Firewood is a low - tech heat source , a renewable resourcefulness and , if handled correctly , a source of house fun . But it can have some challenges , too . Seasoned firewoodcan be expensive or unavailable when you postulate it , and pimp your own firewood calls for time spent splitting log and doing it well in progress of winter so it can dry out out in metre .
For the last two winters , I ’ve been heating my 1,400 - square - base home plate with devoid , veteran oak that I get from stone yards , which use beefy oak tree pallets that hold extra - heavy loads of flag . I ’m not speak about the common pine pallets , which are the kind you see pack up behind big - box stores . Those weigh noticeably less than oak tree one and are fine for throw out into bonfire , but burning pine at dwelling would send a lot of creosote up your lamp chimney and perhaps run to a lamp chimney fire . For fireplaces and woodstoves , you require to pose with hardwoods .
If you ’re concerned that the pallets might hold back chemicals , rest easy . Because they do n’t carry intellectual nourishment or change of location across external delimitation , oak pallets are simply dried in a kiln , which safely kills any pesterer without chemicals .
Oak Pallets
As a stonemason , I first noticed the lumbering - duty oak pallets when stone yards begin selling what they call stand - up flag . These pieces of rock are so big that if they were put down down , they would be too wide for the pallet . A normal - sized palette only works if the flagstone stand up up on terminal like a rowing of books . To do that , you need a pair of bookends to hold the flagstone upright in transit . For the whole thing to be strong enough to hold together and support the surplus weight , you need oak tree palette .
One day , when I had five of these oak palette to deal with at the terminal of a job , I had a revelation : If I used them for firewood , I could sheer my heating bill and also head off the expense of dumping them at the landfill .
You do n’t have to be a mason to take reward of this free resourcefulness . Stone yards have a draw of excess and broken oak pallets that they take to the landfill , and many of them would be happy for you to take the pallets off their hands — as long as you get permit first . Try persuading a stone yard to set their oak tree pallets by until they could run a dump truck full out to your position so they could be free of them without paying landfill fees .
Most stone yards are in rural region , too — or at least close to one . I live in a metropolis of 200,000 citizenry , and there are four stone yard within a 30 - minute drive that let me load used pallets into my pickup truck .
Pine pallets are light , but oak pallets are too heavy for one person to lift over the side of a motortruck bed , and that density indicates a portion of BTU . Some stone 1000 will load the pallets for you with a forklift . In most cases , there are only two or three or four pallets useable at a time , and I can heap those flat in my midsize pick-me-up - truck bed so they wo n’t slue out . If there were more , I could stack them in the truck upright — again like books — and could probably get eight or nine in the truck that way .
Do n’t draw a blank the oak tree bookends that occur with these pallets , either . I grab as many as I can and tuck them into the bed , too . When I get home , I carefully stack them so the edge are all aligned , making it well-situated for my chain saw to cut down through the stack from top to bottom with maximum efficiency . My woodstove is big enough that I only have to cut a stack of bookends in half with one cut . Be deliberate film editing through the bottom bookend , though : If you hit the dirt or driveway beneath it , you ’ll pall the concatenation . You may need to lean the last bookend against something or raise it off the primer coat to preserve your chain . Even if you do n’t use full pallets for firewood , the bookend are a good fashion to go .
The pallets also go into a slap-up quite a little like the bookend , but I deal them a little differently . If the pallet are dingy , I blast the grease off with a sweeper or honey oil nozzle on the final stage of my garden hose . It concentrates the force of the piddle so I can blast mud and grit off the pallets to keep the grease from numb my chain .
To wash them off efficiently , flip a palette off the truck so one edge is on the ground and the other is leaning against the open tailgate and blast the exposed side free of dirt . Then , switch the pallet again so the sloshed side is savorless on the driveway and crucify the other side white . The next pallet on the truck gets the same treatment and is flip out on top of the first pallet and so on until I have a orderly big bucks of five or six clean palette .
