How to Break Down a Pallet in Under 10 Minutes
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Wood pallets are great sources of reclaimed lumber, but if you've ever tried to break one apart, you know exactly how tricky that can be do to. That's because they are usually put together with barbed nails that are super hard to remove. That's great when you want a strong pallet, but not so great when you want to break them down to salvage the wood.
I've come up with a technique to break down a pallet in under 10 minutes, to quickly and easily salvage the lumber. Here's a quick video showing you how I do it.
If video isn't your thing, here's a breakdown of the main steps of the process.
The first thing to do is identify where the nails are on either side of your pallet, and where the supporting braces are underneath, so you can avoid cutting through either one.
With the pallet lying flat on the ground, use a circular saw to cut along the side, just inside of the row of nails, and clear of the supporting brace underneath.
Do a second cut on the other side, resulting in boards that are only attached in the middle by two nails each. This is the key part of my technique — those two cuts sacrifice only a few inches of board, but save you a ton of time because you don't have to worry about the nails on either end.
Stand the pallet back up and use a hammer to knock the planks off from behind.
Then just back out the two nails that are in the middle of each board.
And just like that, you've transformed a pallet into a pile of usable lumber in less than 10 minutes!
5 comments so far:
Thank you for ur video on how to break down a pallet in under 10 min, VERY, VERY USEFUL TO ME!!. Now I'm going to watch a lot of ur videos.
Sawing the ends is a great idea. but you cant swing the hammer to get the center nails out, without first prying one side off. And prying a whole side with a hammer just doesn't do the job in 10 minutes. more like 30 minutes.
Lex, my pallet did not have boards on the bottom, so it was easy to lift it and bang the boards off the top, as shown in the video. Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying?
I actually tried your method when I first started using pallets, about 10 years back. I now have a constant steady supply of 20 to 25 pallets per week. I learned very quickly that there is what I believe to be an easier way to break them down. I bought a "pallet buster, a pneumatic nail remover, and a slide hammer type of nail puller for embedded nails. I already had a 28" crowbar. I will never again try to break down a pallet without those tools and if you are serious about using pallet wood I would strongly encourage you to get these tools. If all of your pallets are pine what you are doing is OK but if you happen to get any pallets made of rough oak or some other hard wood you will have trouble even knocking the slats loose with a normal claw hammer. Please don't misunderstand me, I am not criticizing your method at all, it works, I am just offering my perspective based on my experience.
John, thanks for the tips! Readers who process as many pallets as you do will surely appreciate the advice :)