Modification of a gas cylinder – one of the most simple ways making a potbelly stove with your own hands. In addition, an empty propane container can be found in many private homes or cottages. If you have a welding machine, you can easily give it a second life.
It's easy to make a potbelly stove yourself. It takes up little space, is fuel-efficient, and you can cook with it. But it is important to remember that such a stove often causes fires. Therefore, it must be installed in a safe place and surrounded by non-combustible materials.
Before you start work, you need to stock up necessary tools and materials:
For efficient heating need to choose the right size.
A 5 liter cylinder is not enough even for the smallest room. 12 and 27-liter vessels can be used for heating, but in winter the heat capacity of such a stove will not be enough even for a garage. The most optimal capacity is considered to be 50 liters. Most often, propane is transported in these. Him standard sizes: 30 cm in diameter, 85 cm in height.
If a 40-liter vessel is used as the basis for the furnace, it is important to remember that it has thicker walls and a smaller diameter. This is important because these indicators affect the heating rate and heat retention.There are a number preparatory activities, necessary, to prevent gas residues from exploding during processing. The procedure for eliminating gas is as follows:
Read also: The most efficient stove
For horizontal orientation oven the bottom of the cylinder serves back wall, and a combustion door is made from the lid. Below are step-by-step instructions:
A few additional words about making doors.
Read also: Why does a potbelly stove smoke when the door is opened?
There are several ways to increase the efficiency of a potbelly stove. They are presented in the table.
| A method for increasing efficiency. | Method |
| Insulate the chimney. | The chimney pipe does not need to be directed vertically upward, but can be made curved. This way, hot air will stay in the room longer, which will have a positive effect on heat transfer. |
| Increase the area of contact between metal and air. | To do this, so-called “wings” are welded to the furnace - metal strips on both sides of the firebox. |
| Build tiles. | Weld additional metal sheet above the combustion chamber. You can place a kettle or saucepan on it. And if you improve the design with a lid consisting of several circles, you can control the degree of heating. |
| Make a brick “coat” | Brickwork around the stove will increase the heat transfer time and help heat the room more efficiently. The downside is that the potbelly stove will lose its nominal mobility. But moving a heavy structure with a pipe to another place is not easy enough. |
| Workout. | If you moisten firewood with waste oil, it will increase their combustion time by 30%. In this way, unprecedented heat capacity can be achieved. |
Another way to increase heat transfer is to install on chimney water sleeve. It's easy to make:
An additional one can be attached to the main body. It should be installed as vertical pipe. This design will increase draft, ensure even, long-term combustion, and also save the room from smoke and significantly improve heat transfer.
When using a second cylinder, the chimney pipe should be welded to the top of the structure.
Grate – required element potbelly stove designs. It helps reduce the area of contact of burning fuel with the walls of the furnace. In addition, it helps to more thoroughly filter out unburned residues from coals.
A stove from a gas cylinder can be installed where heating cannot be organized in any other way: in the garage, country house, change house.
If you have the desire and time, you can do all the work yourself.
This article will help you independently convert a gas cylinder into a heating or heating-cooking stove.
Here you will find drawings and instructional videos with which you can make a stove using waste oil, coal or wood.
A do-it-yourself stove made from a gas cylinder is considered the easiest option for making or heating apparatus for testing.
The cylinder can easily be converted into a housing for the stove. To work, you will need a grinder and an inverter or any other welding machine.
The shape of the cylinder allows us to produce a stove with a spherical firebox. Firewood in a stove of this shape burns slowly - the result is a kind of heat generator capable of heating a room for hours with one load of firewood.
Homemade stove from a gas cylinder long burning can be used in different ways:
Advantages of stoves made from gas cylinders:
The disadvantages include the fact that the work should be carried out according to reliable drawings - otherwise the design will not have the required efficiency.
For the job you will need to select a suitable cylinder. You should opt for an all-metal cylinder with a volume of 12 or 27 liters.
However, for a full-fledged heating device, a gas cylinder with a volume of 50 liters and a diameter of 30 centimeters is chosen. In a container of this volume you can burn any fuel, including coal.
