I keep a two years supply of wood on hand which is 10-12 cords. This means that my scrounged wood pallets are on the ground for at least two years and after that amount of time, they suck. They are rotten, often broken, and have nails sticking out. They work fine but I don't like stepping through the gaps and I hate dealing with the dead ones and finding 20 new pallets every year. So I know a guy that runs a factory that has access to these EPS foam pallets. They use them for 2000# material bags and seem to love them. I have not heard of anyone else using these so I thought I would give them a try. The only drawback I've discovered is that I like to hold down my visqueen top cover with mason string stapled to the pallets. That won't work anymore so I'll have to staple to the splits. The foam manufacturer says that water will not be absorbed into the foam and that the UV or water won't weaken them over time. We use EPS for lightweight fill under roadways so it is fine in the dirt. I also have a crapton of this EPS foam under my shop slab in a 2" thick layer. I have several cords of red alder to stack in the next couple of weeks so we'll see how it goes.
If all else fails, they look like big blocks for kids. Can you add some water escape holes at the bottom? Extra air flow is nice from pallets, but more importantly water can't pool up.
That is a drawback. The wood pallets are great for airflow. It's hard to see but the top of the pallets is shaped like a pickup truck bed with a two inch wide ridge and a two inch wide valley. The ridges are only about 1/4" tall though. The pallets are all 39x39" so the water will never puddle more than that. I would hate to have to perforate these things. That would be a lot of effort. They also make plastic pallets that are totally flat on top which is way worse.
Another negative about wood pallets is that the burrowing rodents tend to push dirt up into the firewood which rots the pallet faster but also makes the wood messy. The solid top foam pallet prevents dirt from being pushed up into the firewood.
Nice, should last a long, long time. I'm using concrete blocks or dead Sass logs to keep the pallets off the ground. Makes the pallets last a long time and provides good air flow under the stacks. Not sure how long the Sass logs will last but it's supposed to be rot-resistant. My original stacking area had some pallets that were on blocks and lasted many, many years, ten or fifteen...not sure exactly when I put them down. It's getting harder to find good Oak pallets now, though. I'll see how the lesser woods hold up, but I think the pallets will last a while since they're not in contact with the soil.
Yep, every year a few pallets go into the spring burn pile. I have taken to using old bricks or unused pavers to elevate them. I was able to score plastic pallets, about a half year's supply, but that supplier dried up. These had plenty of holes in them.
Not surprised to see synthetic pallets. Think of the labor cost to each process. The only thing I I can that I would like to be sure about is that they can be recycled. I would hate to see those filling up the landfills. I can also imagin folks comming up with many uses. Wall or roofing material?
We get product in on these sometimes. http://www.igps.net/platform-spec-sheet.aspx They are heavy, miserable mothers when they end up on my truck. I hate hate hate them, and our warehouse isn't supposed to use them for our routes. They get loaded on a trailer until it's full, then somebody comes and picks it up. On the other hand, I would love to score about 50 to stack firewood on. I haven't figured out how to do that without getting caught.
Ouch, 50# apiece. I was loading the foam ones three at a time with one hand pizza box style. The freight companies are able to move more lbs of freight if less of their weight allowance is being spent on pallets. From a durability standpoint, the plastic pallets ought to be stronger but the linked pallet wouldn't shed water well. There are lots of shapes out there. I hadn't seen the foam ones until now.
It seems those should work well for stacking, except the small contact points against the bottom course. Which is miniscule compared to the rest of the stack.
Those sound good to me. But couldn't you lay down 2 rows of splits then stack on top of those? No water except for those 2 rows. Or you could cut saplings or poles or use landscape timers or 4 x 4's, etc. Here is a picture with some of the poles we have used. All of those standing up were cut about 5 or 6 years ago and they are still good. We just lay 2 of them down and start stacking. By the time we use the wood, the poles will have sunk some in to Mother Earth but that is fine. No harm done.
Those plastic pallets look nice but my take on it has always been if your pallets rot out under your stack then the underside of your stack isn't getting the best treatment it can get either. Plastic or wood those conditions will still exist. I came across some pallet rack verticals a while back that make awesome stringers for the pallets. They are good for at least two three year cycles. I know it is dry under my stacks.
I I hope so. We use EPS under roads and I used it under my shop slab for insulation. It had better be a "premanent" material. It's just puffed plastic. It sure burns well if that's your thing. Oh, and gasoline will melt it so if you use these you've got to be careful with petroleums.
In the PNW our ground doesn't freeze. We get mud all winter long, and most of fall and spring. My problem with stacking on saplings is stack stability and I don't want to waste the firewood. I've never had to pay for a pallet and they really do work well other than the rot issue.
What about flipping them upside down and laying treated 2*6's across the legs? that would create a lot of airflow without the dirt and you could drill a few holes in the valleys of the plastic for drainage.
I think the advice was to layer from ground up : pallet, poles/splits running parallel to stacks, then firewood. This gives you the re-usable pallets without any puddling of water and increased airflow at the bottom. Win/ win and sounds like an ideal solution.
