Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[Sally PB]

NICE!

 

[Smokerbill]

Outdoors Pallet Wood Storage Option to Consider

A week or so ago, I picked up a load of special pallets made out of all 2X4's. Mostly 6- and 7-foot boards, but a few that were 8 foot long...

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I had to break them down on site because my 4X8 foot utility trailer was too small to load them up. Well, that, and they were too heavy for me to move by myself. I put the boards in my trailer and took them home to de-nail them. It took a couple of hours to get the trailer full of 2X4's de-nailed, but it was an easy job. I stacked the 2X4's on some sawhorses in the garage to see what I salavaged...

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I created a spreadsheet with the lengths of the boards and found out that I got almost $200 worth of 2X4's if I had to buy them new. I was pretty jazzed about that salvage pickup. I have lots of good lumber in that pile for future projects.

However, as you can see, it was taking up way too much room in my garage and I could not get anything done with all that wood in the way. It had to be moved to storage.

I spent the past number of days looking at lumber storage options on YouTube. I don't have room to make a horizontal rack system on my walls. So that was not an option. I looked at a number of vertical storage options, which looked promising, but I needed to get the lumber out of the garage and stored outside.

I was thinking of making a vertical storage shed out of pallets, but I would need to make it 8 feet tall plus a bit more to get my longest boards in it. I was leaning that way, but then I read online that wood stored vertically outside was more prone to warping and bending. So, I gave up on that idea as well.

This afternoon, I finally came up with a simple, effective, outdoor storage solution for all those 2X4's...

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I cleared out a small area under some trees and put down a couple of 4-foot pallets on the ground. That will keep the lumber off the ground. Then I put the lumber on the pallets, with the backends all at the same point. So, I can visually see how long the boards are in comparison to each other.

If you look at the backend of the wood, under the pine branches, there is a sawhorse back there. I have one more that I will put towards the front. I saved the two 8-foot long 2X4's to put on the sawhorses to hold a couple more pallets to act as a roof. I have some free Harbor Freight green tarps to cover the top and sides, so that should keep all the lumber below nice and dry.

No nails or screws needed. If I want to move everything, no problem. It would only take a few minutes to break it down and move it somewhere else. Well, the pallets and the sawhorses. Of course, moving the stack of lumber would take as long as it takes.

Is it a perfect storage option? I don't know about that, but it was easy to setup and should work fine until I use all that wood. As you can see, those 2X4's are in really good condition and I wanted to store them in a way that there are not exposed to the weather. I think I got lucky and discovered one way to do it.

Oh, and if you are wondering why I have some plastic garbage cans out there, it is because they are full of pallet wood planks that are de-nailed and ready to be used in a project. The tops on the garbage cans keep the wood dry. I had all those garbage cans full of wood in the garage last fall but had to move them outside for the winter. Believe it or not, it's more important to us to garage the cars in the winter!

I'm envious of you having that big pile of free lumber. Nice score!

I added three more wheelbarrow loads of chickeney woodchip bedding to the compost bin/pile yesterday. It's filled up to the top of the front pallet now.

There's still another few barrow loads I need to remove from the secure run, today maybe, but I'm not sure where to put it. It might just go down under the cedar trees where I had a compost pile a couple years ago that didn't work out... no bin, just a pile that the chickens always leveled. Right now the spot is where I dump coffee grounds and paper filters.

 

[gtaus]

I'm envious of you having that big pile of free lumber. Nice score!

I make it a point to stop and look at my pallet places when I go to town to see if they have anything interesting. I have lots of "normal" pallets stacked up in my backyard, so at this point, I mainly concentrate on finding special pallets like those pallets made from all 2X4's.

I know that used pallet wood is not the same as buying new lumber, but I like to get an idea of how much wood I salvaged for my labor. Yes, the wood was "free", but I spent maybe as much as 4 hours disassembling and de-nailing all that wood which I calculated to be worth about $200 if new.

I also look for pallets with special hardware. Like Torx head screws instead of pallet nails. I have salvaged many Torx head screws in the past. Those are expensive. But they are the easiest to take out with an impact driver and reuse in other projects. Last year I scored some pallets with large lag bolts and heavy-duty washers. IIRC, those lag bolts were worth about $0.80 each. Heck yeah, I'll pick up that pallet and save that hardware.

There's still another few barrow loads I need to remove from the secure run, today maybe, but I'm not sure where to put it.

That can be a challenge. I really like the looks of your pallet wood compost bin you posted. But it sounds like you can't, or don't want to, build another one right next to it.

I think a basic pallet wood compost bin works great for many of us. But one pallet project I built last year has been proven to have more value to me as I find different ways to use it. It is the stackable compost bin system project I posted a while back.

Here is a recent picture of the stackable bin that I moved to the chicken run and filled with leaves to use for the winter...

The great thing about having individual stackable tiers is that you can make it as short/tall as you want. When I moved it, I just took it apart one tier at a time and set it up in the new location. Much easier than having to disassemble and move full pallets.

I don't need more stackable tiers right now, but I put it back on my list of projects to do because I would like to store more leaves for use throughout the year. If I build it, I will use it.

Some ideas I have been kicking around for those stackable bins are holding wood chips and topsoil. Right now, when I get a load of free wood chips at the county landfill, I just dump them on the ground in a big pile. I think it would look neater, and take less space, if they were confined in that bin. Same with topsoil. Probably better to store it in the bins then spread out all over the ground.