Councils and recycling centres

[Inspe9elms]

Hullo All,

I live on a barge in South London. I'm self-sufficient in the sense that I gottadoeverythingmyself (sigh) but I have a mooring so I'm on grid. I knit, so I guess I don't depend on anyone for my hats, scarves, mittens or jumpers. I have a multi-fuel stove and gather cardboard and wood from all around and break it best I can. When I run out of kindling I tend to burn Ikea small storage items (CD holders, shelves from inside cupboards, box lids...). Or get someone with a car to go on a kindle run, which involves visiting lots of petrol stations. On the plus side, I have a Dutch bike which will last throughout my life, with any luck.

I hate having too much stuff so I use Freecycle to lighten the load, first offering the unwanted bits and pieces to my neighbours on the pier.

I would like some help in identifying sources of fuel for my stove that I can get for free, for example, the local recycling centre won't let me take wood out of their skips. Has anybody challenged their council over that?

[Millymollymandy]

Can't help you with the wood but hello and welcome to the site!

[MuddyWitch]

At least you can burn wood! We are in a 1950s 'smoke control zone' so we can't, but the house built in the 1980s at the bottom of our garden can!! (It would be in the zone had it been built before 1953, but as it wasn't it's not affected!)

Try local wood yards, they often have small off-cuts that they are only too happy to give to you. Similarly keep an eye out for builders skips, they LOVE you to take the old wood, it saves them money. But becareful if you burn old stuff with paint on as some can be really toxic.

MW

[Inspe9elms]

Thanks. Builders merchants - there's one in Battersea. Skips - yeah, I always look in them.
My stove eats wood but does a good job burning coal. But I can't get the coal to light without wood - lighters and cardboard and newspaper don't work on their own or in combination. Stoves all act differently and mine is a Larch, deeper than it's wide.

I don't burn wood as fuel, I probably wouldn't be allowed to. But we live well away from anyone else though, on an industrial stretch of the Thames and, as the phrase goes, we live like this.

[Thomzo]

Hi and welcome
I would love to live on a boat, it must be wonderful.

I used to work on a light industrial estate. The sort where you have lots of corrugated iron warehouses with yards at the back of them. Each and every one of the units had piles of old pallets at the back. Our unit had loads of old pallets stacked up. We were desperate to get rid of them. All businesses have to pay to have any waste taken away. You just need to keep asking around for one that will turn a blind eye to you "stealing" their waste pallets.

Do ask before you take them though as some have to be returned to the supplier or the business has to pay for them.

Then you just need a saw and a strong arm.

Cheers
Zoe

[Milims]

Hi and welcome.
Have you tried contacting your local joinery company - they are bound to have loads of offcuts you could use.
I'd be careful burning Ikea "furniture" most of it isn't real wood - just sawdust and yuck glued together and coated in plastic - not the best of fumes given off - not to mention the formaldehyde!

[Inspe9elms]

I live next to an industrial estate and pallets are there for the taking. Or asking.
I thought they would be the answer to all my problems until I tried to break them up. A (heavier) friend of mine can stamp on them and get some breakage but I'm useless at that. My electric saw needs a surface to saw on and I haven't got one. So, this winter my neighbour and I will be joining together in the pallet-rescue-saw-up experience; I'm exporting the problem, so to speak, which isn't very self-sufficient.

It's just so damn difficult to get anything that large down the pontoon to the boats. The pontoon is like an escalator without steps.

Will try joineries as well as builders merchants, thanks for the tip.

Thanks everyone for your ideas.

Judith

[red]

welcome

we get broken pallets for free.. and our local builder merchants puts them out under a sign saying 'please take

they are a swine to take apart though. we either bludgeon them with a long handled ax (that's himself's technique), me... I prefer to use a bowsaw. I just cut them up into manageable chunks.

I dunno what the councils do with the wood piles.. spose thing to do would be to ask them.

[Milims]

Hello and welcome. We get pallets from our coal merchant for 50p each, they chop up into millions of morning sticks to start the fire off. Hmmm do people call them morning sticks these days

Susie

We call it kindling

[grahamhobbs]

You can burn would in smokeless zone, so long as you have the right type of wood burning stove, Clearview for instance sell them

[red]

You can burn would in smokeless zone, so long as you have the right type of wood burning stove, Clearview for instance sell them

hmm yeh thats what i understood too.

[Thomzo]

You can burn would in smokeless zone, so long as you have the right type of wood burning stove, Clearview for instance sell them

I was told that you could burn proper logs, cut straight from the tree, but not wood that had been made into anything such as pallets or furniture as it would affect the filters. I don't know how true this is.

Zoe

[happy place]

as you live on the thames have you looked there for you wood supply i work on the river and know there is a plentiful supply of wood drifting up and down i have fished out bits to make fence posts, benchs , raised beds and fire wood . if you have access to a small boat (and know what you are doing ) the rubbish catcher opposite chelsea harbour should give a plentiful return.
(im not sure on the legality of this and please wear a life jacket if you take this option)