Burning pallet wood in a stove OK?

I can get a good supply of broken pallets (plain bare wood, not the painted ones) from a mate’s company for free, I just have to collect them.
As we’re using our stove ‘a lot’ it would be nice to have a source of free fuel, but is there any issue with burning this wood? – I don’t know if they bother to treat the wood with preservatives.

Lots of folk will tell you that you can only use well seasoned apple logs etc, and pallet wood will leave lots of creosote on your chimney which will rot the liner and cause chimney fires.

However, as a kit we had a solid fuel boiler which ran almost exclusively on pallet wood. Dad swept the chimney twice a year and all was fine for 20 years when they replaced it with a gas boiler.

In my wood stove, last winter I burnt pallets and old roof joists as well as a lot of chipboard from my house rebuild project. Had the chimney swept in September and the sweep said it was “good quality soot” then he put a camera up the chimney and said it was in great condition with no creosote deposits.

So I won’t tell you that you will have no problems, by IME, it’s fine.

Stuff like pallets and packing cases are often treated if they are likely to be exported – to stop tree bugs and fungi being passed between regions. There will be a mark branded on the pallet somewhere if they have. That treatment may just be heat rather than anything chemical – effectively pasturising the wood. But its a matter of where the pallets have come from originally and what legislation and practices they have there

Edit: if they’ve been made in the uk then they’ll either have been heat treated or treated with methane bromide. They could poss be marked HT or MB accordingly but you might not be able to tell which treatment they’ve had by looking at them

I did it for a while, but found the work put in cutting pallets down and pulling nails etc wasn’t enough for the amount of fuel it gave me for the fire. You tend not to get decent lumps of wood. I ended up using them for kindling and getting logs for longer burning.

Why pull the nails?

Burn the stuff and the nails drop in to the ash pan.

My chimney sweep claims that you can burn almost any dry or seasoned wood , so long as you are burning it at a high temp as you burn off all the gases that are released (those are the flames which appear at the top of your burning area in your stove)this is when your stove is burning at its most efficient. Like the previous post I’ve burnt pallet wood and old roofing wood(treated) and never had any problems.
You must never burn damp or un seasoned wood it will not get to the correct temp create water and extra soot in the flue which mixed with soot produces sulphuric acid, which in turn will eat your brick work away!

The nails evaporate leading to heavy metal vapours in your living room. Could be lethal.

Temperature at which the stove is at is very important. Can highly recommend getting a flue thermometer:

something like this

The nails evaporate leading to heavy metal vapours in your living room. Could be lethal.

I doubt that

You would keep warmer getting up and down all night putting more on the fire than the heat the fire would give off!

I occasionally use it as kindling, wouldn’t ever use it as the primary fuel.

Anyone here make newspaper firebricks?

Those nails that don’t evaporate melt and slowly seep out of the bottom of the stove, setting your carpet on fire

Fine intact make cracking kindling. I’ve been burning old door and window frames for the last few weeks as couldn’t get over to get at my log stash. Of over soon though to get some more.

And yeah don’t mess around with the nails they glow a bit but don’t evaporate.

Good point zokes. I just meant the nails made from mercury. But higher boiling point nails will melt and either set fire to the carpet, or glue up the grilles over the ash tray.

I made a load of those fire bricks with shredded files from work, burn okay but make a hell of a lot of ash. I’d say you’d struggle to use them as the sole fuel though.

Yeah that’s exactly what I find – tried to do my bit for the environment, spent an age making them and wasn’t that happy with the results – I was wondering if anyone else has managed any better.

I usually bung one on when things are cooking nicely.

|In my wood stove, last winter I burnt pallets and old roof joists as well as a lot of chipboard from my house rebuild project

Interesting… i’ve got a load of chipboard in my shed waiting to go to the tip, i always thought it was a major no-no to burn it?

deadlydarcy, I have to ask, how do you make a nail out of mercury?!

