Tiny Free House

Last night I noticed someone had posted some pallets on craigslist so this morning before work Katie and I made a pallet run and crossed our fingers that they were still there. We lucked out and picked up 12 good pallets. I’d say 6 are nice standard pallets (40″ by 48″) and the other six will need only minor repair before they become walls and part of the roof.

Just a quick lesson in pallet quality. Julia spotted four pallets today while we were running errands. We swung around, asked if we could have them, tossed them in the back of the truck, and were off. When I unloaded them I noticed one of them wasn’t so good. The 2x4s were a bit too worn and there were lots of stains. I’ll probably take this one apart and see if any of the slats are usable. I think the 2×4 might be toast but once I get the slats off I’ll know for sure. Mostly I’m looking for rot or serious damage. The wood is definitely hardwood and the pallet is very heavy. Here’s the ‘bad’ pallet:

Below is an example of a very usable pallet from the same load. It’s a standard 40′ by 48′ pallet, sturdy, unstained, not too weathered, and fairly light weight. I suspect the wood is fir. This is the kind of pallet that makes building easy. Soft wood is much easier to work with and when the pallets are in good condition and a standard size they need very little preparation before they can become part of a wall, floor, or roof.

I’ll just screw 2x4s onto the open ends of this one and it will be good to go. I plan to do a lot of this kind of work this week so I can arrive at the farm the next time with a full load of prepared pallets. It will make the construction go much faster.

I ran out today and scavenged some pallets with my father-in-law. He knew of a good spot near his old pre-retirement job that always had lots of pallets. There weren’t a ton of good ones but enough to fill the back of my truck again. Now that I’m learning where to look I’m starting to think that craigslist might not be the best place to find pallets. It is an excellent place for finding lots of free stuff but it seems that a lot of businesses just toss them out back and hope the garbage man picks them up. There were piles like this one here and there throughout the industrial park we visited this afternoon. Just be sure to ask permission before freeing pallets.

My plan is to stay home this weekend, get caught up on a few things around the house, and knock together a few pallet panels. As I worked on the tiny free house last weekend I found that it’s best to screw 2x4s onto the open ends of pallets before putting them in place. It makes them stronger and give you more places to screw them together. To get the 2x4s I’ll just bust up odd size pallets, use the 2x4s for augmenting my good wall pallets and the slats for exterior siding. I expect to make another pallet run or two before the long weekend is over. As I build these pallet panels I’ll photograph them so you can see what I mean.