Knowledge yard
Everything we know, written down
Guides written by people who grade pallets for a living rather than by a content agency. Specific numbers, honest ranges, and the parts of this industry that other suppliers would rather you did not know.
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The knowledge yard covers nine topics: pallet grades, recycling, selling used pallets, pricing, wood versus plastic, heat treatment and ISPM 15, safety and inspection, a glossary of eighty-plus terms, and a general FAQ.
Start with pallet grades if you are buying, how to sell used pallets if you are clearing a dock, and the glossary if someone has just used a word at you that you did not want to admit you did not know.
All guides
Grading
What pallet grades really mean: Grade A, Grade B, #1, #2, premium and cores, with repair allowances, inspection criteria and how to specify.
Read02Recycling
Pallet recycling station by station: intake grading, repair, remanufacture, dismantling, de-nailing, metal separation and grinding, with real yields.
Read03Selling
Selling used pallets: what sets the price, how to prepare a load, who to sell to, how collection works and the mistakes that cost you money.
Read04Pricing
What pallets cost in 2026: recycled and new price ranges by grade and footprint, the variables that move them, and how to compare quotes honestly.
Read05Comparison
Wood and plastic pallets compared on cost per trip, hygiene, weight, durability, repair, ISPM 15 and carbon footprint, with the break even trip count.
Read06Compliance
Heat treatment and methyl bromide fumigation compared for ISPM 15: how each works, cost, safety, border acceptance and why HT effectively won.
Read07Safety
A pallet inspection routine for receiving teams: the eight checks that matter, what to reject outright, how racking changes the rules and training.
Read08Glossary
Eighty-plus pallet and logistics terms in plain English, from bearer to wing pallet.
Open the glossary09FAQ
Thirty of the questions we are asked most, grouped by what you are trying to do.
Read the FAQWhere to start
Three routes through the yard
Buying and selling
Work out what a pallet is worth before anyone quotes you a number.
Specifying the right pallet
Grades, materials and the decisions that cause expensive mistakes.
Recycling and compliance
What happens to a pallet after you, and what a border will accept.
Questions about the guides
Who writes the guides in the knowledge yard?
The people who grade, repair and haul pallets at our Denver yard on Geneva St. Every number in a guide comes from the sort line, the repair stations or our own trailer logs, not from a content agency.
Which guide should I read first if I want to sell pallets?
Start with how to sell used pallets, then the pricing guide. Together they explain grade, footprint, volume and distance, the four things that move what we pay per core.
How do I know which pallet grade I actually need?
Read pallet grades explained. In short, Grade A suits racking and automation, Grade B suits floor-stacked and one-way loads, and paying for Grade A where Grade B works is the most common overspend we see.
Do the guides cover export and ISPM 15 rules?
Yes. The heat treatment vs fumigation guide covers the ISPM 15 schedule of 56 °C core temperature for 30 minutes, the IPPC stamp and why methyl bromide has largely disappeared.
What if my question is not answered in any guide?
Send it to us in writing through the quote form or by email. We reply within one business day, and the questions we get asked most often usually become new guides or entries in the FAQ.
A reading order, depending on why you are here
You are buying pallets for the first time
Start with grades, then the size chart, then the pricing guide. About forty minutes and it will save you more than that on your first order.
You have pallets piling up
How to sell used pallets and the buyback checklist. Print the second one.
Something broke or nearly did
Safety and inspection, then load capacity. The distinction between static, dynamic and racking loads is the one that matters.
You are exporting
Heat treatment vs fumigation and ISO sizes. The rule about repairs invalidating compliance catches more shipments than anything else.
You are writing a sustainability report
How recycling works, then our methodology. Ask your current recycler for their disposition split and compare.
The things we wish everyone knew
If you read nothing else on this site, these eight sentences are the distilled version of what fifteen years in a pallet yard teaches you.
- Grade describes repair history, not strength. A Grade A pallet with two replaced boards is not weaker than one with none.
- Static, dynamic and racking loads are three different numbers and can differ by a factor of five. Ask which one you are being quoted.
- Never rack a repaired pallet. A companion stringer changes the load path and an unsupported span is unforgiving.
- Most pallet damage is caused by forklifts, not by age. Thirty seconds of training per operator removes about a seventh of it.
- Pooled pallets are not yours to sell. Painted blocks mean somebody owns it.
- ISPM 15 applies to international movement only. Paying for heat treatment on domestic freight is pure waste.
- Repair beats recycling by an order of magnitude. Grinding a repairable pallet destroys 23 board feet of usable lumber.
- Unit price is the wrong number for any pallet that comes back to you. Cost per trip frequently reverses the answer.
How these guides get written and corrected
Every page here is written by somebody who does the job it describes, and every figure comes from our own operations or from a named public source. That has consequences worth being explicit about.
- The numbers are ours, which makes them specific and also makes them local. Denver core supply is not Detroit core supply.
- Prices date. We review the ranges quarterly and state when they were last reviewed.
- We publish what we are least sure about. The carbon methodology page names its own weakest assumption.
- We correct rather than quietly edit. When our January pricing forecast was wrong, we said so in the next one.
- Questions become pages. Most of the guides here exist because the same question arrived twice.
- Nothing here is ghostwritten. The by-lines on the journal are real people at 4890 Geneva St.
If you think something here is wrong, tell us. Being corrected by a customer is embarrassing for an afternoon and useful for years.
Got a question this does not answer?
Send it. We reply in writing within one business day, and the questions that come up twice end up as new pages here.