After some collection of blocks at one of these places that disassembles pallets, I wonder if there is money in this? They just keep the stringers it seems and demolish the pallets, separate junk but I haven't really had the guts to ask about the market. I really don't know about a bunch of wood being nail-ridden has such a market but they seem to be going steady and bought some new equipment. Im just kinda stumped on what they might use this for in terms of recycling.
There were pellet companies years ago who used pallets as raw material. Ran the pallets through a grinder, used a magnet to extract the metal. There are also companies who make money repairing pallets and putting them back to work. If the pallets were free, there might be value in putting forth the effort to extract a few nice boards and repurposing them to an item that can be sold for a profit. Where's Pallet Pete ?
I also suspected that they may have ground up pallet waste for these logs that are made in the county for burning. They explain that these are pressure compressed wood and no wax additives. They use the term cordwood which is interesting because it means to be stacked like in rounds. They dont get real specific at all so any sources are possible. I dont know how much they give per pallet but i do see the odd joe come with his truck stacked and sells them at the price the place is giving for. Im sure this goes up and down and they always have PLenty!
I should ask Horkn if he knows. He mentioned working for a pallet dismantling tool company?correct me if Im wrong buddy, trying to remember what you said couple months back...maybe you'd know a thing or two?
The pallet company near me puts out the "non-marketable" damaged pallets with broken stringers. They repair the broken slats easy enough. They always have more blocks then broken pallets out. As far as repurposing, I use them, but they are riddled with spiral shank nails that are pretty difficult to remove. My last project I found an oak pallet that had quarter-sawn flecking. Cutting through nails with a carbide blade is a little dicey too.
Yes to all of this. The blocks are often 50 50, either the nails are sawn off or they have taken the time to pull them away from the pallet by pry bar. The nails are differently made in some but I do see those that are not pried are often cut then i split blocks to find out the MC and what the block may be made of, sometimes I cant tell, unless its pine or oak or cottonwood (rare now that I pick those up unless its not a block but a pallet "beam" like its at least 3x3 and about 24 inches long. Those make great pickups.) Those twisty nails are weird, but They gotta hold that pallet together being slammed and rocked around.
Forgive my newbie question, but is there any harm in burning pallet wood with nails in it? The nails just fall through the grate and into the ash tray... but is there an evil side to nail infested wood? Or should I just burn the hell out of it?!!! Cheers, BB
You should confirm that the wood has not been treated with chemicals, painted or put together with some kind of glue or adhesives. At least that is my opinion and what I would do. This site has some info on treating pallets for international shipping. Heat treatments are good at killing pests without introducing chemicals. ISPM 15 - Wikipedia
For quite a few years I burned pallet block 'ends' exclusively. There was a pallet manufacturer not too far from me and I bought some of the ends of the 4 X 4's and 4 X 6's that were cut off to cut the bearers to length. Usually around 4" long, some of them were up to 10" long but it was rare. It was a good news / bad news situation: The good points were: No bark, dirt or other debris, this was all sawn wood. They were all hardwood They seasoned fast; one summer and they were about as dry as they were ever going to get being stored outside. As this was new wood, not recovered wood, there were no contaminants (read: nails) of any kind. They took up a huge area as they were not really stackable, so they ended up in a pile. Some of the bad points: Tough to load in anything other than a 'pile' in the stove without a ridiculous amount of effort. I ended up building a top- loading stove just for these things and it worked pretty well. Tough to slow down a really big load of these as firewood, again due to the 'piled' nature of the wood positioning. Lots of surface area and they were all engaged at the same time; this would have been MUCH , MUCH better in a modern cat. based stove. Variations in the wood type made each load burn differently and leave varying degrees of coaling behind. They took up a huge area as they were not really stackable, so they ended up in a pile. It took a long time and a lot of handling to fill, say, a trailer full of them because each piece of wood picked up was only 4" long. Compared to handling splits, it was extremely inefficient. It took a lot of trips to fill the woodstove, again because for a given volume, there was not all that much wood there. Log sized splits pack much better. The price was right, and I had a pretty slick system for loading and unloading them but all things considered, I still prefer to burn hardwood splits. Brian
Well, if you burned that wood at my house and spread the wood ashes over the crushed stone driveway, which is what I do with them, then you would end up with a lot of nails in tires. But if you dispose of the ashes where there is no possibility of a vehicle traveling in the same area then probably no. As another poster mentioned, you might want to be wary of what pallets may be contaminated with. A lot of heavy pallets, just the kind that are desirable for fuel, have carried a lot of debris that leaked all manner of things onto the pallet; if used engines for example, motor oil, anti- freeze, transmission fluid and so forth often soak the pallet and so you will end up burning some or perhaps a lot of that stuff as a by product of burning the pallets themselves. Brian
I just wanted to know if these were being burned at times and Brian yoy are right that they are a bit cumbersome being blocky and all.
