Got a lead on some nice pallets but would have to burn some plywood? Whatcha think?

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ruserious2008

Member
Jan 24, 2011
160
NH
Drove by a company that had a bunch of mini pallets outside with a free sign on them today. What they consist of is two 16" long 4x4 blocks attached to a piece of plywood about 2 ft long and 16 inches wide. The blocks aren't pine but not red oak either. Thinking maybe cedar? Anyway looking at them the plywood is secured to each block by 6 nails in each block. So removing the nails or trying to separate them with a hammer would be more effort than they are worth to me. I'd guess that I'd have about 1/2 cord of the blocks if I did separate them.
What I'm thinking is to just use my table saw to cut the plywood along the blocks leaving me with the 4X4 block and a 3/8" in piece of plywood attached to each block that would be 4" x16" if you can picture this???
My stove is an old one with no catalytic converter. What do you folks think? I know burning plywood is a no no in general but do you think this would be a problem? Just looks like a lot of wood for free and simple to "process" doing it this way but don't want to coat my chimney with glue residue or cause my neighborhood birds to have babies with 2 heads or anything.
Thoughts appreciated before I go get these suckers.
 
ruserious, IMHO...I'd pass on burning plywood. Wouldnt want that glue vapor adding to the creosote on your chimney lining. Plus it burns hot. You try craigslist for scrounging opptys?
 
I wouldn't do it, but I'm up to my nose in free wood.
 
I too would pass. You don't need to burn plywood and don't even know what type wood the 4 x 4's are.
 
Thanks guys- I think I'll go grab a couple and experiment with pulling the nails to see how long they are and how much of a pain it would be to strip them of the plywood. Just have this vision of a nice neat stack of those 4/4's in my garage for the winter:)
 
Any pallets I have taken apart are nailed with a glue type nail from a gun. They are tough to remove. Try a sawzall with metal cutting blade.

Will
 
In a reg stove, it doesn't care what you burn. Have burned TONS of plywood and OSB in a reg stove.

In a CAT stove I wouldn't. I just burn that stuff in the outside burn barrel. Throw some pieces in when I burn the trash.
 
If you look hard enough you can find piles upon piles of pallets made of nothing more than good old hardwood and nails. I always pass on the ones that are cobbled together with plywood.
 
Badfish740 said:
If you look hard enough you can find piles upon piles of pallets made of nothing more than good old hardwood and nails. I always pass on the ones that are cobbled together with plywood.

Pretty much what I was going to write . . . in an old smoke dragon I wouldn't worry too much about burning plywood . . . but I would think it would just be a pain to process this stuff . . . especially when there are lots of free pallets that would be easier to process and would have no plywood.
 
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