Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[McChooky]

That's too bad. I hate to see good stuff being hauled off to landfill as garbage.

If you don't like the idea of using some pallet wood as a sacrificial covering for your coop floor, and if you can't find more linoleum, you might consider using some Black Jack 57 Rubr-Coat...

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I used linoleum because I got a big sheet on sale from Menards for less than $25.00 whereas Black Jack would have cost me $50+ to paint my floor boards. But there are a number of BYC members who swear by Black Jack 57.

Hope you can find another free source of linoleum and are able to haul it away before the garbage man comes.

Thanks!

 

[Tretinker]

My husband finally got onboard with my love of pallets. Cost of timber spiralling has forced his hand.

So far he's built a chicken coop and fence surrounding the run, stands for water butts (I can't remember the American name for this). Fencing for duck run and in progress is the duck house. He's built our raised beds also.

The run needs expanding due to chicken math but they are a pretty big area to free range so it's not too of the list.

His job once the garden is done will be a headboard I've seen a chevron design I like.

This thread is a great idea, I've seen loads of things I'd love to make, we'll have my husband make

 

[gtaus]

Our coop was also built using pallets and some reclaimed wood (mostly free). The floor came from a wooden platform that some machinery was shipped on. It would have ended up in the landfill! Hubby brought it home from work.

Fantastic! When I built my chicken coop, I was able to use reclaimed lumber and saved myself about half the cost of new wood. Felt really good to use up that older wood and save money. Back in those days, I did not have any access to pallets, so that was never even a consideration. I hope this thread may help someone building a chicken coop to consider using free pallet or reclaimed wood on their build and save lots of money.

We painted it with Black Jack 57. The floor is almost 10 years old now and I haven't had to do anything else to it. I use large pine shavings a few inches deep and clean out 1-2 times per year. I use dropping boards under the roosts so the floor takes a while to get soiled.
That Black Jack 57 is good stuff! Very low odor when applying and it dried pretty fast. I did 2 coats on the floor.

Yep, another shout out and positive review on using Black Jack 57. Even though I went with linoleum on my build, I almost always suggest a person consider using Black Jack 57 based on the many positive comments I have read from people who have used it in their coops. Again, for me, it was less expensive to go the linoleum method, but prices vary from location to location, and I hope people consider what will work best for them. BTW, my linoleum is 3+ years old and looks brand new if I brush away the 6 inches of deep bedding on top of it.

I'm loving this thread!

Yeah, me too. Like any thread, it's only as good as people chose to contribute their ideas and experiences.

 

[gtaus]

My husband finally got onboard with my love of pallets. Cost of timber spiralling has forced his hand.

Exactly. I used to buy a 4X8 foot of OSB for less than $7.00 a sheet. During height of COVID, the price went up to about $50.00 per sheet. Current prices down to about $20.00 a sheet, but still almost 3X the price of just a few years ago. Crazy!

It's not only the high cost of lumber that has turned me to using pallet wood when I can. It's also my philosophy that I want to keep my expenses with my backyard flock as low as possible. I don't know about the price of eggs in England, but where I live in the United States, I cannot beat the price of eggs at our super stores, like WalMart. It just costs me more money to raise a small number of chickens and get fresh eggs from them then what I could buy at the store.

So, I look to save money by using free resources wherever I can. Instead of buying straw for litter, I use free wood chips I get at our landfill, use dried grass when in season, have used lots of leaves from the fall, and lately I have been using shredded paper as litter. All free resources for me. All of those sources of litter used to be bagged up and sent off to the landfill in years gone by. No more. I use all that material, compost it later, and put it back into the garden to grow more people food.

Recently, I found a few places where I can get free pallets, and I have been taking advantage of those resources. I'm not afraid of a little sweat equity in breaking down the pallets and removing all the nails if I know I can build something useful and save myself a lot of money in the process.

So far he's built a chicken coop and fence surrounding the run, stands for water butts (I can't remember the American name for this). Fencing for duck run and in progress is the duck house. He's built our raised beds also.

Absolutely loved the pics. Your husband is building stuff currently beyond my skill level, so looking at your pictures just encourages me to keep on building and learning. Very inspirational. Thank you for sharing.

 

[gtaus]

TIP: Removing headless nails/screws from your pallet wood.

There are many ways to break down pallets, and it's good to have a few tricks up your sleeve so you don't limit your options. Usually, I use a circular saw and cut off the planks, because I have only need the shorter ~18 inch or less boards for my current projects. Sometimes I might want to save the full length of the pallet slat so I take out my Sawzall, cut off the nails between the planks and the stretchers, and then remove the nail heads from the planks with a punch.

However, what to do with all those nail bottoms left in the 2X4 stretchers? You definitely don't want to send that wood through a planer or cut it with a table saw or miter saw. That could damage your expensive blades. Free pallet wood is not "free" if you destroy a $30 blade in the process.