With each pallet orient the same way and with their edges line up , I can cast off my range saw through the stack in areas where I wo n’t arrive at any nails . Pretty cursorily , I have a blocky pile of quick - to - burn oak that I can load on a barrow and gestate to the forest shed .
Nails
If you do happen to hit a nail , the chain will benumb and perhaps derail from the bar , so two-fold - tick your stacking proficiency to avoid that .
Because pallet have a curt lifespan , the oral sex of the tinny nails in pallet are a rusty scarlet - brown , indicating they have n’t been galvanise , aka coated with zinc . If you see grayish nails that await zinc - treat , the zinc could induce trouble for a catalytic converter if one was present in your woodstove . Because moststovesdon’t have a catalytic converter and the Brobdingnagian majority of nails in pallets are n’t galvanized , this probably wo n’t be an payoff , but it ’s something to be aware of .
Once the chunks of oak have burned in the woodstove or fireplace , the steel nail will be give among the ash . If you ditch your ashes in the Methedrine ( after they ’ve cooled in a metal container ) then you do n’t need to do anything about the nails .
If you require to use the ashes in your garden as an alkalizing amendment — it has 1/3 the intensity level of basswood — you’re able to remove the nail from the coolheaded ash with a magnet . To speed things up , you’re able to use a long wheeled attracter with a grip that carpenter roll over their Book of Job sites like a vacuum to suck up isolated nails .
I employ one to extract the nail from the cooled ashes . Hold the attractor up and swipe off the nails so they fall into a bucket . I ’ve upgraded to one with a feature that grant me to disengage the magnet as I hold it over the bucket . The nails drop right in . At the end of the season , the nails go to the scrap chiliad and the ashes go into my garden .
The Chain Saw
I utilise a mountain range consider with a 14 - inch stripe to cut the pallets , but the longer the legal profession , the longer the strand will be , and that imply you could go longer between sharpenings . Because the motor is big , the cutting will go faster .
There are a miscellanea of mountain chain available . Get several chain made for cutting hardwood . They be more than chains for cutting softwood , such as pine , but they will hold an border longer . You may also want to switch the Browning automatic rifle to one that cuts a wider kerf ( the width of the cutting ) to speed things up . Be sure to let your dealer bang which sort of bar you have .
Your chain - saw supplier will also be able to sell you a kit for hand focalise your chains periodically . I have one , but it has n’t seen a lot of action since I decided I ’d rather just drop off my dumb range of mountains and make up someone to keep them sharp . That usually runs about $ 6 per range of mountains , but I think it ’s deserving it .
I survive in geographical zone 7 in North Carolina , so we might be burning a fervidness in the woodstove as our basal informant of heating plant from mid - November to end of March . At the beginning and goal of the time of year , we just burn a attack through the night . At the height of the season , it ’s burn 24/7 unless I ’m permit it coolheaded enough to clean it out . By my estimates , one palette lasts almost two days . But your mileage will vary depending on the quality and size of it of your stove , the efficiency of your house and weather condition . Either room , you ’ll save a bunch of money and time , get a good workout , and keep a worthful resource out of the dump .
Chain-Saw Safety
Sturdy work gloves will keep your hands from meet up with splinters when prepping your pallets . As chain saws are loud , hearing protection is a great idea . And a chain saw will throw wood chips in your face , so a face shield is a dear investing .
turn off Sir Henry Joseph Wood is no clip for planning the weekend or engaging in any other type of multitasking . Knowing two man with chain - sawing machine scars on their faces helps me keep my aid focused on my work . It also helps me withstand the tendency to deem the saw so that it describe up with my face . If the chain overhear on a burl or something and kicks back , it will go directly up and I ’ll end up looking like those other two guys . So I keep the saw line up with my right shoulder joint . That way if it kicks back , it will go safely past my drumhead and over my shoulder .
I ’ve never had a kickback job , but I ’m sure those two guy cable felt perfectly safe until their chain bit them . Better good than sorry . quell focused , use safety gear and be prepared for the bad . Chain saws are one of my favorite tool , but I want to be quick if mine goes astray .