Even before starting work, you should decide what type of fuel the stove will operate on. If you need a long-burning furnace, then it is better to provide the possibility of loading coal into it.
A long-burning stove can be made small, using only wood - for this purpose it is equipped with the ability to regulate draft.
The most difficult to manufacture heating devices on liquid fuel: waste oil, diesel fuel. But a waste oil stove allows you to reduce heating costs, since oil is inexpensive.
For a beginner, it’s better to start with simpler designs, for example, try converting a gas cylinder into a regular potbelly stove.
How can you make a stove from a gas cylinder? The first question that arises even before starting work is: what is the best way to position the cylinder - horizontally or vertically?
If you want to use the stove for cooking, you will have to place the cylinders horizontally.
IN vertical version You will definitely have to install grate bars inside the cylinder; in a horizontal one, this can be done at will.
But in a horizontal structure, you will have to weld a tray to collect ash, and in a vertical structure, when installing the grates at a sufficient height, you don’t have to make an ash pan.
A potbelly stove will require cast doors for the ash pan and fuel chamber.
Home craftsmen make them themselves from a piece of metal cut from a cylinder when making a hole for the combustion chamber.
In this case, you only need to purchase hinges and a latch handle. For a purchased door, you will have to weld a frame welded from corners onto the cylinder around the perimeter of the holes, and then bolt the fittings onto it.
Before you start cutting or welding metal, you need to empty the container of gas. The cylinder is filled to the top with water, then it is drained and only after that they begin to work.
Stages of manufacturing a horizontal potbelly stove:
When the cylinder is positioned vertically, the result is a structure that takes up minimal space.
This cylinder stove is suitable for a bathhouse, a small living space, and can be placed in a garage.
Stages of manufacturing a vertical potbelly stove:
An ordinary potbelly stove has a significant drawback - low efficiency. A huge amount of heat escapes through the chimney.
In addition, as soon as the fire goes out, the structure immediately cools down. Pyrolysis furnaces, that is, devices capable of maintaining prolonged combustion, do not have these disadvantages.
The simplest pyrolysis oven can be made from a gas cylinder. Masters call such devices bubafons.
The bubafonya stove made from a gas cylinder was invented by a craftsman from Russia. This happened recently, but bubafonya has already become very popular.
How does a “bubafonya” type device converted from a gas cylinder work? A movable piston is installed inside the container, dividing the container into two parts.
Fuel (wood) burns under the piston, and above it - gases released from the wood as a result of pyrolysis.
This principle of operation leads to the burning of wood in “ reverse order" - top down.
Reverse combustion occurs more slowly than usual, in which oxygen is supplied to the fuel chamber from below, through the ash holes.
In a bubafon, air is supplied to the firebox by a piston axis, which is a hollow tube. Oxygen enters the pyrolysis chamber through openings cut into the end of the gas cylinder.
Dividing the firebox into two compartments allows the wood, even with a lack of oxygen, to burn to the end without turning into coal.
The system is so effective that a fireplace from a gas cylinder on one stack of firewood works for 4 – 6 hours.
There are reliable reviews that bubafonya from a 200-liter barrel works on one filling for a whole day.
Bubafonya can be used for water heating. To do this, the gas cylinder is enclosed in a water jacket using another metal case, and connect a water pump to the system.
The rocket stove was developed as a design for survival in extreme conditions. She has high efficiency and maximum safety.
At the same time, a homemade rocket stove is so simple that a non-professional can make it. Rocket stoves use the principle of pyrolysis, that is, fuel decomposes into volatile substances under conditions of oxygen deficiency.
The simplest pyrolysis furnace can be made from any cylindrical metal container, for example, a barrel or a gas cylinder.
Rocket stoves can be equipped with beds. Such structures are still used in China and Korea for heating peasant houses.
Structurally, a rocket stove made from a gas cylinder consists of a blower, a fuel chamber with a blind lid, a channel for introducing oxygen into the pyrolysis chamber, a flame tube in which gases are burned, and a chimney.
