Salvaged Wood Haul

[Systematic Renovations]

Always been too scared to ask building sites or people with skips if I could take the perfectly good and useable wood I have seen them throw out. Well I finally asked and they said yes so here is what I managed to pick up.

Might look like trash to most people but it's a proud moment for myself and i've mostly only worked with sheet material and 3x3 as the biggest pieces of wood. Will be interesting to tackle. I hardly put a dent in the pile but was carrying them alone. It was from a semi detached roof.

So if anybody else is too scared or embarassed to ask, don't be. Honestly nobody cares and they will be glad to get rid and you get free wood!

 

[mwinfrance]

Great score ;-)
as I said elsewhere ...
Free is Best Pony !

ps..might want to look at your pointing.

 

[Bingy man]

Always been too scared to ask building sites or people with skips if I could take the perfectly good and useable wood I have seen them throw out. Well I finally asked and they said yes so here is what I managed to pick up.

Might look like trash to most people but it's a proud moment for myself and i've mostly only worked with sheet material and 3x3 as the biggest pieces of wood. Will be interesting to tackle. I hardly put a dent in the pile but was carrying them alone. It was from a semi detached roof.

So if anybody else is too scared or embarassed to ask, don't be. Honestly nobody cares and they will be glad to get rid and you get free wood!View attachment 156876

Never worry about asking for what is being thrown away- the worst they can say is no but given the £170-£230 cost of a builders skip most will say yes as they can now put more into the same skip . If you were to buy that lot brand new your wallet would be crying. Good result

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Some 25 years ago a chap I knew used to take demolition timber home, chop it up and give it to his wife for her customers. She was a hairdresser who did hair for for a lot of elderly women, who really appreciated it (one of them being my grandmother, which is how I knew this). We happened to drink in the same pub. Even that long ago they were not allowed to put timber into skips so it was prohibitively expensive to dispose of.

 

[Yojevol]

You're going to have fun with all those nails

 

[baldkev]

Mixed waste skips here are £320 for a 6 yard.....
Always ask, I'd be extremely happy for someone to reduce the amount im paying to bin! I'd probably help you load it

Most importantly, get yourself a neodymium rare earth magnet.... bigger the better, it'll help you avoid the steel

Or get this VEVOR 300 KG Steel Magnetic Lifter Heavy Duty Crane Hoist Lifting Magnet | VEVOR UK

 

[mwinfrance]

Last time I hired a mixed waste skip in the UK, it was a tenner, long time, around 4 decades ago. Ouch !!

 

[alan895]

That's a nice haul, hope you've somewhere dry to stash it all.

I too found it a bit intimidating asking to take stuff that had been skipped to begin with but after doing it a few times the feeling soon dissipates. Some might give you odd looks if they see you going through what they perceive to be a pile of rubbish but at the end of the day if you can put whatever scraps of wood you can find to better use than ending up in landfill, being burnt etc. then nothing else matters.

 

[Systematic Renovations]

Thanks for all the support, encouragement and tips/advice.

The nails don't look too bad. most of them are small, not going all the way through and sticking out enough to grab but I will probably regret saying that tomorrow. I will maybe remove the nails and trim the pieces tomorrow and be lazy and just stick them in the shed and mill them another time.

The nephew is over tomorrow but sadly not quite old enough yet otherwise I would have just got him to de nail the lot

 

[Orraloon]

Nail pulling is the most important bit of the recycling game. I see some square cut nails there. They have become trendy and hard to find so I would save what you can of those.
If you are going to resaw and thickness you really need to inspect each bit of wood with care. I probe all the nail holes with an awl to be sure there is no broken off bit still in there.
Regards
John

 

[rob1693]

Nice score, free Woods my favorite wood

 

[Adam W.]

I like nails. I have a good friend in Australia who did his PhD in historic nails and uses them to date buildings.

So I'm fishing some out of the floor in the house I'm working on at the moment for him, and some of them are in very good condition seeings they are quite old.

I've also got my beady eye on some dirty great 18th century wrought iron spikes which attach replacement deal joists to the original oak beams in one of the floors, but they will belong to me if I get the chance to pull them out.

 

[Richard_C]

I had some new patio doors last year and kept the old softwood door frames, mainly to use for garden things like framing compost bins. They were too good for that, and one thing I noticed was the growth rings were much tighter than the stuff you buy today. They were c. 35 years old, I guess tree growing was a bit less intensive and slower back then. The other nice thing was the smell of pine forest as soon as you cut or planed the wood, even after all those years in situ with sadolin protecting them.

Enjoy your new-old wood, likely better than new-new.

 

[pe2dave]

You're going to have fun with all those nails

There was a video of an 'electric nail puller' - all those nails made me think of that

 

[pat from Marck]

As most people are mentioning nails (metal in wood) is there a decent small metal detector specifically made for wood workers for checking their wood

 

[pe2dave]

As most people are mentioning nails (metal in wood) is there a decent small metal detector specifically made for wood workers for checking their wood

Buy a small new magnet (neo wot not) and dangle from thread. pull slowly 1/2" above the wood. Clear as a bell where the nails are.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

The OP will end up beating the nails in and using the timber where that doesn't matter. Try to pull them and most will break level with the surface.

 

[steve66]

Living in the country now there’s not much chance of dumpster diving, the council tips won’t let take anything.
The amount of wood and bricks I’ve taken out of skips has saved hundreds.
Best find ever was attached desk, will get it finished one day

 

[pat from Marck]

Buy a small new magnet (neo wot not) and dangle from thread. pull slowly 1/2" above the wood. Clear as a bell where the nails are.

I have a good hand size magnet that I used relatively strong but on a couple of occasions missed some once at the cost of a saw blade so been thinking prehaps metal detector could be cheaper in the long run

 

[Cozzer]

Nice score, free Woods my favorite wood

Euphemism?