Yard notes
What a thousand pallets actually look like in a Denver winter
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Every February somebody emails us to ask why the offer on their stack came in lower than the one we gave them in September. The answer is usually sitting under four inches of snow.
A wooden pallet is a sponge with a job. Left outside through a Front Range winter, a 48" x 40" GMA pallet that weighed 34 lb in September will happily weigh 47 lb by mid-February, and every one of those thirteen extra pounds is water sitting in the grain.
The weight problem is the least of it
Extra weight is annoying — it fills a trailer's axle allowance long before it fills the trailer — but it is a known, calculable annoyance. The real costs of a frozen stack are the ones that do not show up on a scale ticket.
- You cannot grade what you cannot see. Snow and ice hide cracked stringers, shiners and mould. A grader who cannot see the wood grades conservatively, and conservative grading costs the seller money.
- Frozen stacks do not band. Poly strapping applied to an icy pallet loosens as the load thaws in transit, and a loose band on a flatbed is a hazard rather than a nuisance.
- Wet wood splits on the repair line. Driving a ring-shank nail into saturated hardwood at −8 °C produces a split more often than a fastening.
- Ice welds pallets together. Separating a frozen stack of twenty with a forklift breaks more boards than it saves.
What it does to the number
| Quoted 12 September | Quoted 16 February | |
|---|---|---|
| Dominant footprint | 48x40 GMA | 48x40 GMA |
| Condition on arrival | Dry, covered | Snow-capped, iced at the base |
| Graded Grade A | 61% | 34% |
| Graded Grade B | 27% | 38% |
| Graded core | 12% | 24% |
| Rejected (mould) | 0% | 4% |
| Blended price per unit | $6.90 | $4.15 |
| Total | $3,450 | $2,075 |
The pallets did not get worse. The information did. Twenty-seven per cent of that stack moved from Grade A to something lower because a grader at the sort line could not confirm it was Grade A, and the four per cent that was genuinely rejected had grown mould under a tarp that trapped meltwater against the deck.
What we do differently from November to March
- 1
Weather buffer on every route
Front Range collections are scheduled with a spare day. A driver sent into an unploughed yard costs everybody more than a delay does.
- 2
Thaw bay before the sort line
Frozen loads go under cover for 24 to 48 hours before grading. It is the single cheapest thing we do for a seller's price.
- 3
Moisture spot-checks
A pin meter on ten units per load. Above about 24% moisture content we flag the load and grade it after the thaw rather than at intake.
- 4
Repair line slows down
Wet hardwood gets pre-drilled at the stringer ends. Slower, but it stops us splitting the member we are trying to save.
What you should do, in about an hour, in October
- Move the stack off the ground onto dunnage or a pair of scrap stringers. Four inches of air is enough.
- If you can get it under an eave, a canopy or even a lean-to, do — it is worth more than any tarp.
- If you must tarp, tarp the top only and leave the sides open.
- Stack square. Leaning stacks collect snow in the gaps and freeze into one solid object.
- Book a collection before the first hard freeze rather than after the thaw. Autumn pricing is materially better than spring pricing, and it is the same pallet.
None of that is difficult and none of it costs anything. On a 500-unit stack it was worth $1,375 to the customer above, which is more than most facilities teams save on anything else they do in October.
The short version
Winter does not damage pallets so much as it hides them. If a grader cannot see the wood, you get the benefit of no doubt at all.
- Get it off the ground
- Keep the sides open
- Sell before the first hard freeze
- Never trap meltwater under a tarp