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Hello-
I recently purchased my first house-a fixer upper. I intend to designate the entire two-car garage as my long-awaited workshop. I also intend to floor the entire 1,200 sf living area (except for the bathroom) in hardwood planks. I was thinking of ways to do this on a limited budget and an idea occurred to me one day as I sat staring at a stack of surplus pallets. Aside from the significant time involved with disassembly, removal of nails, flattening the faces, and joining the edges, are there any other issues that might make this a bad project? I like the idea of having a unique-looking floor, nail holes and all. The savings would also help fund the purchase of a jointer-something that would otherwise have to wait a while.
Is the grade of hardwood used to make pallets suitable for flooring? Would a variety of different woods intermingled cause expansion and contraction
problems? Are there any other (cheap) sources of rustic-looking planks suitable for flooring? Your comments and advice are appreciated.
BTW, the house is built on a slab so I will be installing a subfloor, first.
Thanks-
Tim Dixon
San Diego, CA
Replies
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Tim,
Pallet manufacturing is an industry in my area (NE Arkansas). The predominant material here is red oak, which is a good flooring choice, but just about anything that can be sawn is used. Pallets made in other areas my be pine or other softwoods. You can find some nice stock in pallets but also expect to find a lot of splits and knots. The wood is usually used green and air dries as hard as a rock.
For the most part, pallets are assembled with a cheap air driven glue coated spiral shank nail. These nails are difficult to pull and the heads are inclined to pop off. If you are going to mill this stuff, you need to get every nail.
In my experience, the best wood is in the 2x4s to which the plank decking and skids are nailed. Unfortunately, these pieces are usually cut out for forklifts and pallet jacks. You may luck out and find pallets with decking thick enough to be milled. If this is the case I would consider cutting the planks free with a circular saw and trashing all of the wood with nails in it.
I heated my house in Illinois with wood and picked up pallets whenever I could. Cut up the way I described, a pallet would provide about an hour or two of fire (not much wood). I did save the better pieces for projects but must admit that after culling, not very much of it was worth keeping.
For a project of the size you are discussing, you will need a lot of pallets and a lot of calories.
I suggest you find a source and pick up a couple of pallets. The first thing you will notice is that you will need a flat bed truck or utility trailer if you are going to carry any number at all.
When you have the pallets home, spend some time taking them apart. Try pulling nails and also cutting the planks free. Look at the amount of useable material you get and how much waste you generate (and have to get rid of). Keep track of your time. Figure up how much stock you are going to need and how long it will take to harvest it. If you like the numbers, drive on.
Steve
*Steve is right on when he says "just about anything that can be sawn is used". God knows what kind of wood you'll get. I think you'd be better off buying some green lumber from a sawmill, air drying it, then milling it yourself. You'd get better lumber at a some additional cost, but with a ton less labor.
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Hey Tim:
I bet pallets would make a swell tree fort!! Why, I bet you could even recycle the nails! . When you are building the floor, maybe you could even use a stone to drive the nails so you could save wear on your hammer! Wow! This board is just chock full of good ideas!!
By the way, are you the same guy who wanted to use OSB as a finished floor and fiberglass-asphalt shingles as siding?
Listen, let me share a motto of mine – forget about saving pennies – spend your energy figuring out how to make more dollars – or better still – figure out how to make money without using your time to do so!
*Mark-I'm still wiping my beer off the monitor--all excellent suggestions! I wonder if maybe I could use my OLD asphalt shingles for siding when I put new ones on the roof...?Thanks to all who posted. Not surprisingly, I've decided AGAINST pallets.-Tim
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See!!! Trying to be cheap just cost ya half a beer!!! Hope ya learned your lesson! I was actually tring to figure a way to make this work for you! Howza 'bout checking into end grain flooring, using stock 2x's and the saw dust as the filler. There's a thread around here somewhere on that. Have no idea how it works, but it sounds cool! And stop buying generic beer ya cheap bastard! Jeff
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In case after all this sopund advice sombody still wants to use pallets, here's another reason not to.... not only do the beams of a pallet have knots, 9 times out of 10 they are cut from the very center of the log, where splits are guaranteed to occur ('cuz they can't use this part of the log for regular lumber).
I work for a college and we actually buy furniture with tabletops made from pallet wood. The stuff is milled 50 billion times, and ends up with strips only 6/4 wide, which are then glued together like butcherblock. Due to the labor involved the tables are just as expensive as other tables, but it's billed as enviro-friendly because they are reused boards. They don't mention the extra resources taken up in making the stuff usable in any of their brochures...
