Not far from where we live in CT there’s a bunch of businesses that often have pallets. One of the main sources is a power equipment dealer. I drove by the other day and stopped to grab a few. An employee driving a forklift carrying a lawn tractor says: ”Hey! We’ve got more up front!” I think him and told him I use them for firewood stacking. “Me too! I’m always brining them home from here!” After I load up, I see a guy waving me over from another business. “Hey man! You want all these?” He must have had two dozen. I told him I’d take what I could and I’d be back for more. Sometimes you end up at the right place at the right time. And technically, still in the confines of “the neighborhood.” As you can see, my truck doesn’t have the biggest bed and I’m pretty well supplied up north. Plus, I don’t like carrying high loads in the bed when we make the 2 hour trek up the highway. But a fun score nonetheless and glad I now know the other business, slightly out of site may be a regular supplier.
Nice find! Yeah companies like that are more than happy to be rid of pallets. Iron Horse will have a steady supply of them too.
There's a power equipment dealer near me that always has a big pile of pallets they're looking to part with. The guy says whatever's left every Friday, he has to chop up and put it in the dumpster. They often have perfectly good 2x4s that they're throwing out too.
Funny thing. When they were building our garage they had pallets that some of the materials came on. I told them I would take them. The amish guy running the job said I could, but I would have to buy them. I said what? He said the businesses buy them back from them for $10.00-14.00. I said American $$. Thats ok, I'll find free ones. He laughed and said, I figured that eh.
No pun intended, they move a lot of iron! They must have a good 20 compact tractors out front now along with a few mowers, and a couple side by sides.
Business around here almost never have to do that pallet recyclers(?) Will drive past businesses and industrial areas looking for them to resell, they must make good money because we never have more than 3 a month and you can always see them driving around with a trailer or flat bed truck. It's either that or a booming Pinterest/Etsie business, white chicks everywhere making all kinds of furniture and shelves!
Most pallets around here are free game. Only the concrete company pallets you get charged $20 deposit IIRC if you get a pallet on it delivered.
I am about to begin collecting pallets. It's not an easy way to get some lumber, but it is a cheap way.
Interesting you say that! There’s quite a supply of pallets this time of year near me. While there are some in the winter, they go much quicker. Wondering if it’s people using them in their stoves.
Had a man living near my work a decade ago. I can attest that he heated his home with nothing but pallets for at least two years straight. He was a different kind of person. I'll call him an industrial hoarder of things. I'm pretty jazzed this morning. Got three good gaylord pallets from a shovel delivery and grabbed a couple others as well. Looking for the ones with long flats and runners right now. I have a feeling I'm going to wear out a pry bar and several packs of sawzall blades in the future. Our stacks of pallets aren't very good quality at the moment. Mostly busted up, weird sized or renailed jobs. I will be storing them for now to be used when I get time and further materials for the shanty build. Really need a good score at lowes or HD on some cull treated posts. If I can't manage that, I have been perusing some store bought round fence posts instead of dimensional for the uprights.
Wow! That’s a lot of pallets to heat a house! I can’t imagine. Have you tried a pallet buster? I haven’t, but I recall reading some on here have and they’ve worked well.
Not familiar with "gaylord" pallets? Have you trried using a circular saw to cut them up? A lot quicker. Battery saws work well too, but need more than one battery. I used to run though a couple batteries years back when cutting them up.
Think 'doublewide' skid, meaning it is loaded into the truck longways and takes up all of the truck's width. They have uprights and frames and are essentially large wood frames wrapped in cardboard. Think of how you would ship 100 shovels in a truck and you'll get the idea. I can't find a good pic on the googles. Will be cutting trough a lot of nails to preserve lengths. If you try to cut around all the nails you end up with kindling. Some of the pieces are so laden with nails that I have no choice but to cut them out. The flat boards and runners will be either pryed apart and nails removed or the nails will simply be cut off and remain depending on circumstance.
“since your building MY garage and they brought MY material for the project that makes them MY dunnage to dispose of in MY way.”
