Dismantling pallets to burn

herbily

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere, but how do you take apart a pallet for burning in a wood stove. I have stove, I have pallet, but not much in the way of tools or brute force (middle-aged woman with RSI, so I don't have the strength to pull it apart with my bare hands!).

For those who are used to doing this, what's the best way of turning a pallet into firewood?

Gloomendoom

Pallets are absolute sods to pull apart. I generally saw them up with a hand saw. My wife usually takes over then and uses an electric chop saw to reduce the bits into lengths suitable for splitting which she does with a hand axe. We only use them for kindling though.

[Deleted User]

Just use a log splitting axe to smash them up. Only takes a few mins. Sawing them up takes ages.

grahamc2003

Someone on youtube has invented a dismantler for pallets - it's like a massive crowbar. After trying to dismantle one, with a great deal of brute force and lots of tools at my disposal, I managed to get some kindling, but still have four corners in tact, with nails which must be worth quite a bit with metal prices as high as they are. Must be possible though - a youngish kid next door dismantled a few and made quite a reasonable garden bench from them.

SG27

Is it ok to burn pallets?

suki1964

I only use them for kindling

Hubby chops them up, I usually get a lot of blood soaked sticks lol

muckybutt

SG27 wrote: »

Is it ok to burn pallets?

As a general rule NO.

Many pallets have been impreganted with preservative to stop them rotting and or painted as well.

I sweep a few stoves where the customer burns pallets and they have all had chimney / liner fires so hence me NEVER recommending buring pallets. Burn them as kindling...maybe but as a main fuel BIG NO NO

macman

And some will have been fumigated too-you really don't want to be breathing that in.

SG27

Thanks I won't burn pallets then!

We also have lots of off cuts of wood and old bits of wood from our house that were left in the wood store after the previous owner renovated about a year ago. Would it be ok to burn this?

muckybutt

It depends if it has got any paint on it or any wood treatments / preservatives etc

If its just bare old wood then not a problem.

Its also a good idea to de nail any wood you do burn, heating galvanized nails also give off very poisonous fumes something that not many folk realise they are doing and I see 100's of nails in fire places....they arent incinerators !!!

Greenfires

Most pallets tend to be heat treated these days rather than treated with chemical preservatives. Look for an HT stamp on one of the corner blocks. Fumigation using methyl bromide has been been pretty much phased out these days - though there may still be one or two countries still using it. Tends to be used more for crates though. Burning pallets as a main fuel is quite labour intensive - they're often pretty dry, having been kiln dried before manufacture, and usually softwood, so there's quite a lot of cutting involved to produce enough to keep you going. Father in law has burned nothing else for several years now and has had no problems - they tend to run the stove quite hard though and it's never left slumbering.