Warm winter

[julianf]

I totally get the whole free wood thing but pallets can be a lot of work. I would bet if you took the time fuel you spent collecting/processing them and did paying work in that time you could probably buy way more heat with heating oil(admittedly it's expensive at the moment)

Pallets burn too fast and it gets very tedious keep feeding the burner when a couple of decebt seasoned hardwood logs would burn for hours.

Sure, im certain that you could earn more in the same time. But the reason i don't work in an office is that, if i was left to do the same thing, day in day out, is that id wish for death if i was doing the same thing all the time.

 

[julianf]

I ran the biofuel reactor whilst it was sunny (it heats off solar). I managed to convert about 1000ltrs of methyl esters whilst, mostly, doing other things. So we, basically, have the winter heat in a tank outside.

Doesn't mean to say i wont harvest some pallets also! : )

 

[armalites]

The blocks are often hardwood.
Stack a few planks together and they take longer to burn.
The big heavy bearers I get though are just as good as logs.
And I wonder how many people realise you actually get more heat out of softwood per ton than hardwood.

The data centre I work at has a roll on/roll off skip filled with pallets. They are often kept inside for a period before they go outside. We do see some variation, we have one sat there at the moment that is a double length and the entire thing is hardwood. We see quite a few with plywood tops too.

My eldest makes kindling from pallets and sells a few bags.

The other thing many people don't realise the limbs on trees also have a lot more energy in them. Same story though you have to draw a line somewhere

 

[julianf]

My haul today was more trouble than normal, as it was an all-or-nothing deal.

However, i always used to go to the builders yard, where, basically, i could cherry pick the pallets that would be the easiest to break up and give the best yield.

The ones that are a couple of thick bits of wood with a "ladder" of timbers between them are dead easy to dismantle, and the side bits are a decent chunk of wood.
The ones i got today with the chipboard corners are a load of bother to break up, and then have chipboard corners. They're not the best.

But it was only at the end of my road, so its not as if i put in much effort actually transporting them.

Builders yard often has crate things that slate comes in, made of some sort of exotic hardwood. I dread to think what deforestation somewhere or other that is causing.

 

[armalites]

I ran the biofuel reactor whilst it was sunny (it heats off solar). I managed to convert about 1000ltrs of methyl esters whilst, mostly, doing other things. So we, basically, have the winter heat in a tank outside.

Doesn't mean to say i wont harvest some pallets also! : )

If you don't mind doing the work it's all good. We had probably 14x 16 foot trailer loads out of a wood for free. A lot of effort but my boys are the right ages, they like doing it too. I've always said if I had to pay for fire wood I would take the wood burner out tomorrow. I think we could get builders bags of mixed logs locally for £70 and I reckon we could potentially do 10+ of them on a cold winter, we would absolutely get more benefit from the same money in heating oil. Fortunately we have 35 builders bag stockpiled as well as 3 bays of processed logs in the barn.

 

[fizzy]

My haul today was more trouble than normal, as it was an all-or-nothing deal.

However, i always used to go to the builders yard, where, basically, i could cherry pick the pallets that would be the easiest to break up and give the best yield.

The ones that are a couple of thick bits of wood with a "ladder" of timbers between them are dead easy to dismantle, and the side bits are a decent chunk of wood.
The ones i got today with the chipboard corners are a load of bother to break up, and then have chipboard corners. They're not the best.

But it was only at the end of my road, so its not as if i put in much effort actually transporting them.

Builders yard often has crate things that slate comes in, made of some sort of exotic hardwood. I dread to think what deforestation somewhere or other that is causing.

Some of the wood I get is amazing. Some of it smells like camphor. Others are so hard the Rage2 will hardly cut it.
Chap who makes and recycles the pallets tries to avoid cutting it as it wrecks blades faster than the nails.

 

[badabec]

Hoping to buy an old church with a very high roof.

Set fire to the church and then build a decent house.

 

[gaz1]

I totally get the whole free wood thing but pallets can be a lot of work. I would bet if you took the time fuel you spent collecting/processing them and did paying work in that time you could probably buy way more heat with heating oil(admittedly it's expensive at the moment)

Pallets burn too fast and it gets very tedious keep feeding the burner when a couple of decebt seasoned hardwood logs would burn for hours.

i beg to disagree

brand new wood stove heating an area of 56 ft workshop 3m one end to 5m middle then 10ft wide to the main door kitchen door opened up

3x2 softwood 3 1/2hr burn time built into a rocket stove within a new stove and the place was cooking enough to work in tshirt

 

[armalites]

@gaz1 fair enough with regards to heat/burn time but the my argument still stands that if I had just worked overtime for the equivalent time I spent collecting and processing fire wood the oil I could have bought would have outweighed the wood from a heating point of view.

Of course the reality is I did the overtime and collected the free wood too

 

[reb78]

Blimey. Sacrilege going on here. I take the pallets apart and build gates etc from the wood!

