place to find, gather, and give information on a certian topic. I didnt know you had to meet certain standards or you were labeled as a troll.

very new to me. I guess I better post at least once a week. god knows I dont want to be labeled as such a person. lol!
 
Not to sound smart, but I doubt any of you guys have actually cut one of these oil tanks apart or have seen one cut apart. I know they are at least 1/8" thick or thicker. I've seen plenty of 55 gallon barrel stoves last for years in a garage shop and I know those barrels aren't has thick has a fuel oil tank. I think there are outdoor woodboiler plans sold by Deb that use a 275 gallon fuel oil tank for the firebox welded into a round tank about 4ft diameter.
 
He's asking about making a wood stove from a 275 gal oil tank. Most stoves are smaller than a 55 gal drum?
I can picture a 275 gal tank in someone's living room. lol...

Edit to add; I have a 250 gal gas tank behind my house. It's aprox 6 feet long and 3 feet diameter. Would make a hell of a wood stove! :D

he may own a large pole building at which a 275 gallon tank just may be perfect.

theres a large garage in my town that uses a 275 gallon tank. works nicely
 
Not to sound smart, but I doubt any of you guys have actually cut one of these oil tanks apart or have seen one cut apart. I know they are at least 1/8" thick or thicker. I've seen plenty of 55 gallon barrel stoves last for years in a garage shop and I know those barrels aren't has thick has a fuel oil tank. I think there are outdoor woodboiler plans sold by Deb that use a 275 gallon fuel oil tank for the firebox welded into a round tank about 4ft diameter.

Vinced - I have cut MANY 275 gallon tanks open. We use them to build barbecue cookers. I can tell you a few things about them that may be of inerest:

1) They are only slightly thicker than the typical 55 gallon drum. They are nowhere close to 1/8" thick!

2) It's not possible to put a 275 gallon tank inside a 4ft diameter tank. The 275 gallon tanks are about 30" x 60" x 58".

3) The process of rolling the steel to form the tanks loads them with lots of spring tension. Unless you brace the heck out of the tank, when you start cutting it, it will deform (trying to straighten out) and you will NEVER get it back to its original shape again.

4) I can't imagine relying on a 275 gallon tank to survive as a firebox. As I stated above, we use them for building barbecue cookers. Even when used with coals only (no open fire), these tanks only last about 4-5 years before we have to cut the bottoms out and reline them.

The steel used to make the eanks was designed to hold liquids, not resist heat.
 
Last edited:
thank for the reply fatman, thats good to know. i have been thinking of making a outdoor wood stove with my extra tank.

the reasons for me are i live in a rural area and have several wooded acres to take care of. i burn anything larger than a couple of inches in my woodstove but have no way of getting rid of saplings and my larger tree of heavans. they just banned open burning and they wont take anything over 4" in diameter at the new waste facility and only collect once a month in the warm months. now i have a pile the size of a small house of sticks, thank you small goberment.

sooo i would like to make a large cheap outdoor stove i can just throw big stuff in to get rid of it. i figure i can rienforce around the top perimeter with angle and chop the top off. i can then add a couple of hinges and a handle to swing the whole top open. add a couple of air feed holes, a chimny and a grate and walla. i have a big stove i can throw all kinds of wood junk in without going through days of breaking sticks and bundling them up. i dont care about heat output or asthetics, it would only burn a couple of times a year to outdoors not in my living room:laugh:

so anybody done one with pics?
 
Don't know much about it...but the State Park I worked at for a couple seasons in college had a 275 (maybe a 350) turned into a stove in their barn / workshop.

I do remember it had what looked like a commercial door on one narrow end, and it was lined at least half-way up with firebrick on the inside. The full timers said once it got cranking in the winter it took the chill out pretty quick.

Hard to imagine how many 4' long logs you could stuff into that puppy at once :D

Barn was built in 1890-something, and this heated the main floor plus loft. The barn was built into a bank so the front door was on one level, the building's left side door was a floor below it giving access to the "cellar", and the rear door was yet another level down giving access to the "sub cellar." Cellar was useful, sub cellar was pretty damp year round.

Only insulation in the barn was around the bathroom (which included a shower) and the adjacent frost-proof room that stuff that shouldn't ever freeze was stored in -- darn thick insulation, too. Those two rooms were heated by an electric baseboard.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top