2011 - Volume #35, Issue #1, Page #18
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He Puts Old Pallets To Work
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MacDonald and people who submit projects to his website have used pallets for sheds, fences, benches, chicken coops and even outhouses.
"I had bought a garden tractor, and winter was coming on," he recalls. "I needed a shed for it and built one in a day using pallets. "
After that MacDonald started using pallets to hold firewood, building a shed out of pallets that could hold up to four cords of wood. Then he built another shed for a generator and other dry storage. Today he has 6 pallet sheds and a 300-ft. fence around one side of his property, all made from pallets.
"I screw the pallets together using mostly sheet rock screws," he says. "The key to the whole thing is to get the floor leveled properly."
For his tractor shed, MacDonald used four 4 by 4-ft. pallets set on recycled brick. Each wall section was made with two pallets. The front bottom was made with a single pallet split and set to either side with room for the tractor to be driven through.
A second set of two pallets split in half added about two feet to the height of the front to give slope for the roof. These pallet sections were set to overlap the lower pallet sections for added stability. Eventually MacDonald cut a section out of the center and hinged it to give himself headroom when driving the tractor in and out.
Building with pallets is easy in part because trimming one edge of a pallet allows it to overlap a lower pallet edge. The spacing between pallet boards is such that filling them in with boards from damaged pallets is easy.
For the roof, MacDonald simply ran four 2 by 4's from front to back and secured four pallets to them, again filling in the spaces with rescued boards.
"The stringers were the only new boards used in the entire project," he says. "I used plywood on the floor for added stability."
The final step was to add a door. Again MacDonald used a pallet to fit the 4 by 4-ft. opening. A pallet was also used as a ramp.
"People told me that pallet wood would rot, but that's not the case," he says. "Even the fence I made from pallets has been up for more than 10 years. All I have to do is straighten it a bit each spring."
MacDonald's fence, like his sheds, consists of overlapped panels hung on 4 by 4-in. posts as well as recycled steel pipe. Designed to keep his dogs in his yard, the pallets are 1 1/2 high on the sides and one pallet high on the rear.
"It does what I wanted it to do û keep the dogs in," says MacDonald. "I'm not in it for the environment. I just like to save money."
He's not alone in his desire to save money with pallets. He says he gets 300 to 400 visitors a day to his pallet website. It's loaded with step-by-step photos of his and others' pallet projects.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, John MacDonald, 36 Masters Road, Summerville, Nova Scotia, Canada B0N 2K0 (ph 902 633-2670; http://summerville-novascotia.com/PalletWoodShed).
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