Introduction: Cladding a 1000 Ltr/250 Gallon IBC Water Tank
Last Autumn I obtained a 1000 litre IBC (Intermediate Bulk Container), plastic tank on a galvanised pallet. This had originally been used to transfer diesel fuel from the shore to ship and then to from the ship to various rigs and platforms in the North Sea Energy fields.
I wanted this tank to store rain water from the shed guttering so that we can irrigate the garden through the summer months but it looked unsightly, and Lois wasn't going to allow me to get away with it. A compromise was agreed, and that was the tank, framework and pallet had to be hidden from view. So I chose to clad it with reclaimed Pallet timbers.
I collected the tank from the quayside, and drove 26 miles home with it on the roof rack of my car, including a few miles of the A47 dual carriage way, and then across Norwich city centre; goodness knows what it did to the wind resistance of the car and the fuel consumption.
Step 1:
A week or two later, I got around to painting the frame work and steel pallet with some corrosion resistant gloss Black tractor enamel:
Then I got my Pallet Dismantling Bar out and stripped a handful of 2 way pallets to obtain the very useful 4" X 2" stringer timbers. Which I painted with the zinc rich red-oxide thinned with cellulose thinners to help the paint sink into the wood. The following day, the undercoated stringers received two coats of gloss black paint.
Step 2:
While I was fixing the cladding planks into place, I realised that the tank had gauge markings in both litres and gallons moulded into the plastic, so I made a couple viewing doors so that we could eaisily check the water level.
Step 3:
Here is the link to to the additional planters that we have fitted to our reclaimed pallet timber cladded IBC's: https://www.instructables.com/id/Installing-a-planterwindow-box-the-easy/