new junk wood box

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CowboyAndy

New Member
Feb 29, 2008
744
Chateaugay, NY
after being hounded by my wife for the last year to get rid of the junk wood pile (not junk, just the odd stuff that cant be stacked) me and my brother in law decided today to build a box for it...
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8117_103150976369124_100000226667337_85312_3811666_n.jpg




actually we had a pretty productive day. got the maple and yellow birch split and stacked on the new pallet stacking system


8117_103150973035791_100000226667337_85311_6258129_n.jpg


and split some of the pine for kindling... still have half a cord of it to go. it takes FOREVER when you are splitting it really small!
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Nice looking bunch of wood there. As a semi-hijack though...

I've got to ask. I've heard of guys talking about getting $50 or something silly for those blue pallets. I got a few free from my brother when he bought some pellets (pellets, no pallets) that came on them. I couldn't imagine folks paying for them, and certainly not that much, but is this the case?

/end hijack
 
Creek-Chub said:
Nice looking bunch of wood there. As a semi-hijack though...

I've got to ask. I've heard of guys talking about getting $50 or something silly for those blue pallets. I got a few free from my brother when he bought some pellets (pellets, no pallets) that came on them. I couldn't imagine folks paying for them, and certainly not that much, but is this the case?

/end hijack

i dont know, ive never heard about anyone buying them, but i know that some businesses sell them, to who i dont know. my brother in law gets them for me (he works at a food distribution place) and he gets them to me maybe twice a year. but he said that the owner does sell them to someone, and gets like $2 a piece for regular and $10 for the heavy pressure treated ones. they are in pretty short supply around here because everyone wants them to stack wood on and burn them.
 
Ja, my chunkwood/junkwood pile is growing. Got several years of accumulation now and the wife's getting on my case to clean it up. Every Fall, I load up two wheelbarrows and park it on my covered patio but still the pile is growing.
 
I try to burn all of the "junk" first just to get rid of it.

That blue pallet is a Chep pallet they are very good pallets. They have 3/4" decking and pieces of 4X4 in the corners and middle. I don't know about $50 each but businesses that get them do generally have to pay a deposit. I used to drive for Wal*Mart. They would throw away the other pallets and stack these up til they had a truckload and then send them back to the distribution center.
 
I put the junk stuff on top of the good wood stacks and just load and burn it as go. During burning season I just bring it right to the boiler pile it next to the door and burn it on the next daytime loads.
 
CowboyAndy said:
after being hounded by my wife for the last year to get rid of the junk wood pile (not junk, just the odd stuff that cant be stacked) me and my brother in law decided today to build a box for it...
8117_103150726369149_100000226667337_85260_2914537_n.jpg
Nice job! Thanks for putting those photos on the site.
I need something like that. Way better than the first one I cobbled together.
 
CowboyAndy said:
after being hounded by my wife for the last year to get rid of the junk wood pile (not junk, just the odd stuff that cant be stacked) me and my brother in law decided today to build a box for it...
8117_103150726369149_100000226667337_85260_2914537_n.jpg


8117_103150976369124_100000226667337_85312_3811666_n.jpg




actually we had a pretty productive day. got the maple and yellow birch split and stacked on the new pallet stacking system


8117_103150973035791_100000226667337_85311_6258129_n.jpg


and split some of the pine for kindling... still have half a cord of it to go. it takes FOREVER when you are splitting it really small!
8117_103150979702457_100000226667337_85313_1864243_n.jpg

Cool idea I need to make one of those, I got loads of that stuff.

At first when I saw the pic before reading I thought maybe you built it for havin a cage match for the younguns-lol
 
That's a neat idea! I might have to try something like that. I've always just been putting my odd pieces on top of the stacks, then I burn most of them in the campfire during the summer.

How long do pallets last lying on the ground under stacks of firewood? Do they rot away in 1 year? 3 years? 10?
 
hummmm...I suppose if we still stacked wood a junk wood box like that is preferable over topping all the stacks with oddball pieces. Good idea.
 
If you cover your stacks with a tarp, oddball chunks can create an uneven surface with pockets of water and they can chafe holes in the tarp.
 
Bigg_Redd said:
Seems like it'll be a pain in the @$$ when the level gets low.

i'll just make the kids climb in! its sturdy enough for that...

quads said:
That's a neat idea! I might have to try something like that. I've always just been putting my odd pieces on top of the stacks, then I burn most of them in the campfire during the summer.

How long do pallets last lying on the ground under stacks of firewood? Do they rot away in 1 year? 3 years? 10?

the pallet i used is pressure treated, so it should last a while. the non pt ones, im thinking 2 years...
 
CowboyAndy said:
i'll just make the kids climb in! its sturdy enough for that...
Make sure they climb on the side where the slats are nailed to the flats of the 2x4 verticals. The slats nailed to the edge of the 2x4 is more likely to split. In fact, you should have reversed the overlap, cutting shorter the slats that are nailed to the flats and cutting longer the slats nailed to the edge.
 
Looks like nice work there. I've built some myself for the same reason, basically the same setup as yours, except on the front, I leave off the top slat or two so I don't fall in getting the stuff on the bottom. Costs a little bit of space, but it's better than the alternative.
 
Had a bunch of those Chep pallets and called the 800 number on them, they said they would pay $2.50 if I delivered them or $1.50 if they came and picked them up.
 
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