In individual farms, it is sometimes possible to use used motor oil. In this case, heating costs are sharply reduced.
To burn oil, you need to assemble a special furnace that runs on liquid fuel. A working heater and a simple wood stove operate on different principles.
At first glance, a waste oven is no more complicated than a saucepan, but complex chemical and thermal processes take place in it.
A gas cylinder exhaust furnace consists of the following parts:
To make a stove from a gas cylinder, tanks with a volume of 50 liters are used.
The cylinder is sawn in a ratio of 2:1. The smaller part will be used to make the tank, the larger one will become the afterburner.
The operating principle of such a furnace system is as follows:
In other words, the fuel is used twice - first the oil burns, and then its vapor burns out. As a result, no waste remains, and the efficiency of such a furnace is as high as possible - 80%.
Waste oil is a heavy, heavily contaminated and poorly burning mass complex composition. Two-stage combustion allows you to fully use the entire resource of this fuel. The structure is located vertically.
On top of it you can install a grid-stand for placing buckets, pots and other utensils.
Drawings that must be strictly adhered to and training videos will help you make a furnace using a cylinder.
A disadvantage of liquid fuel stoves is increased safety requirements. Fuel reserves have to be stored away from the boiler room.
A design that runs on waste oil cannot be used as a sauna stove, but it is useful for heating workshops, cabins and residential premises.
In the latter case, it is better for her to build a separate boiler room in the form of an extension to the house.
So, now you know how to make any stove from a metal gas cylinder with your own hands.
Having the necessary drawings, an angle grinder and an inverter, you can easily make a mobile and efficient heating device that will help out in winter time when other types of heating are turned off or unavailable.
Although the potbelly stove has a history of more than a century, it has not ceased to be a very popular heating device for small rooms.
Such a furnace is made not only from solid sheets of metal, but also from various metal objects that can withstand the heat from an intense flame - this could be a barrel, a flask, a pipe or an old gas cylinder.
It is especially popular among avid motorists, who even in winter period cannot refuse improvements in their car, spending all their free time in garages time. The gas cylinder has an ideal shape, it’s practically a potbelly stove, you just need to improve it slightly: cut off the excess, drill the necessary holes and add a few pipes! Let's take a closer look at how to make a potbelly stove from a cylinder?
A potbelly stove made from a gas cylinder can have a vertical or horizontal arrangement. Some craftsmen even make such stoves from two cylinders, placing one of them in a vertical position on top of the other, which is oriented horizontally.
However, there are many models, and after considering different ones, you can choose the one that seems more convenient to use and acceptable in ease of execution.
Naturally, to make a potbelly stove from a cylinder you will need some tools and materials, as well as certain skills in working with them.
From tools need to collect:
From materials In addition to one or two gas cylinders, you must purchase:
It should be noted here that both a standard gas cylinder and a small cylinder are suitable for the manufacture of such a stove.
As mentioned above, a cylinder stove can be vertical or horizontal. You can choose the one you need based on the amount of space allocated for installing the potbelly stove and the ease of its operation.
Proper preparation of the cylinder is a very important step before starting work, especially if the potbelly stove is made from a container that recently contained gas. Residual gas may remain inside, and when cutting, which is accompanied by sparks, the cylinder may explode.
The washed container no longer poses any risk of explosion when working with it, and you can safely begin the cutting process.
Take a regular unnecessary gas cylinder
Possible marking option for a vertical potbelly stove
This arrangement of the gas cylinder helps to save space, as the stove turns out to be compact and neat. It is especially suitable for a garage or a small room in the country.
In the role of a grate - rows drilled holes
You can make the door yourself...
...or buy ready-made ones in the store
You can also work with a small balloon. It is made according to the same plan as a horizontal stove.
The proposed options are only a small part of what was invented by folk craftsmen. Look how the craftsman combined in one potbelly stove brickwork and gas cylinder:
If you have an idea about working with the tools described above and that’s it necessary materials, you can try to make this convenient and sometimes irreplaceable stove yourself. By making it yourself, you can save quite a large amount, and also make an already unnecessary gas cylinder function. The most important thing is to approach this work responsibly and do it slowly, checking every action.
