Pallet Burn

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kenwit

Member
Jan 2, 2010
154
long island
My first year heating with wood. I bought 3 cords of "seasoned wood" and it burns well, but after reading so many posts about true seasoned wood I decided to get some. A local pallet co. Leaves already cut pallets in bins with a free firewood sign. I helped myself to enough for about 2 days. Now this is living. New high temps, longer cooldown, and now I just add apiece or two to maintain. This stuff (mostly oak) would chase us out of the living room. This is getting better and better. Thanks for all the help. Ken
 
Careful you don't overfire the stove. I just cut and split up some pallet wood for kindling today...man that stuff lights up nice!
 
I filled the box when I got home, after that burned down, I started putting in 2 or 3 pieces at a time. These pieces are about 4'' X 3'' X 18'' great stuff.
 
newtothis said:
My first year heating with wood. I bought 3 cords of "seasoned wood" and it burns well, but after reading so many posts about true seasoned wood I decided to get some. A local pallet co. Leaves already cut pallets in bins with a free firewood sign. I helped myself to enough for about 2 days. Now this is living. New high temps, longer cooldown, and now I just add apiece or two to maintain. This stuff (mostly oak) would chase us out of the living room. This is getting better and better. Thanks for all the help. Ken

Here's the lesson: Get next years wood in and under cover now.

Or just keep burning pallets.
 
Pallets are fantastic for kindkling and firestarting. They are also great for maintaining the heat in the box. I also have as many as I need from a local supplier, if its free its for me. I would never stuff my box with that stuff, just like I wouldnt stuff my box with 2x4's. It will take off on you and get away. I would prefer the pallets to the kiln dried Doug Fir construction cuts. Pallets just seem to burn extremely well in my stove.
 
I just received a half cord of pallet wood from the batch I posted about and included photos of in "A few sticks of wood--" a few days ago. It is all hardwoods and apparently old and dry. The manager just stopped by late Tuesday with a 4 X 4 X 4 foot crate of pieces, which we dumped on my patio. I got it all processed and under cover Tuesday and last night. I put my first pieces of this in the stove last night in anticipation of a weather change later last night just to test it. I liked it really well. Burned longer than the cedar, but not as hot. I plan to try putting my kindling in the middle, a stick of cedar on each side of that and the pallet wood on top. That should be the best of both worlds.

Our weather is going severe quickly. We have Winter Storm Warnings from south of us clear up to the north end of the panhandle as well as much of New Mexico and Oklahoma. The NWS is anticipating 4-6" of snow for us, which is a lot more than we can usually expect in one storm. So, get ready all y'all NE of here, we're sending it your way when we're through with it! I'd suggest getting some more wood close to the house as soon as you can. If it's this bad here, no telling what it'll be like by the time it gets to y'all.
 
Snowing in NNJ - but we are not expecting much. Temps are gonna drop next 3 days.

It's nice that they cut the pallets up and give the wood for free. Around here - you can get the pallets, but you have to do your own cutting. I would drive by that bin on a daily basis.
 
I picked up some pallets last year I ran out of wood so decided to burn them. The one thing I didn't like about burning pallets is it hard to control the temp of the wood
stove it was either really hot or really cool. I couldn't keep a steady temp with it.
 
A lot of the oak is 4 X 4 that I cut to 18'' pieces. I use the 1X stuff as kindling. With the 4 X 4s I get a pretty consistant burn, but I won't fill the box. Might over fire. Ken
 
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