Hey there! So it seems you’ve seen the pallet wood craze going on over the last few years and are finally deciding to give it a go yourself. However, you know that if something seems too good to be true… it usually is.
I’ve been working with pallet wood for a few years, so I know all its issues and benefits. Here, I am going to share those with you so you can decide if pallet wood is the right material for your project.
BENEFITS OF PALLET WOOD OVER NEW WOOD
Firstly, let’s take a look at the benefits of using pallet wood over new wood.
- Cost – pallet wood is often free but even if not, it still will be significantly cheaper than brand new wood.
- Environmental – new wood for retail is one of the leading causes of deforestation. By re-using materials, you are helping to reduce waste and reduce the number of trees cut down. See this post on environmental and vegan woodwork for more detail on this topic.
- Design – pallet wood has some really endearing qualities. The dents, scratches and nail holes give it a fantastic rustic feel that many of us love.
As you can see there are not too many benefits listed here. The biggest one by far is the cost, especially in this post covid era where new wood suddenly costs up to 4 times more (at least here in the UK it does).
DOWNSIDES OF PALLET WOOD OVER NEW WOOD
Unfortunately, the downsides significantly outnumber the benefits. Here they are:
- Getting wooden pallets – finding pallet wood in the UK is not easy if you don’t already work in a warehouse environment. There’s also no guarantee that any of the pallet wood you find will be free or even end up being suitable for re-use.
- Breaking pallets down – if you do manage to find yourself some wooden pallets, you actually have to break them apart to get the wooden planks off. This is HARD work. Do not underestimate how hard this is – even if you have a special pallet breaking tool, it is still an absolute nightmare of a task. And worst of all, the number of planks you end up removing successfully is not much higher than the number of planks you end up breaking trying to pry them off. Additionally, any planks that you do get off successfully will still need de-nailing. Sometimes you can’t even see the buggers so you really will need to use some sort of a magnet to locate all the nails, tacks and staples in the wood before you can use it.
- Longevity – wooden pallets have already been in use for a significant amount of time before you get hold of them. Moreover, they tend to be made from lower grade wood. This all means that pallet wood has a significantly lower lifespan than new wood.
- Quality – the fact that wooden pallets are made from lower grade wood means that they have a lot of imperfections, and I don’t mean the cute, rustic kind. Planks are often not straight, are splitting and have many knots running through them.
- Size – there are two issues with size. Firstly, it’s rare that you get two identical planks from your pallets. They tend to be different in width, length and thickness. This makes using pallet wood in a project that requires specific sizing difficult. The second issue with sizing is the overall max sizes of planks you will get. Out of all the pallets I’ve used, it is really rare to get a length that is more than 1m long. In fact, most planks are around 0.8-0.9m long. This is really short so it significantly limits what you can actually use pallet wood for.
- Prep work – the fact that the sizing of pallet planks is so wildly variable means that pallet wood involves a lot of prep work. You are likely to need a table saw to get the width identical and a plane to get the thickness identical. Neither one of these tasks is fun – believe me, I’ve been doing it for years. Additionally, even if you are after the rustic effect, you cannot just use pallet wood as it comes. It tends to have a really rough surface that sometimes has stains on which will need to be sanded or planed off.
- Previous use – it’s impossible to know what your pallets have been used for previously. There are ways to make an educated guess based on the markings on the pallet but you never really know. Additionally, just because the pallet you have hasn’t had anything chemical on it, you don’t know whether something accidentally got spilt on it. For this reason, regardless of how safe you think the wood is, you should never eat directly off anything made from pallet wood.
- Leftovers – after dismantling a pallet and making your project you will have a lot of waste left. This will include any broken pallet planks, joining pallet blocks and any cut-offs from your planks to make them the required size. All this mess will need to be disposed of somehow.
As you can see, I wasn’t joking. The disadvantages significantly outnumber the advantages so I would really encourage you to think about whether pallet wood is suitable for your needs.
PROJECTS SUITABLE FOR PALLET WOOD
Now that you know the truth about using pallet wood, let’s take a look at some projects for which it may be perfect. If you have decided to venture into the world of sourcing and breaking down your own pallet wood, check out this post on how to break them down.
Raised beds
Pallet wood is ideal for raised beds in the garden for planting flowers or veg. However, you do need to make sure that the pallets have not been treated with any toxic substances if you are growing food near them. Check out this post on how to pick pallets that can be used safely.
Trellises
Pallet wood is perfect to make trellises out of. It doesn’t need cleaning too much either as the whole point of a trellis is to be covered by plants! Check out my pallet wood trellis here.
Small outdoor structures
Here I’m thinking of things such as compost bins, wheelie bin storage or wooden log storage. All these are quite small so the short length of pallet wood planks shouldn’t be an issue. Outdoor doors also fall into this category. Check out my pallet shed door here.
Mirrors & picture frames
The distressed look of pallet wood makes it perfect for rustic décor around the house. Again, make sure that the pallets are not toxic using the info in this post.
Pet beds
Pet beds tend to be quite small so the shorter length of the wood is a non-issue. There are a couple of things to consider before though. One is to make absolutely sure that the wood is non-toxic. Two is if your pet is prone to chewing their bed, don’t use pallet wood. You just never know what has been spilt onto it!
There you have it. I hope I haven’t put you off using pallet wood completely but I think it is important to know the truth about how difficult it is to work with before starting this journey. Let me know if you think I missed any benefits or downsides 😊