To heat a dacha or garage, it is quite possible to make a stove from an ordinary gas cylinder.
The advantages of a gas cylinder as a manufacturing material are as follows:
The most suitable shape for a stove firebox is a sphere. The chamber of this shape is easy to clean, and the uniform heat distribution increases the efficiency of the entire device. Taking into account the fact that the fuel chamber must have at least two opposite openings: for adding fuel and removing heat, the optimal shape of the firebox in the form of a sphere is somewhat elongated and turns into a cylinder with rounded ends.
This is exactly the shape of a regular gas cylinder, widely used in everyday life. Due to the fact that waste products are made of durable and high-quality steel, they are often used in households as the basis for a variety of fixtures and devices. They are used to make homemade barbecues, smokehouses, hand rollers, feeders and drinking bowls for livestock, and even homemade compressors and boilers.
Homemade fireboxes made from gas cylinders are also on this list of examples of the appearance of a “second life” for a used product. The cylinder may end up on the farm after it has been used for its intended purpose, or you can purchase an empty container; the price for them is quite affordable.
The types of stoves that can be made from an empty gas cylinder are determined by its shape. Thus, the cylinder is suitable as a housing for the following heating devices:
Used products are made of durable and high-quality steel; they are often used on the farm as a basis for a variety of fixtures and devices. To be used as a housing for a furnace, the cylinder must meet the following number of parameters:
Industrial pneumatic cylinders (the common size is 40 liters, smaller sizes are used for helium) are not suitable for converting them into any heating devices using household means. They have very thick walls, and they themselves are heavy and bulky; their shape is not suitable for use as a firebox - they are too elongated in length.
To make a stove from a gas cylinder you will have to cut it and for this the product must first be prepared:
Further manipulations with the future firebox depend on the design of the furnace.
For a potbelly stove, you can use products of relatively small volume:
The chimney pipe must be curved, elbow-type, so that the heat does not escape too quickly The stove with the name bubafonya refers to long-burning stoves, which is ensured by pressing a kind of piston onto solid fuel, which increases the efficiency of the stove. With this combustion method, pyrolysis gases are formed and burned, which additionally heat the furnace.
Making a bubafon stove is no more difficult than making a potbelly stove:
The height of the pipe should be 8-12 cm greater than the height of the body The so-called rocket stove represents the top of the hierarchy of heating devices made from empty gas cylinders. Its name reflects not only the characteristic sound when not quite proper operation stoves, but also the efficiency achieved through the maximum use of burned fuel.
High efficiency is ensured by burning both the fuel itself and the pyrolysis gases released during combustion. The fuel material is loaded into the furnace located at an angle and burns, gradually falling down. The firebox is connected to the body. Through the blower, oxygen enters the combustion area in the furnace body, ensuring the process of additional combustion of pyrolysis gases.
The rocket stove consists of two main parts: a body made of a cylinder and a loading box where fuel is loaded. For manufacturing, among other things, you will need a welding machine and, accordingly, skills to work with it, since the manufacturing process of the furnace is completely welding.
Case manufacturing:
The main elements of the firebox are made of pipes with square section 15x15 cm:
These elements are welded together so that the part into which fuel will be loaded is located in relation to the body under acute angle up to 60°. The blower and chimney are located approximately on the same line at the bottom of the structure, while the flame pipe is inserted into a hole made in the lower part of the body.
A door with a latch is attached to the outer part of the blower to control the air supply. A lid is also made for the upper part of the combustion chamber, which fits quite tightly to the walls of the loading hole.
In the center of the body, two are placed vertically one inside the other round pipes, with a diameter from 7 to 10 cm and from 15 to 20 cm, respectively. A flame tube is welded into a pipe of smaller diameter. The space between vertical pipes filled with non-flammable filler that has the ability to retain heat (expanded clay, vermiculite).
