understanding pallet codes | The Green Lever - Using minimal resources for maximum quality of life

Pallets - The Low-down - Where, What and How?

So you've been round to your local big chain supermarket and they've told you all their pallets are reused. Well this maybe true for them but not for all pallets. In Europe consigned/reusable pallets are painted a specific colour, which designates the company who owns them. Funnily enough sometimes bits of these blue and red pallets actually turn up on building sites in scrap wood but they are the least useful of all the pallets and I would never use them. What you are looking for are the unpainted untreated pallets.

The pallet shown above is a very unusual one in that it is an 'in-house' pallet made of untreated wood for the specific purpose of transporting a display stand for an exhibition. It was put out for me after use.

BE PREPARED Any time we are out in our car I carry what I call my pallet finder's kit:

ropes

quality work gloves

wrecking bar

wood saw

steel toe capped work boots

a hard hat (for entering building sites)

and a red flag!

That way I'm ready for a maximum pallet haul!

For a specific job you may also require thicker or longer timber so you should have a whole range of pallet providers in your recuperating itinerary. Pallet collecting is logical. Firms which transport/manufacture/sell large and heavy items have substantial pallets. So a few of the companies I collect from, for example, are swimming pool manufacturers, exhibition stand makers and a double glazing and joinery firm. All these are small family type businesses. I know the people who own them and/or the foreman. I didn't start out knowing them I just saw the pallets and went in and asked.

The upright from a plant transporter pallet.

Using five of these uprights I created the sides of the greenhouse frame below.

This is one of my first major pallet wood projects and you can find the link to the written article and film: The Five Euro Greenhouse, which shows the detailed construction at end of this post.

After I had made the above greenhouse, I then went on to design and make another but this time combining recuperated glass windows with the pallet wood frame, again there is a link at the end of this post.

Let Companies Know What You Are Doing With Their Pallets

I always make a point of telling the providers why I want the pallets and I ask for their e-mail addresses to send pictures of the finished item. I also give out links to my youtube site so they can see the films. That way my pallet donors get feedback on the transformation of an eyesore and nuisance which was hanging around their parking lot. There is another side to this too, many of these businesses are only too glad to find I am recycling this resource. As intelligent, thinking people, they are only too aware that their waste is ending up in landfill and/or is being burnt in open fields and they are, to say the least, not very comfortable with this idea. So in repurposing and reusing pallets you are, helping yourself, helping others and helping in the long-term to conserve the planet. Often company personnel will see you entering their premises and bring out pallets fresh from the warehouse, on rainy days this can be very welcome!

Cracking the pallet codes

Understanding pallet 'seals' is an important factor and something you need to mug-up on before you set out on your first collecting trip. There are many sites including Wikipedia, which will explain these but I'm posting this here to give you an example of what you are looking for.

This 'seal' will be located on one of the pallet blocks:

The 'wheat stamp' denotes IPPC compliance, confirming the pallet to be made of de-barked wood. Useful if you were unsure whether the wood was real!

DK - the country code i.e. in this case Denmark.

8C - the pallet manufacturer.

S5 - the treatment company.

HT - Heat Treated = Gravy!

All wooden crates and pallets in 74 countries of the world have an International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) seal on them. These denote several things but the most important are the bottom two letters - you are looking for pallets with no chemical treatment. In the US fumigation with methyl bromide, coded MB, is more common than in Europe, where heat treatment (HT) is the norm. However, treated pallets do occur in Europe even though you will find several sites informing you they don't! In the case of chemical treatment you will also see the resultant discolouration. Many garden centre suppliers, for example, dip items or conveyor spray them and their carrier pallets simultaneously and you will see immediate evidence of this in the blue-green 'dye' infusing the whole pallet.

Here's something we haven't seen before on pallets but is very welcome. It's the eco label for managed and sustainable forestry. Read all about it here: http://www.sacert.org/woodmark/pefc

Happy Hunting!

All the best and thanks for dropping by and if you enjoyed this post, please feel free to share, ask questions or comment.
Cheers, Andy

© Andy Colley 2014

A Few Guidelines for Collecting Pallets

I thought it might be helpful if I shared my five rules to make it easier for you to obtain the basic material...read more

How to Dismantle Pallets for free Carpentry Wood

The first thing to do with your pallet when you’ve got it out of the car is look underneath it and see if the nails attaching the planks are visible...read more

The 5 Euro/Dollar/Pound Greenhouse

Home-made low cost greenhouse designed to use free untreated pallet wood. How to build a viable, safe, year-round food production system...read more

Home-made, Big Cheap Glass Greenhouse from Old Windows Pt 1 (of 3) - Design

The idea for the greenhouse was to have something that was both decorative and practical...read more

DIY verandah-style greenhouse, sunspace, draught lobby

I love this greenhouse, it seems so right in the surrounding rural scene and it's made from an interesting eclectic mix of recuperated...read more

Pallet Wood Hen House/Chicken Coop & Tiny Tiny House - Part 1 (of 4) Construction

We designed and have already built one of these coops not just as accommodation for the hens but as a prototype we could build here in the workshops... read more