Can I put a shed over my oil tank for security?

[sylar]

Or will it create a fire hazard or something? Just heard from new neighbours that previous owners had the tank drained by thieves five times!!

If not are there other easy solutions?

You can get oil tank locks.

There are regulations which state that the tank has to be a minimum distance away from structures (can't remember how far it is, I know that my tank is too close to the house and the fence so we have to get it moved sooner or later).

Is your tank in an isolated area? Can you move it nearer the house? Have you got lockable gates between the road and the tank?

I would think a metal fence/gate structure would be more sensible than a shed, and more of a deterrent.

And check your household insurance to see if you are covered for oil thefts.

That's really helpful thanks. Have been looking at metal sheds so wouldn't be a fire risk but didn't know the tank had to be sited away from structures. We actually have gates (but they can't be locked since nieghbours have a right of way they also obviously didn't deter the theives previously. Also have an alarm but no good if we're not in (which we're generally not durng the day) since we are reasonably isolated.

Can't move it easily since pipe seem to go under driveway.

Will check out the thing about structures

You can get long necked padlocks.

You need one of these

There's a discussion on this on the boilerjuice blog www.boilerjuice.com/blog/general-security-hints-and-tips-for-heating-oil-users_13/

Hope it helps :-)

ekk did not know about distance mine is rext next to my house and because shape of garden no way it could be anyother place .Do these rules apply to ones already in place or just new ones?

Dh looked into it recently because when we had our boiler serviced the engineer wrote on his inspection sheet that the tank site did not meet regulations.
A quick google came up with this:

Where a fire protection barrier is not provided a minimum distance of 760mm clearance between the tank and combustible boundary and a minimum of 1.8 m clearance between tank and combustible wall of building needs to be provided.
Where a fire protection barrier is provided (has fire resistance of at least 30 minutes and extends at least 300mm past tank) the tank can be placed closer to combustible materials.
Where the tank is sited next to non combustible walls or boundary the tank can be sited next to non combustible wall under no minimum restriction apart from the wall must extend at least 1.8m either side and above of the tank (unless protection cladding is used)

Would thieves just use something to pierce the tank if it was padlocked?

That's what I thought Violethill - just drill through the plastic at any point.

I've never understood why oil tanks are not just sited underground, like a cess pit tank is. Would be much easier to hide then - not visible from the road etc.

Elk no clue if mine has protection it's right next to my house and mean right next to might need check it out thank you

yes that did occurr to me that they just might drill through luckily mine is not visable from the road but am aware since I'm rural could be seen as a target

Some local to us have been accessed where they had substantial cap locks, not by drilling into the plastic tank (potentially noisy I guess) but by cutting the pipe and draining from there.

We had 200 litres siphoned from our tank in Jan this year, we now have a locked alarm fitted to the cap so if anyone touches it the entire house alarm goes off, very loudly

We were told by local police that the easier the tank is to access then the more likely it is they will take the oil. One of our neighbours full tank remained untouched when both ours and our neighbours on t'other side was drained - untouched neighbour has several padlocked gates and visible alarms - we didn't - but we do now

Since Jan several residents in our village have had oil taken repeatedly, we haven't since we installed numerous alarms, visible deterrents and many padlocks to gates etc