The blower and chimney are located approximately on the same line at the bottom of the structure, while the flame pipe is inserted into a hole made in the lower part of the body Most waste gas cylinder stoves are not suitable for permanent residential use. Their safety level does not really meet fire safety requirements.
When placing such devices, it is important to try to place them on flat surface to prevent the possibility of falling. If the stove is placed on a surface that can catch fire, then it should be placed on mineral cardboard or a sheet of roofing sheet.
When using products indoors, it is necessary to take into account that due to the fact that the firebox body is made of metal, the air in the room “burns out” quite quickly. Therefore, it is vital to ensure regular and sufficient ventilation of the premises.
You can heat all kinds of technical premises, private garages, and small auto repair shops using various units. If desired, you can actually make the simplest design for heating non-residential objects yourself using old cylinder from under the gas.
Nowadays, non-standard heating devices made by hand are used by many home craftsmen. One of the most interesting, easy to manufacture, reliable and cheap to operate is a homemade unit that uses waste oil as fuel. It can be built literally in a couple of hours from a gas cylinder. This boiler has simple design and operating principle.
The exhaust stove, constructed from a gas cylinder, has two compartments. They burn fuel. Moreover, this process is performed twice. First, direct combustion of waste oil is observed (in the first compartment). This leads to the appearance of flammable mixture vapors. They go to the second department homemade boiler. There they combine with air, resulting in a highly concentrated flammable composition. When it is burned, a huge amount of heat is generated, which can warm up enough large area premises.
Gas cylinder units have many advantages. The cost of their assembly and operation is minimal. You can use any old gas cylinder that has been lying around somewhere in the garage for decades. And it’s easy to purchase the work at the nearest car service center. It costs a penny. The main thing here is not to use overly contaminated oil, since in this case the efficiency of the stove will decrease and the complexity of its maintenance (cleaning) will increase.
Other advantages of waste boilers:
It is also important that the stove from the cylinder stops working immediately after the fuel is burned (the supply to the combustion compartment is stopped).
We talked in detail about the advantages of using homemade boilers that operate on waste oil. Let’s not forget to talk about the disadvantages of such structures. First of all, they are considered a fire hazard. Cylinder stoves have open holes through which fire can spread throughout the heated object in a matter of seconds. This fact necessitates constant monitoring of the unit’s operation. Throwing it unattended when the waste is fed into the furnace is strictly prohibited.
The next disadvantage of the design is objectively strong noise. The unit is really loud. Not every person is ready to endure such inconveniences. Also, after each use of the stove, its combustion chambers must be cleaned. A similar procedure must be performed with the chimney. It is an essential part of a homemade waste oil boiler. The chimney, by the way, has to be made quite high (at least 4 m). If you build a smaller smoke duct, the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning increases several times.
Oil intended for combustion in a furnace must be stored under special conditions. It must not be left under sun rays. It is also prohibited to store it in negative temperatures. The mining freezes even with minor minuses and becomes absolutely useless. Once defrosted, it cannot be used as fuel.
Another serious drawback of the described stoves is associated with oil. The waste must be cleaned. If you use unrefined oil, the unit's nozzles will quickly become clogged. This may well cause the cylinder to explode. Some home craftsmen say that their homemade heating boilers work on untreated waste. Perhaps the unit will be able to heat the room using such oil. But the effectiveness of its work, believe me, will be minimal.
All the drawings that can be used for testing are approximately the same. Below we show a diagram of a simple heating unit. It is on this basis that we will make a homemade device.
The drawing shows all the elements of our boiler. The basis of the design is a gas cylinder (position 1). The oven is also supplied with:
The furnace design also includes duct fan(13), connecting element - coupling (7), air swirler (12), welded from equal-angle angles (flange width - 5 cm) and a device for supplying fuel (10). As the latter, it is allowed to use a suitable (flexible) pipe made of fire-resistant material or a durable hose.
We prepare all the necessary parts and begin assembling the stove for testing. Before starting the main work, you should completely empty the cylinder of condensate and gas residues in it. Advice. It is easy to check the quality of the work performed. Coat the valve outlet (the hole at the end of it) with concentrated dishwashing liquid, or regular soap. Open the faucet. If there is no condensate or gas left in the cylinder, foam bubbles will not appear at the outlet. This means you did everything right.