A wood burning stove will typically be made of cast Iron which has a melting point of around 1200oC.
Nails are typically made of steel which has a melting point of around 1500oC.

How is a cast iron burner going to get hot enough to melt or “evaporate” iron nails?

I was only pulling nails where I was cutting the pallets up so as not to blunt my saw.
Fany – I found paper bricks were something to take a long time making and a longer time drying. To get them dense enough I was soaking the paper for days in the garage then pressing the bricks, then letting them dry properly – so it was a summer job ready for winter. Those that had been soaked longest and dried longest seemed to be the most dense and burned better.

deadlydarcy, I have to ask, how do you make a nail out of mercury?!

Do you not think he might not have been entirely serious?

TooTall – yeah, I found them just too labour intensive so have started recycling paper by normal means – cheaper to buy a load of logs than to spend days messing with paper.

No masty, I was deadly serious (see what I did there).

Some nails contain mercury to improve malleability.

Nails are typically made of steel which has a melting point of around 1500oC

Stove is also steel (Clearview) and the casing temp is typically around 450f so I doubt the nails are going to melt 😉

Some nails contain mercury to improve malleability.

Ahh, CONTAIN mercury…

Yes, sorry, I should have been clearer. Masonry nails contain none as they have to be harder than rocks. Mind you, it’s unlikely he’d be encountering masonry nails in pallets. So, indeed, I would still counsel extreme caution. Or gas masks if you really must burn nails. Careful of lead nails too in case you use old roofing slate as a heatsink in the stove.

I burn any old rubbish, painted, creosoted, full of nails, it all goes on the fire. Pretty much anything except chipboard or plywood, they seem to smother the fire.
Every now and then I have a clear out and chuck a load of old paperwork on the fire. I live in a bungalow, so the chimney is only about 12′ tall and the flames can be seen coming out the top. I count on this to keep the chimney clear of tar or anything that might cause a chimney fire.
Never had it swept in about 20 years.

Dont burn or even take the blue pallets theyre owned by CHEP, and theyre very possesive of them.

We had a couple of pallets last year that we needed to get rid of so decided to burn them on the stove.

One burnt fine, but the other gave off a horible toxic like smell so didnt burn again.

Even the one that did burn was very efficient and burnt very quickly. I ended up chopping it up to form kindling.

IMO not worth burning as it doesnt create enough heat.

On a seconday note. Any one know of any cheap supplies of kindling in the Harrogate/Bradford area or places online that are cheap?

Ta

Project, a friend of mine makes, repairs and sells pallets.
If I ever find a blue pallet I give it to him and he gives me as many broken white pallets as I can fit in a Land Rover and trailer.
We both think we’ve got a good deal.

On a seconday note. Any one know of any cheap supplies of kindling in the Harrogate/Bradford area or places online that are cheap?

We use this guy (don’t have his name) 0795 082 3505 for our logs so I assume he does kindling too (we are in Harrogate). Never had a problem with him and his logs are cut to fit all but the really small domestic stoves.

Dont burn or even take the blue pallets theyre owned by CHEP, and theyre very possesive of them.

They have to cach you first – better quality wood in them too.

I burn them when I get them, mixed up with lots of other stuff (some old wood from my builder, some logs and occasionally coal bricks if I want the fire to stay in for a long time).

RE’ the evaporating/melting nails – in my case I once found that a bunch of nails had melted and then reformed into the exact shape of a Chris King headset once the fire was out – double plus good.

Dont burn or even take the blue pallets theyre owned by CHEP, and theyre very possesive of them.

They have to cach you first – better quality wood in them too.

But a complete bugger to break up for kindling!!!

Actually, I do make sure that I take out any occasional plastic bits (sometimes found on the blue pallets) and also the compressed woodchip blocks that are often used as spacers go in the rubbish.

Dont burn or even take the blue pallets theyre owned by CHEP, and theyre very possesive of them.

Bit of a bummer for them if you’ve burned the evidence then…