pallet wood

[agg221]

Copper chrome arsenate (CCA) treatment was withdrawn in Europe in 2002. That's not to say some of the current preservatives aren't unhealthy when burned, but at least noone else will have to suffer overnight handlebar moustache growth!

 

Alec

[Lorn Logs]

Too late ! Aye, thats the same stuff we used, came under the name 'Celcure' not nice, greenish and stank. Turned your hands yellow as I recall

[openspaceman]

. Turned your hands yellow as I recall

 

The skin shouldn't rot then! this is the same process used for tanning chrome leather gloves, a firm in Derby supplied a gasifier to the leather works and they reclaimed chrome form the offcuts.

 

Chromated copper arsenate is only allowed for limited use now, the copper azole stuff now is nowhere near as persistent. My main concern about CCA was it's end of life disposal, too much was being burnt and leaving heavy metal residues in the ash with arsenic and hexavalent chrome in the atmosphere.

 

I'm still not sure why they came down so heavily on creosote, it is carcenogenic but within a short exposure outside the surface was OK as long as not handles unduly, horsese tended not to eat it whereas they did gnaw cca treated wood.

[likeitorlumpit]

It could be the wood- we recently had some hardwood untreated bollards that really stank when cut.

[Lorn Logs]

We poured gallons of it into the ground at the old mill, it came gushing out of the pressure tank! There's houses on the site now

[Farmer Tom]

Of course, if you've got a lot of pallets......

 

Building a shed from recycled wooden pallets

[lanber]

Markings on the timber HT so all is good thanks gents.

[gensetsteve]

So the feeling is the newer treatments are less harmful than the old stuff. But will they be safe enough to make into kindling for resale in the future. It can be really difficult spotting treated timber as there is a new one that has a very light yellow tinge to it.

[agg221]

So the feeling is the newer treatments are less harmful than the old stuff. But will they be safe enough to make into kindling for resale in the future. It can be really difficult spotting treated timber as there is a new one that has a very light yellow tinge to it.

 

The difficulty is in identifying exactly which treatment has been applied, which depends to an extent on whether it has been made in the EU or not.

 

HT (heat treated) etc and all the other codes previously stated are obviously fine. One of the reasons CCA was withdrawn is because of its environmental effect when disposed of by burning, so it's reasonable to presume that the other preservatives don't have this effect. Copper is still used, which can catalyse dioxin production when burned at too low a temperature, as kindling would be. Organic biocides will almost certainly be fully decomposed in the burning process.

 

Since organic biocides are much cheaper, they are far more likely to be the ones applied to pallets and similar low cost items. Coincidentally of course, creosote burns well enough - just makes the chimney rather tarry unless you burn smokeless from time to time.

 

The difficulty is that if something has been imported from outside the EU on a pallet there is no clear way of knowing what the packing was treated with. When 'decorating' my boat an attractive shade of green I was able to obtain some copper naphthalate, in the UK. The remainder of the shipment was bound for Nigeria. Also, since CCA is an effective preservative I suspect that only 10yrs on there are still a fair few treated items kicking around.

 

Alec

[gensetsteve]

We could use new truss off cuts huge quanities but we dont unless someone can tell us its safe and legal. But who could you trust to give the go ahead.