Building your own wood burning boiler or heater

[Archie Bunker]

My dad was telling me that instead of buying an expensive 5-10 thousand dollar outdoor boiler you could build
your own right on the ground from block & line it with the fireplace ceramic or what ever you call it & then
plumb it with your lines. Has anyone done this ? thanks Arch.

 

[matt701]

People that have done this have books on how to do it. One place I found literature was ebay, search "boiler plans" and check it out.

 

[ken999]

A mechanic from work built one last August based on a Johnson. He changed a few minor things, but basically copied the Johnson. With last fall's steel prices he spend around $3500 in material alone. In talking to him the other day, he figured current pricing would have saved him close to $1000...

He had the cylinders rolled for him, but other than that he did the rest of the work himself.

 

[brad068]

Hey guys here's my home built boiler https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/11262/
Its based on the garn principle.

 

[Wildman]

I just found this forum and wish I had spent more time on the computer before I built my own system. It has heated my house for the past 3 years but could be a lot more efficient. My total cost for everything including an 14x22 addition to my shop was less then $3500. But I've been collecting parts for it for quite a long time and I got the steel building free(I worked for a convenient store chain and when they replaced a store they gave me the old building for taking it down) The boiler is an old anhydrous tank and a smaller tank inside for the firebox,the pump and heat exchanger cost $25 used.My largest expense was the concrete which cost about $1300.
I am going to modify my boiler to make it more efficient and have found a lot of good info on here.