Colorado
Winterising a pallet stack: a one-hour job worth a thousand dollars
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Every spring we grade stacks that were worth 40% more in October. The difference is almost never damage. It is water.
A pallet does not really deteriorate over a Front Range winter — it gets wet, it gets hidden, and it occasionally grows something. All three of those reduce what it is worth, and all three are preventable with about an hour of work before the first hard freeze.
The five things
- 1
Get it off the ground
Four inches of air under the bottom pallet, on dunnage or scrap stringers. The bottom four pallets in a ground-level stack are where almost all winter mould starts.
- 2
Stack square, same orientation
Leaning stacks collect snow in the gaps and freeze into a single object that has to be broken apart with a forklift.
- 3
Tarp the top only
A tarp over the top sheds snow. A tarp wrapped down the sides traps meltwater against the deck and is worse than no tarp at all.
- 4
Check the drainage
Look at where the stack sits after a thaw. If there is standing water, move the stack six feet. That is the whole intervention.
- 5
Book collection before the freeze
Autumn grading is materially better than spring grading on the same pallets, because a grader can see the wood.
What each one is worth
| Action | Time | Typical value protected |
|---|---|---|
| Dunnage under the stack | 15 min | $280 (mould on the bottom rows) |
| Square stacking | 20 min | $150 (board damage on separation) |
| Top-only tarping | 20 min | $420 (grade retention across the stack) |
| Drainage check and move | 10 min | $190 (rejections) |
| Autumn rather than spring collection | 0 min | $340 (grading visibility) |
| Total | ~1 hr | ~$1,380 |
Those figures overlap and should not simply be added for your own stack — a stack that is properly tarped is less affected by drainage. But the order of magnitude holds, and on a larger accumulation it scales.
What actually causes a rejection
Mould, and only mould. A weathered grey pallet is a cosmetic issue. A pallet with visible mould bloom is a rejection at every grade, cannot enter the repair line, cannot enter the mulch feedstock and goes to licensed disposal at our cost.
- Mould needs moisture, warmth and still air. Winter provides the first; a wrapped tarp provides the other two.
- It starts at the bottom of a stack and works up. By the time it is visible at eye level, the bottom eight rows are usually gone.
- It does not dry out and recover. Once bloomed, the pallet is finished.
- It transfers to adjacent pallets in a stack, which is why one bad stack can cost more than its own units.
The simplest version
If you do exactly one thing: get the stack off the ground. It takes fifteen minutes, it costs nothing if you have scrap stringers, and it prevents the failure mode that destroys the most value.
If you do exactly two: sell before the freeze. A stack that is not there in January cannot be damaged in January, and October pricing is better anyway.