I work at a fab shop and see tons of hardwood 4x4 boards get taken to the shredder and hard wood pallets. Pluse a ton of pine 2x4. Could these be cut up and used as kindling . Would the pine 2x4s be ok
Pallets and shipping nwork
- Thread starter Welderman85
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If you take pallet wood, make sure the pallet is marked HT (heat treated) and NOT MB (Methyl bromide). Both are methods used for treating pallets, but the latter, MB, is a chemical fumigant and is NOT safe to burn. Also, even if using HT pallet wood, always use the newest pallets you can get. You never know what a pallet may have been exposed to the longer it has been used.
Maybe I will just try these out. I would only use the hard wood and these a ton. I would cut up and use only for kindling . I think there just rough cut 4x4s we get them as kribing for big loads of pipe. Just didn't know if it was safe
Subject to the good advice above, they can. Though in general, I've found them to be almost more trouble than they are worth.
Seems they are usually assembled with spiral or ring shank nails, so just 'beating' them apart is usually an exercise in futility. You can try to cut them apart...maybe into quarters or other chunks... but they always end up being odd shaped and only fill the firebox very loosely. You can try to rip all the slats off but you're either making a lot of cuts, or working against all those nails again. ...and of course the more cutting you do, the more likely you are to wreck your blade. If cutting with a chainsaw, one nail can damage the entire chain before you hardly notice it and that is an expensive and/or time consuming boo-boo. I've used some 'already junk' carbide circular saw blades but they get torn up pretty fast too. You think you'd know where all the nails are, but keep in mind, these are assembled FAST and CHEAP, so there is no drive for accurate nail placement. You see a nail head and think "Well, I'll cut an inch away from that" ...then you find the nail was actually at a 45 degree angle for some reason and it curved an extra 1/2 inch as it went into the wood!
Then to top it off, when you're done with the 'free' wood, you usually have a bunch of nails sticking out all over the place, ready to snag what ever is handy.!
Ug! This actually reminds me - I have 4-5 pallets which have accumulated over the years and I need to break them down - just haven't had the motivation!
Edit - PS - those 4x4's might not be too bad. Definitely avoid any treated ones. My 'rant' above is mainly for pallets!
Seems they are usually assembled with spiral or ring shank nails, so just 'beating' them apart is usually an exercise in futility. You can try to cut them apart...maybe into quarters or other chunks... but they always end up being odd shaped and only fill the firebox very loosely. You can try to rip all the slats off but you're either making a lot of cuts, or working against all those nails again. ...and of course the more cutting you do, the more likely you are to wreck your blade. If cutting with a chainsaw, one nail can damage the entire chain before you hardly notice it and that is an expensive and/or time consuming boo-boo. I've used some 'already junk' carbide circular saw blades but they get torn up pretty fast too. You think you'd know where all the nails are, but keep in mind, these are assembled FAST and CHEAP, so there is no drive for accurate nail placement. You see a nail head and think "Well, I'll cut an inch away from that" ...then you find the nail was actually at a 45 degree angle for some reason and it curved an extra 1/2 inch as it went into the wood!
Then to top it off, when you're done with the 'free' wood, you usually have a bunch of nails sticking out all over the place, ready to snag what ever is handy.!
Ug! This actually reminds me - I have 4-5 pallets which have accumulated over the years and I need to break them down - just haven't had the motivation!
Edit - PS - those 4x4's might not be too bad. Definitely avoid any treated ones. My 'rant' above is mainly for pallets!
Hard to say. There are a couple in that pile that look a little 'green' to me. I don't know that I've specifically seen a treated "rough cut 4x4" - but I have noticed quite a few treated 'odds and ends' laying around the lumber yard, shipping receiving docks, etc. I think some of this is used for spacing / cribbing when treating dimensional lumber, so these chunks become treated, too.
Many a first time wood burner has made it through the winter with pallet wood. Its usually dry and when mixed in with marginal wood the odd size actually helps as it gets air flow around the other wood. As noted its PITA to take apart and make sure you have a place to dispose of the ash as it will be loaded with metal. The one big caveat is the fasteners used on occasion are lead or zinc coated and that can damage a catalytic combustor.