Its all about ash disposal. If you spread your ashes on the garden, or an area where people walk or drive, then nails in ashes is bad. If not, then its just mind over matter. If you don't mind, it don't matter! My ashes get dumped in the trash, so I don't give a rip about nails. I used to spread it on the neighbors farm field...I made an ash screen for filtering out the nails, because those tractor tires are expensive! BTW screening ashes is a PITA
Yeah, and I forgot to mention that they rot very quickly compared with hardwood splits. Even if kept up off the ground, the ones lower in the pile will start to rot w/in 2 years and be pretty punky in 3-4 years. By that time they have virtually no weight and are not really worth burning. Overall, I would give them a 4 out of 10 rating for use as firewood, and maybe a 7 or 8 if you have access to fresh blocks all the time. Brian
Yeah and honestly these will likely just go in the stove regardless of the age but I don't think I have found any that were bad. Helps with the nail ends as they are flat and prop up the wood so that air can really get in between them. Some have those cut off so its not an issue to mix but either way I didnt have to process any wood really with this situation. Just collect and go. I wont burn outside in the pit i wanna collect ashes and spread them but anything in the stove will likely just go through a strainer.
Really quite funny but for all the time we woodburners spend talking about how critical it is to get and keep our firewood dry, the worst thing is kiln dried pine (building scraps). About one step slower than a stove full of newspaper! Pallet wood can be the same way and while hardwood may not take off nearly as fast as pine, once it is involved, it can burn amazingly hot (read: scary hot) and be about impossible to throttle. So yeah, at some point, a little more moisture in the wood is needed. Mixing in some maybe 1/2 seasoned hardwood can take the edge off what otherwise can be a nasty situation. Burning a load of [too- small split] and really dry maple last year, I even had my Ideal Steel stay hotter than I wanted. It did not run away, and it did not overheat but it was running along at 'medium- high' with the damper closed and I was not pleased with that. So I put a damper in the stovepipe and that will combine with the draft control to slow a fire down no matter how many small splits are in there. Again, not any kind of fault with the stove, and it did NOT run away, just saying that I was not happy not being able to bring down the running temperature. Like the old saying goes: Fire makes a wonderful servant and a terrible master. Or as I think of it, if you are going to have a Genie, best be able to put keep him in the bottle at will or you may not like some of your 'wishes'. Brian
This is where Im gonna get a little bit mix-y with that wood because I know that I have plenty of that kinda dry stuff but same with the kiln stuff too. Id be adressing an issue by likely burning a more milder fire but also could be a slower one as well! Not all of us wanna be blazed out of our homes. By slower I mean that I can burn some of these blocks but ignite my black locust. The aim is to stay warm, use what I have as needed.
On the pallet topic i used to pick up and sell pallets. The local guy would pay 1.50$ for each 40x48 4way. One thing lead to another and I had three acres, so I would keep about 150 pallets in stock. Nice little cash side hustle. I had a regular route i eould drop by after eork on my way home. Even bringing home 10-20 a day i could stay ahead. Ifi ever had too many i could drop a load at the local guy for 1.50 each. I also did custom stuff for premium. Only once or twice a year, but when people needed a certain size, I could do it. Overall a really fun time in my life and something i could do with my kids. I got in with a few farmers and ended up selling 50, 100, 150 at a time. The dope growers were especially nice as they would procrastinate, pay for delivery and pay cash.
Pallet wood is my favorite kindling. At work we have a shared dumpster with a few other businesses, one of which throws out a lot of 8ft oak skids...you better believe I jump in there and fish those out anytime I see them, since they never seem to remember to set them aside for me. Typically I knock the thin boards off and keep the 4x4x8' Oak kiln dried boards, hack them up on the table saw anywhere from 10-16" and mix with cord wood in the stove, but never more than one at a time. If I don't burn them I'll use the full length boards for stacking wood.
