Wood that has nails in it. Safe for my insert?

I used to pull 'em out (what an idiot and time waster I was). Now I just cut 'em up and scoop them out when I remove the ashes, I've not noticed any issues with the cat.

I've wondered about this myself. The boiling point of zinc (galvanized nails) is 1665F (907C). The fire would have to reach that point to vaporize the zinc and poison the cat.

How hot does a wood fire with pallets get?

Steel is about 1500°F so if you get hot enough to melt the zinc you're gonna have bigger problems on your hands...
Just Google zinc at 785°F...I can see a good bed of coals getting close to that...no?

I belive that nails are no no for a cat stoves. I burn pallets with nails in my tube stove.

Warm_in_NH said:

Steel is about 1500°F so if you get hot enough to melt the zinc you're gonna have bigger problems on your hands...
Just Google zinc at 785°F...I can see a good bed of coals getting close to that...no?

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Zinc has a low melting point, not sure how it would collect in the ashes when it refreezes. But I can't see how it could harm the cat if it never vaporizes. Is there another chemical or heavy metal in galvanized nails to be concerned with?

I wouldnt even worry about it. I'd be more concerned with accidentally hitting the glass with one.

Warm_in_NH said:

Steel is about 1500°F so if you get hot enough to melt the zinc you're gonna have bigger problems on your hands...

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The temperature of the steel is not the same as the temperature of your coals. Also, steel will soften and recrystalize at around 1500F (and glow pretty heartily), but its melting point is around 2600F.

dh1989 said:

Zinc has a low melting point, not sure how it would collect in the ashes when it refreezes. But I can't see how it could harm the cat if it never vaporizes.

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Just because it's not boiling doesn't mean none of it vaporizes. Note also how a pan of water left at room temperature will evaporate. It is my understanding this can occur with metals, too. Plus, the zinc itself would also oxidize, and the "ash" created from that can also potentially be lofted up your flue.

How real of a problem this would be is hard to say. I see at least one poster above who says he's never had a problem.

Unless all your burning is wood with galvanized nails in it i really wouldnt be even remotely concerned. The amount of zinc is very small for one. Second, zinc vapors arnt just going to magically adhere to the cat. A large portion of them would become bound up with ash. Thirdly, the vapor would have to drastically and immediately reduce its temperature while rapidly flowing through the cat( which is on average around 1200F+ But can be as high as around 1700F especially with a new cat) to even have a remote possibility of adhering to the cat.

They would adhere to something eventually, and in my personal professional engineering opinion that would take place well past the cat and happen somewhere in the flue or beyond.

My point is basically unless this is the only wood your ever burning then i wouldn't even be remotely concerned.

But if your trying to melt like 30lbs of zinc in your stove so that you can form it into blocks to sell to the submarine service...then you will probably have problems.

If your burning wood with a few nails in it here and there then by the time significant degredation of the cat would be seen it would probably be several years down the road and be about time for replacement anyway. An average cat only has a estimated 2.5-5 year service life anyway.

You are correct about bk cats begreen. I guess "average cat" is vauge. It depends on the particular cat for sure, specifically its physical size.

For example in contrast to the bk 5-10 (which is a somewhat larger cat), the woodstock cats are 3-5, and those cats are on the smaller side of the spectrum.

Service life is also a somewhat vauge term too i guess, over time they stop burning as hot. But just because they arnt burning quite as hot it doesnt mean that emissions rise. Its not an exactly linear graph. There is certainly a point where emissions do start to rise. Consider diesel vehicles with cats. They dont really care about the temperature side of the ewuation and are only concerned with emissions. Even though diesel and wood stove cats are practically the aame, diesel cats have a estimated service life of 200-300,000 miles and even then with a good cleaning can last another 100k. That is alot of years of driving for the average personal vehicle.

begreen said:

Woodstock's cat warranty is 5 years as required by the EPA.

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Service life doesnt mean it stops working. Service life for anything would be time in service before performance begins to degrade. In this case we are talking about operating temperature, emissions are still well within tolerances in a 5 year span. Cats do reduce emissions but that isnt their only function.

Sure technically speaking the warranty/mandate is 5 years. But heating performance may(depending on the individual cat) may begin to decline before that. Or it may work perfectly for 10 years. Early replacement may not be financially feasible for everyone, but if best heating performance is wanted from any given cat, your going to want to replace it around 3-5 years.

A new cat may burn around 1700F give or take a bit on average, whereas a 5 year old cat might top out at 1200F as a hypothetical example. Not a night and day difference, but a difference in heating performance none the less.

There will be NO nails going into my cat stove. I don't even allow staples on the end of lumber to go in that stove. Not worth the risk.

Nails in the non-cat, no big deal at all.

I've never seen pallets with galvanized nails...they are usually uncoated

brenndatomu said:

I've never seen pallets with galvanized nails...they are usually uncoated

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Yeah pallets aren't meant to last, they're made pretty cheap, unless you're getting them from Martha Stewart Living or something

brenndatomu said:

I've never seen pallets with galvanized nails...they are usually uncoated

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Galvanized are typically used with pressure treated construction. Pallets aren't pressure treated.
I can't imagine an issue with doing this.

I have cut up and processed a few hundred pallets for use as supplemental wood/kindling and have never seen galvanized nails. They usually have the cheapest uncoated nails you can find so I wouldn't worry about it. The pallets that are super heavy duty that have a deposit like for concrete or stone might have galvanized nails but those pallets are usually fully painted to identify them so you wouldn't be using those anyway.

Well...considering the fire is in a several hundred pound steel box, I hardly think adding a few ounces more steel is going to change anything that much.

If it is zinc you're worried about, you might as well stop burning all together...wood ash itself contains zinc...in some cases up to ~0.36% by weight, so again, that micro-thin coating on a few nails is hardly adding anything that wasn't already there naturally in much greater quantities.

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/pdf1993/misra93a.pdf