(I burn the rubbish stuff)

 

[gaz1]

i get that much free wood its nothing to cut it up

3x2s 4x2s 5x2s 6x2s and 12x4 beams

so sticking a circular saw down it to cut it up is not much cost

as goes for my burn chamber its been extended can take a standared log of 9-10 logs 12" wide or i can stick a full 12x4 beam into it with great burn times

whilst your oil burner uses electric mine uses none other than cutting that wood up to right size

 

[fizzy]

Blimey. Sacrilege going on here. I take the pallets apart and build gates etc from the wood!

(I burn the rubbish stuff)

I have a pallet bed
It is built out of 11 Euro pallets.
Took me forever to sand them down nicely.
Fully demountable. The only 3 screwed together are the headboard.
Euro pallets weigh 30kg each so the bed is 330kg without the mattress.
Totally indestructible and never creaks.
When I was moving house one of my mates asked why I hadn't just bought a bed from Argos

 

[Richiew]

"It never creaks"

You are doing it wrong.

 

[reb78]

I have a pallet bed
It is built out of 11 Euro pallets.
Took me forever to sand them down nicely.
Fully demountable. The only 3 screwed together are the headboard.
Euro pallets weigh 30kg each so the bed is 330kg without the mattress.
Totally indestructible and never creaks.
When I was moving house one of my mates asked why I hadn't just bought a bed from Argos

Haha.

Is it wrong that I want to see your bed?!

 

[gaz1]

Haha.

Is it wrong that I want to see your bed?!

someones got a good memory

Superking Size Bed Frame

Hi folks, I discovered yesterday that my cheap divan bed base is knackered. I thought about bodging it (again) but I'd rather find a permanent solution. I have 50x50x3mm angle, 25x25x3mm angle and 25x25x2mm hollow square section and some flat/round bar. Drew this up on ProCreate on the iPad...

www.mig-welding.co.uk

 

[fizzy]

someones got a good memory

Superking Size Bed Frame

Hi folks, I discovered yesterday that my cheap divan bed base is knackered. I thought about bodging it (again) but I'd rather find a permanent solution. I have 50x50x3mm angle, 25x25x3mm angle and 25x25x2mm hollow square section and some flat/round bar. Drew this up on ProCreate on the iPad...

www.mig-welding.co.uk

Brilliant thanks Gaz!
Looks small there but it is a Kingsize mattress.

 

[julianthegypsy]

I was thinking of using a section of flange pipe - something like this

View attachment 360277

View attachment 360278


With a large opening door the same size as the flange and with an inner door with a glass window in it. Think steampunk

Or train boiler.

Perhaps 10 or 15mm wall thickness.

View attachment 360279

I think that's a copy of a Brno if memory serves me properly. The original kicks out an unbelievable amount of heat within a short time of lighting it too. I imagine this one would too.

Incidentally, I agree about the pallet blocks. I had a customer call me once because he reckoned he couldn't open the door of his stove. On my stoves, that's actually basically impossible so I asked what he'd been burning. Pallet blocks. I told him to force it open, which he did with some difficulty. It was literally glued shut and ripped the sealing rope out.

 

[julianf]

Chipboard pallet corners also suck up moisture good and proper, so anyone bringing in a pallet from outside and sticking it on the fire would have some stinking soldering mess for ages.

Pretty much most (consumer level) stuff, if you burn it hot enough, and with enough oxygen, just gets stripped back to its simpler chemical compounds, it's just not what domestic fires are generally designed for. Chimney fires, and, pretty much the need to sweep a chimney, are all due to smouldering rubbish.



I mean I do sweep our chimneys, probably yearly, but it's always kind of disappointing and I feel I've wasted my time!

 

[julianf]

I saw a photo on the (now gone) navitron forum once where someone had lashed up somthing to give them hot water at somwhere they were doing up -

It was one of those jotul stoves, and then, next to it, on a pile of building blocks, the inside of a domestic oil boiler.

The jotul flue was connected to where the oil burner would normally attach.


I mean it's hardly the most ground breaking idea, but I've never seen anyone do that prior or since.

It meant that the stove itself was not cooled by the water at all, so could still burn hot / fierce (or at hot and fierce as any cast stove can) but the heat from the exhaust could still be recovered - I doubt with anything like enough efficiency to limit the draw!

 

[gaz1]

Pretty much most (consumer level) stuff, if you burn it hot enough, and with enough oxygen, just gets stripped back to its simpler chemical compounds, it's just not what domestic fires are generally designed for. Chimney fires, and, pretty much the need to sweep a chimney, are all due to smouldering rubbish.

chimney fires are caused by creosote up the chimney caused by badly burning or fire set to low so it smokes alot

then fired hot this is where the clinckers can catch fire and do then your chimney changes into a rocket stove at 2000f+
and difficult to stop once it starts