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Especially if galvanized or coated with, well, anything. Then you can't know what kind of funky stuff was slopped onto those pallets during their use. Pallets are often treated with fungicides, insecticides, or other chemicals to help them hold up.
Catalysts can be ruined by being exposed to things other than the smoke from clean firewood. You can ruin a 250$ catalyst by trying to save a few bucks on firewood.
The BK thermostat system, the OP is running a BK, will open up as the load dwindles to try and maintain a hot stove. That will even out the output and mask some of that indication.
Having a flue meter is pretty dang helpful, more so than the cat meter which does a great job of telling you when to close the bypass.
Fair point. I would say that if I'm going to spend 5000 on 8 cords this winter, replacing a cat each winter is still worth it.
PS, I am hoping to burn that much to bring my propane bills down, but we'll see how well it goes. this Jan-Feb-March each saw 1600 in propane monthly, with neighbouring months in the 600-1000 range. It was just too much.
I've also found a way to cut the pallets which minimizes time to cut them up: I cut them in half, and make 2-3 little pallet "trays", on which I stack the other half of the pallet I sawed up. That means I have 2-3 little trays of pallet wood, meaning can carry them/stack them/etc. and don't need to saw up those trays.
Thoughts are welcome - the reward is a considerable amount. I'm estimating likely 80-100h of sawing, though it might've been more splitting regular firewood.
I need to replace the catalyst every other year anyway, with burning "bad" stuff you may kill the cat in one week. Then you will have to make a choice. I suspect that many many operators run BK stoves with dead cats because they just don't realize it. That doesn't mean the stove will stop making heat though. You're almost talking about a survival situation where burning trash or furniture is required. If required, you bet I'd burn trash to prevent dying and deal with replacing the cat when the emergency is over.
Other than killing a cat prematurely, I can't think of any other bad side effects of burning bad stuff.
Your wood cost is crazy high. I buy log loads, real logs loads on log trucks with 40 foot logs, and make firewood. Is that possible for you? I only burn about 5 cords per year and sell the balance of the log load as firewood to almost pay for the logs. It's not for everybody but I really like running chainsaws.
If you are spending $625 a cord than you are doing something wrong. Oil gas or electric would be cheaper. Even kiln dried isn't that expensive.
After redoing our roof, we had a lot of 2x1" batten. In Sweden this type of construction wood is completely untreated. Super easy to cut to length. I started off to remove the nails, but quickly realised, that it is too much work and very inefficient.
Fast and hot burning woud, I normally did the 1st and 2nd inlay with it after coming home from work, then changing over to regular firewood.
After reading above comments, I wood not do so in a cat stove. But in Europe cat stoves are close to unknown.
Not knowing in advance how good this wood was, unfortunately the roofers had already taken a lot to the municipal waste collection. Our municipal uses it for the combined heat and power plant (CHP cogeneration) providing for the people in town (buying votes).
In Sweden using demolition wood for heating is not allowed for private people.
Fun fact: redoing roofs from a churches scientists took 200-300 year old wood and tested the energy content, heating energy. Still the same as newly dried wood.
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