Burning wood pallets in wood stove

I know where my pallets come from. If your getting them from a grocery store, hardware store, or even a factory the chances of chemicals being spilled all over them are pretty low. I burned pallets for years along with dimensional lumber and never had a problem.

Pine is fine as long as it is extremely dry. The stuff I burn has been dead for 5-6 years and all the bark has fallen off. Pine pallets are plenty safe to burn. It is the sappy nature of pine that makes it unsafe. Once the sap is gone it is as safe as any other wood.

__________________
http://www.xanga.com/shackman A blog about whatever

No reliable sources, except we [hubby & I] hauled produce for 11 years and often had to wait for the pallets in the sheds to be finished with their fumigation. Produce skids are painted blue, [the returnable ones], and the others are dumped into the pallet frenzy.

We were required to haul back pallets, like for like, and we bought them from any source we could. Hense the fumigation. Have you worked hauling produce or worked the sheds?

We did wood heat a couple of winters with pallets from a steel plant, they were oak 4 X 4 with pine slats. Pro's - they were free, the big pieces of oak make a good hot fire that lasted awhile, and since our stove was in the basement, you could stack up a nice cube of wood down there and not have to go outside for wood very often. The stove pipe went outside thru a window right behind the stove (replace the glass with a steel sheet) and then up, so for creosote removal, a weekly pounding of the pipe with a big hammer brought it down. Cons - the room above the stove was too hot while the farther reaches of the house were still chilly. Our insurance company was unaware so they wouldn't have paid off if we had a claim. We both had jobs so the fire would be out by the time we got home from work.

I've burned, with the same caveats as others have stated...stick to hardwoods, use the pine for kindling, screen out the nails in the ash.

Best stuff I ever got, though, was the cores from a veneer mill...ya know, the rounds that are left over after they've shaved off all the veneer they can? Great firewood!

i burn tons of them. most are oak. i have an out door wood boiler that has no grates so nails arent a problem. i use my skill saw & cut them in 1/2. good hot fire. the last 3 years thats all ive burned. i haul a truck load home from work every night. i havent cut fire wood in a long time.

__________________
HBCH CH Gotta Go Freakin Deacon
CH Andrea`s Crybaby Emma
CCH Mtn Views Art of Deception
LPRCH LPCH Big Country MoJo

I love heating with pallets. easy to cut with a skill saw. easy to carry a bunch. easy to load in the stove. nice hot fire.

The only problem I've ever had was when a large truck was delivering some and ignored where I said to dump them. He ran over the sewer pipe. Oh that was fun to fix but the pallets were free.

We use them to start the fire- burn hot and fast. Wish I had an unlimited supply!

Here most are a real soft wood, not great heat. Takes a little affort to make them stove-size, for the amount of heat you get.

Most have some glue involved, (or spilled 'whatever' contamination on them) which can be a concern to some - burning synthetics.

You get metal nails in the ashes, which is a problem for disposal.

Pros are the price, and if it works for your situation, can't beat that.

--->Paul

Don't worry...
2-4d, ddt, and a multitude of other chlorinated hydrocarbons are good for you...

Never having not had an endless supply of firewood (two cords worth of dead oaks less than 50yds from the house), and free gas for heat, I've not had to burn pallets. If I did, I'd be leary of any stained wood, or wood that looked 'off', or smelled bad. Documentation is good, I reckon, if a person doesn't "know" something... some folks have a built in instinct about such things... if it looks like it might be duck poo, I don't need to smell or taste it to make sure... I just figger it's duck poo and avoid it.

[local bandsaw mill's have literally tons of oak and other slabs that they have to burn off regularly. I'm getting one soon, and I'm pre-planning out locations where I can dump them on my place... some will be good enough for the neighbors to haul off for fence patching... some will just go in deep soils with zero topsoil to hold the earth together.]

__________________
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

Used to work for a guy who had a circular sawmill. He'd cut his slabs just a bit on the generous side and his side-business was firewood.

Folks he sawed for didn't seem to ind, as he was $25/thousand less than anybody else...