*In case after all this sopund advice sombody still wants to use pallets, here's another reason not to.... not only do the beams of a pallet have knots, 9 times out of 10 they are cut from the very center of the log, where splits are guaranteed to occur ('cuz they can't use this part of the log for regular lumber). I work for a college and we actually buy furniture with tabletops made from pallet wood. The stuff is milled 50 billion times, and ends up with strips only 6/4 wide, which are then glued together like butcherblock. Due to the labor involved the tables are just as expensive as other tables, but it's billed as "enviro-friendly" because they are reused boards. They don't mention the extra resources taken up in making the stuff usable in any of their brochures...
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Tim,
Pallets for flooring is probobly still a bad idea, but let me thow some wood on the fire. Friday I was driving through the yard of my local Stone & Masonry supply and in the back were about fifteen pallets of new pallet parts. The tops were stacked 880 pcs (I didn't count them, it was marked) to a pallet. Some of the pallets looked like they had been there a while (weathered to a nice grey) and some looked very new. I assume since they use a lot of pallets that they use these for repair.
Good Luck,
Jerry
*Around here (Long Island) it is difficult to find FREE pallets. The local pallet merchants are now grinding up old pallets, adding dye, and selling the stuff as red mulch.It's a great way of recycling (and making a profit from what used to be garbage) but I wonder what it will do to the plants and flowers. Many pallets get all kinds of stuff spilled on them that may not be good for gardens.Just some semi-related info.Phil
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Well, whatever floats your boat. I have recycled pallets from a hardwood veneer plywood manufacturing company (maple, ash, oak, and mahogany)for heat, as well as crates for glass from the Philippines. They were made from mahogany, and because glass in bulk is heavy some of those timbers were 4x6x12'. The bulk were 1x4 and 2x4. As the crates were large some boards only had nails every 3' and many of the 2x4's only had nails in one side. They were a bear to break down but ended up making almost all of the trim, rub rails, bowsprit, and hatch covers for a 21' sailboat I built 24 years ago (sold, but it's still sailing) Unfortunately someone set up a contract with the glass company, and they were no longer free for the taking. I could not do this today as I no longer have the "free" time that I had when I was a young boat building fool. If you really want to recycle material, I'd recommend that you check with a glass company as much of it comes from the South Pacific countries.
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Bob...very interesting pallet story...
near the stream, boat building for fun,
aj
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b Old pallets
The biggest trick is to not nick your planer blade with staples - the big stuff is easy to find. As to the negative aspects, if you can't tell what type of wood you are using by looking at a planed piece and the end grain, you might as well hire it out. The biggest advantage of the pallet wood is that there is a great deal of it that is very curly, which looks wonderful - but dry well before planing. I build most the furniture I make out of 4' by 12'. oak pallets (save the hickory to make hammer handles). As to used roofing, I paved the drive to my blacksmith shop with the old roop from the house - works great!
See FHB # 90, Nov 1990, for a cabin built from old pallets, et. al.
*I Old palletsThe biggest trick is to not nick your planer blade with staples - the big stuff is easy to find. As to the negative aspects, if you can't tell what type of wood you are using by looking at a planed piece and the end grain, you might as well hire it out. The biggest advantage of the pallet wood is that there is a great deal of it that is very curly, which looks wonderful - but dry well before planing. I build most the furniture I make out of 4' by 12'. oak pallets (save the hickory to make hammer handles). As to used roofing, I paved the drive to my blacksmith shop with the old roof from the house - works great!See FIB # 90, Nov 1990, for a cabin built from old pallets, t. l.
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I did an art fair in Davis, Ca, where a guy was selling African drums from stunning 5/4 padauk. He got it from importers of Japanese motorcycles, so the wood came from Africa, went to Japan, got shipped to US as a crate for a rice-burner, and made into an African drum.
*stray.... ur stutterin...itchy finger ?
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Hello-
I recently purchased my first house-a fixer upper. I intend to designate the entire two-car garage as my long-awaited workshop. I also intend to floor the entire 1,200 sf living area (except for the bathroom) in hardwood planks. I was thinking of ways to do this on a limited budget and an idea occurred to me one day as I sat staring at a stack of surplus pallets. Aside from the significant time involved with disassembly, removal of nails, flattening the faces, and joining the edges, are there any other issues that might make this a bad project? I like the idea of having a unique-looking floor, nail holes and all. The savings would also help fund the purchase of a jointer-something that would otherwise have to wait a while.
Is the grade of hardwood used to make pallets suitable for flooring? Would a variety of different woods intermingled cause expansion and contraction
problems? Are there any other (cheap) sources of rustic-looking planks suitable for flooring? Your comments and advice are appreciated.
BTW, the house is built on a slab so I will be installing a subfloor, first.
Thanks-
Tim Dixon
San Diego, CA