We remove the valve from the cylinder. If you have a gas container with a non-removable tap, you will have to tinker. Use an electric drill to drill a hole in the bottom. And then unscrew the valve. Note! Experts advise performing this operation very carefully. Even if you are sure that all the flammable composition has left the cylinder, there is still some possibility of the container exploding. Do not press down on the power tool with excessive force. Even better, water the drill with ordinary water while making a hole in the bottom. Then the risk of explosion will be zero. After dismantling the valve, fill the cylinder with water to the top and wait a couple of minutes until it all comes out.
Now we cut out two windows on the gas cylinder. The height of the first (lower) is 20 cm, the second (upper) is 40. The width of the openings is a third of the cross-section of the cylinder used. There should be a jumper between the cut windows. Its height is 5–7 cm. We have a full-fledged compartment for burning fuel. By the way, you can even put coal and firewood in it if you wish.
The next step is to make a device that will separate the heat exchanger from the oil combustion chamber. We will make the separator from a steel sheet 4 mm thick. We cut out a circle from it with a diameter corresponding to the cross-section of a 50-liter gas container. That's not all. In the central part of the completed workpiece, we again cut out a circle (necessary for installing the burner). Its diameter is 10 cm.
The burner itself is made from a pipe with a height of 20 and a cross-section of 10 mm. IN finished product it will be necessary to make perforation - drill several 1.5–2 cm holes. All burrs must be removed from the latter. If cleaning is not done, soot will constantly settle on the holes during operation of the stove. This will cause a narrowing of their cross-section, which over time will lead to a significant decrease in the efficiency of the home-made heating unit.
We put a membrane on the burner made according to all the rules. Weld the last one strictly in the center. Then install the entire workpiece into the cylinder and securely connect it by welding around the perimeter. Advice. The pipe can be welded to the bottom of the chamber divider. Then it will be possible to load special pellets and briquettes, as well as sawdust and other solid fuels into the stove.
The evaporator bowl is made from a brake disc or from any metal product with a high heat resistance rating. Choose a material that is not afraid of elevated temperatures and sudden changes. After this, weld the lid and bottom. Do not forget to leave an opening into which the mining will be poured. It is advisable to improve this part of the oven a little. Simplifying the fuel filling process is easy. It is enough to weld a low tube to the lid at a 40-degree angle, and then cut off the end of the tubular product to get a kind of spout. It will be much easier to fill through it.
If you install a ball valve on the pipe, the unit will become much safer to operate. If any problems arise with the tank, you can quickly shut off the supply of used oil.
We construct the heat exchanger from a 10-centimeter pipe. Into the body heating device place it clearly horizontally. It is recommended to additionally mount it on the end of the heat exchanger metal screen(weld the steel sheet to the pipe). Due to this device, the heating rate of the system and its beneficial effect will significantly increase.
The oven is ready. You just need to connect the chimney to it. We take a pipe 4–6 m long. In its lower part we cut a hole with a cross-section of about 6 cm. We weld a piece (2–2.5 m) of another pipe to it. She is in relation to floor surface is located in parallel. All that remains is to weld the vertical part of the chimney, mounted outside the room, to a short pipe.
Advice. Make another 6–7 cm hole on the short chimney pipe and cover it with a metal plate. This simple device will allow you to adjust the intensity with which air will enter the oven. And this, in turn, will make it possible to regulate the combustion rate of the waste. We also need to weld the iron legs to the bottom of the stove we made. They are easy to make from metal corners.
We have already noted that the structure we are interested in, used for heating non-residential objects, belongs to the group of fire hazardous equipment. If you do not want to encounter serious problems when using a homemade boiler during mining, adhere to the following rules:
Last recommendation. Do not fill the combustion compartment full of used oil. The maximum permissible filling of this chamber is 2/3 of its volume. If used correctly, the exhaust unit, made from a gas cylinder, will serve you for a long time and efficiently.
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