If you absolutely need to remove a broken screw or headless nail from wood, and there is no easy answer with your typical tools, then you might want to check out this short 4 minute YouTube video on removing headless nails/screws from wood.

I myself have tried this method using my plug hole cutter set. The method works, but takes more time and effort than pulling out a nail with a pry bar.

My first choice is to use the whole pallet when I can. That, of course, is the easiest.

In second place, I'll break down the pallets to use the boards on many projects using the circular saw method leaving me shorter plank pieces with no nails to worry about. I usually take more time to use a crow/pry bar to remove the nails from the 2X4 stretchers.

With the Sawzall method. It's easy to punch out the nail heads from the planks, and usually I can use the 2X4's without cutting them in a project - so the nail bottoms left in the 2X4's do not matter.

However, If I absolutely needed to remove a broken nail or screw embedded in the wood, then this method is a great option. If you are repairing wood furniture, then this is probably one of the best methods I have seen to remove broken bolts/screws/nails.

I don't expect I'll be using this method very much, but it's nice to have it in my mental toolbox if/when the time comes.

 

[Folara]

Lots more progress on the pallet shed in the past couple mornings - all sides have been sided and the roof is almost ready to tie in! I'm loving the look of the pallet slats, but as we all know, pallets are far from perfect so there are some gaps between the overlapping slats. I believe there is enough overlap to prevent water from traveling into those gaps. We have a big rain coming in Friday from a nearby tropical storm, so that will be a great test to see how water-tight the siding is. Any leaking spots will get a good dose of silicone caulk!

The last photo shows how I tied in the side-by-side pallets together, just with a small, trimmed down 2x4 screwed into the 2x4s of the pallets. I only got one screw on each side so the pallets do shift a little bit, but it doesn't really affect anything structurally.

Before tying in the roof, I will add some hardware cloth (scraps leftover from the chicken run) between the roof and pallets on front/back to cover some gaps. I hope to make it very difficult for rodents to take up residence in here, but they eventually will. It is already hot and dark in there, so I will need to find something to create some windows for light and airflow. I have a piece of plexiglass I was saving to make windows for the coop to bring in light, but I may need it more than the chickens!

 

[Tretinker]

Lots more progress on the pallet shed in the past couple mornings - all sides have been sided and the roof is almost ready to tie in! I'm loving the look of the pallet slats, but as we all know, pallets are far from perfect so there are some gaps between the overlapping slats. I believe there is enough overlap to prevent water from traveling into those gaps. We have a big rain coming in Friday from a nearby tropical storm, so that will be a great test to see how water-tight the siding is. Any leaking spots will get a good dose of silicone caulk!

The last photo shows how I tied in the side-by-side pallets together, just with a small, trimmed down 2x4 screwed into the 2x4s of the pallets. I only got one screw on each side so the pallets do shift a little bit, but it doesn't really affect anything structurally.

Before tying in the roof, I will add some hardware cloth (scraps leftover from the chicken run) between the roof and pallets on front/back to cover some gaps. I hope to make it very difficult for rodents to take up residence in here, but they eventually will. It is already hot and dark in there, so I will need to find something to create some windows for light and airflow. I have a piece of plexiglass I was saving to make windows for the coop to bring in light, but I may need it more than the chickens!

This looks brilliant!

 

[Sally PB]

I mentioned to DH that I would like some more pallets and maybe he could bring some home from work.... hint hint!

 

[gtaus]

Lots more progress on the pallet shed in the past couple mornings - all sides have been sided and the roof is almost ready to tie in!

I see lots of progress. Looks almost done to me.

I'm loving the look of the pallet slats, but as we all know, pallets are far from perfect so there are some gaps between the overlapping slats. I believe there is enough overlap to prevent water from traveling into those gaps. We have a big rain coming in Friday from a nearby tropical storm, so that will be a great test to see how water-tight the siding is. Any leaking spots will get a good dose of silicone caulk!

Yes, I really like the look of the pallet shed, especially in that front facing pic with the roof on. Very nice.

I have been wondering if a person could use a board on board type of pallet siding. Wherever you have a gap between pallet slats, just pound in another slat over the gap and call it a day.

Google picture of board on board siding...

I think it would work just as well with pallet slats. Probably make the pallet shed even stronger.

 

[gtaus]

Speaking of progress on pallet builds... I got about halfway done with my outdoor pallet storage rack today. I am dealing with full pallets, and I discovered that everything would have gone a lot faster with a helper on this job. As is, I had to align my pallets and clamp them down before screwing them together. That took more time, and effort, than I thought. No doubt, with a helper holding the pallets, I would have finished in no time today. But, I hope to finish that project tomorrow and will upload some pics.