Free heating with Pallets

Tim_Mullis

When the summer is over I hire a long wheel base transit van and drive it to our local pallet company. They are more than happy to load it up with free waste wood (broken pallets and unusual sized ones that they can't stack). If they don't have somewhere to pass these on they have to pay to have them shredded.

Four trips normally does it after which we have something resembling the great wall of china in the garden. We always leave it till October so the garden is free for relaxation all summer.

Next comes the sawing, I use an electrical reciprocating saw. In previous years I have used electrical or petrol chain saws but unless you invest heavily in a professional one they are not reliable for pallet sawing. The odd angles and buried nails are a bit much for the chain.:(

The recip say delivers all the power to a far smaller controllable area and is far more reliable.

Using a well rehearsed strategy after three days sawing I have sacked a year's worth of waste. Most goes in the back alley (we live in a town house, not a farm) however the first two months goes in a purpose built wood store (made of pallets with a corrugated plastic roof). This ensures that the wood is tinder dry when you come to use it.

We had a working fireplace. £120 on an imported stove another £40 on a cast iron bend and 1.5m of flue pipe and we're off.

In truth I'm on my third stove. The first one was a pot belly stove £50. We found it was too small and had to reload it all the time. Next we bought a lovely converted gas bottle at a country fair. This gave us the volume we needed but was a bit smokey. Finally we found glass fronted wood stoves of a good volume were far cheaper on ebay than anticipated. As we were getting some smoke stains on the wall from the gas bottle conversion. Having the glass front and being able to see the flames is a real bonus.

The flat top of the stove is great for boiling kettles. Good for drinks but also stacks of freely heated hot water bottles for the winter. A roasting pan with a lid allows us to use the free heat for cooking jacket potatoes etc and pans full of beans, soup etc sit alongside.

The stove is placed in the middle of the house in the lounge and the door wedged wide open. Convection does the rest. The lounge is toasty hot (the lovely thing about free wood heating is you don't need to worry about keeping the temperature at an economically low setting). Convection keeps the bedrooms from being cold. We prefer it being cooler in the bedrooms anyway.

In the winter the family tends to live around the fire, quite nice to draw us together like in the good old days.

I reckon we save approx. £800 per year on gas, however the real bonus for me is the feeling of getting further off the grid.

We do have GCH which in mid winter we put on for 45mins at the start of the day and again just before the kids come home from school. Other than this its free heating all the way.

firefox1956

Not wanting to pour cold water on your post but not completely 'Free' heating is it ???
Cost of hiring transit van & cost of electric used has to be taken into account plus youir time at £** per hour............

Tim_Mullis

I know what you mean, working toward being off grid is never cost free. The van is £45 for the day (it's a real rent a wreck) and a fiver in diesel does it. The pallet place is just up the road, most of the time is loading and unloading as opposed to driving.

The sawing, like gardening, is a labour of love. If you consider what you'd be paid per hour it would slash the profit. If you think about it as time invested in moving away from the daily grind and untangling yourself from the money orientated world we live in its not too bad. I certainly don't come in from sawing feeling like I've had a day at work, more like I'm doing something worthwhile and beneficial for the family, kind of bringing home the bacon.

firefox1956

I have been collecting & sawing up pallets for about 5 or 6 years now.
Thats all I burn.
I have a small trailer & have one or two good collection points that I get as many pallets as I want they are desperate for somebody to take them away to be honest.
I am fortunate that I have plenty of storage space so have about 6 months stock waiting to burn.

[Deleted User]

In my area its against the law to burn anything unless its smokeless.I don`t know how much the fines are for breaking the law. I would have people in my street shopping me in a week if they saw smoke pouring out of my chimney.

unforeseen

Do you do any checks on possible harmful contamination of the pallets due to spillages in use?

I doubt the pallet company do any checks.

firefox1956

unforeseen wrote: »

Do you do any checks on possible harmful contamination of the pallets due to spillages in use?

I doubt the pallet company do any checks.

You mean like cyanide or arsenic or asbestos ??
:p

unforeseen

Or any other possible contaminants that are routinely transported around the country

PCB? Needs a temperature higher than any domestic fire can achieve to destroy that safely.

Serenity

unforeseen wrote: »

Or any other possible contaminants that are routinely transported around the country

PCB? Needs a temperature higher than any domestic fire can achieve to destroy that safely.

Not to mention if they have been treated with anything it could cause issues with the flue. I'll pass thanks. I do pick up free pallets from local shops etc though but only to use on my fire pit to get it good and going. No ta with putting it in my log burner.

Edit: Also why in the heck are you leaving the door wide open?

Tim_Mullis

The pallets are chemical free, they are heat treated, the majority are these days. The only thing to look out for are the feet (the blocks on the base of the pallet). Some of these are a kind of MDF construction that should not be burnt. The majority are solid wood and this is fine.

You'll see the letters 'HT' on the edge of the pallet. This stands for 'Heat Treated' and indicates pure wood, no chemicals.

Tim_Mullis

Smoke is no more of a problem that a conventional wood fire. Very often a stove will give off less than an open fire. When it really gets going the smoke itself is partially combusted in the flue and not a lot gets out.