Legalities of selling treated wood as firewood

[chris23a]

I was under the impression that it was illegal to sell treated timber (offcuts, fence boards, posts, etc.) as firewood however i have noticed a few ads on gumtree where people are doing this. Can anyone shed any light on this subject?

[log dog]

is that a joke shed ie wooden shed ! sorry in a silly mood

[volvo]

Dont know if its legal or not but i wouldn't like to burn it on an open fire in a confined space due to the chemicals they use .I would only use it for kindlers to start a fire.

Now i'm ready to be shot down in FLAMES for saying this!

[Pedroski]

Illegal and immoral. It's ok to burn in a high temp enclosed incinerator, but no an open fire or log burner. Will check EA web site for more info and post here asap.

[pie eater pete]

Heard the tannelised green timber gives off cyanide gas or something like that! Doubt that would be any good for ya!

[jrose]

out of interest, can anyone provide a link to the law on selling treated wood as firewood please? just would be interested to read it, I'm not selling treated wood or anything.

[skyhuck]

Burning treated wood is not good, but in the grand scheme of things I'm not sure its such a big deal.

 

Often if this wood was not burned on a stove (generating heat and reducing the amount of gas or coal being burned) it would be burned anyway out side just to get rid of it.

 

How much treated timber is burned around November the 5th? and all that heat is just wasted.

[shooterjim]

Was going to drop a flyer into a house round the corner from me. His sheet was off his log store today and I noticed the wood was all broken up bits of flat pack furniture! Bet that smells nice!!

[Xaltu]

Have a look at page 6 which features a section on contaminated wood:

Wood as Fuel: Technical Supplement for Fuel Suppliers

[openspaceman]

Heard the tannelised green timber gives off cyanide gas or something like that! Doubt that would be any good for ya!

 

The old tanalising was done with 5kg of chromated copper arsenate per m3. As the wood was seldom well treated often only the first cm into the wood and a bit more into the endgrain got a sensible dose. As these chemicals are elemental they have to end up either in the flue gas or in the ash. 1m3 of timber has about 400kg of dry matter of which <1% or 4kg is ash. So the ash can have a high proportion of heavy metal in it from a low burn. If the fire is hot then more will be volatised, inhaling it could cause serious problems, especially the chrome as it's trivalent in the wood and hexavalent in the flue gas.

 

Later formulations are an organic salt of copper, less toxic to you and wood rotting bugs ;-)