How to best burn flooring waste

[suds1421]

Hello everyone, I have a source for the cut offs from 4" wide flooring. The average length must be 12" with the longest being 16 and the shortest being 8". The cut offs are waste from milling kiln dried lumber. There is an bay where the waste goes that must be 20 x 8 with a 4 foot deep pile. I could load it with a skid steer to a dump trailer but didn't know if it is worth going after.

My FIL said that he would be interested in it and would bring home paper boxes from the school and pack it tight in paper boxes. Just throw the hole bundle in the wood burner and the outside would burn first then the inside providing a long burn.

What do you think, is it worth going after? From talking to the mill they just want the scrap gone and they produce enough scrap that we would run out of storage space before they ran out of scrap!

 

[mga]

people burn skids.....same difference i guess.

 

[Haywire Haywood]

Is it already stained and finished or raw? I'd be a little wary of fumes from the finish. Someone here locally has 1100 sq ft of old hardwood flooring on craigslist free for the taking. They said it was not reusable (broken up on removal) but would work for firewood.

Ian

 

[mga]

Is it already stained and finished or raw? I'd be a little wary of fumes from the finish. Someone here locally has 1100 sq ft of old hardwood flooring on craigslist free for the taking. They said it was not reusable (broken up on removal) but would work for firewood.

Ian

heh...pre-finished....stay away and don't polute the air.

but...he said:

The cut offs are waste from milling kiln dried lumber

maybe i wrongly assumed they were unfinished flooring.

 

[suds1421]

They are unfinished waste... They burn great in a campfire and actually I am suprised at how long they burn. It is almost 100% oak with most of it red oak.

I was just wondering if you built a tight fire with it if the inside peices would smolder until the outside peices burned off, therby creating a fire that would burn longer...

 

[KsWoodsMan]

Free, kiln dried, hardwood firewood, pre-cut to stove length ?
Yes it would be worth going after.

 

[woodfarmer]

i once bought a truck load of supposed kiln dried oak and maple, well is was wet as wet, i should have just cut up some dead wood at the farm would have been a better idea. i would let it season for at least a year.

 

[suds1421]

i once bought a truck load of supposed kiln dried oak and maple, well is was wet as wet, i should have just cut up some dead wood at the farm would have been a better idea. i would let it season for at least a year.

It's dry, I get my timber for woodworking from him and it is the highest quality I can find. These cut offs are also kiln dried, they just have defects in them that make them not good for flooring.

I'll have to investigate this more... I have a line on a dump trailer and he has a tractor that he could scoop and load them for me..

 

[trimmmed]

i once bought a truck load of supposed kiln dried oak and maple, well is was wet as wet, i should have just cut up some dead wood at the farm would have been a better idea. i would let it season for at least a year.

Sounds like poor advice, hardwood flooring is extremely dry even when compared to seasoned firewood.

I would grab it all, it will burn faster and hotter than firewood, but it will burn well and you'll never be looking for any kindling.

 

[oneoldbanjo]

We built a house and had about 8 paper dog food bags of kiln dried White Oak flooring left over from them squaring up the ends and cutting out knots. It burned very well and very hot. I would just throw the whole bag of pieces into the woodburner with a mix of other wood.

If you have a free supply.......you may have to build some sort of bin that you could shovel the wood scraps out of.....and I suspect you may have to do some coal raking to get the pieces all burnt up as they could get nested together pretty tightly and not burn completely.

 

[sdt7618]

it's free, it's dry, take as much as you can get... just means you don't get to play with your saws as often!

 

[woodfarmer]

Sounds like poor advice, hardwood flooring is extremely dry even when compared to seasoned firewood.

I would grab it all, it will burn faster and hotter than firewood, but it will burn well and you'll never be looking for any kindling.

you'd better re-read his original post, he's buying the waste from the cutoffs of kiln dried lumber, not the actual flooring itself, or was it me mentioning to let it season for a year that according to you is poor advice?

 

[mtfallsmikey]

I'd grab it in a New York minute! Used to get raw green slabs from a sawmill..dries in a couple of months in the summer.

 

[oneoldbanjo]

It's dry, I get my timber for woodworking from him and it is the highest quality I can find. These cut offs are also kiln dried, they just have defects in them that make them not good for flooring.

I'll have to investigate this more... I have a line on a dump trailer and he has a tractor that he could scoop and load them for me..

The cutoffs are kiln dried - and will burn great.

 

[Zodiac45]

Go for it Suds,

It's free and it's hardwood. It's a no brainer.

 

[bassman]

I get the guys at the local pallet to sell me there waste and it is all very dry softwood that burns quick but very hot so I use it to start my woodstove and boiler.
I pay 5 bucks for a 4x4x4 heaped box and get 2 at a time and buy every box they can sell me .
also bought a truckload of damaged unfinished wood flooring like the stuff you can get and it burnt longer that the softwood so I say get all you can and start a pile and sell some to others that may need it.
smaller pieces I find are good for the wife and mother in law to bring in as they are light and can be stacked into a free apple box .

do it!!!