Sawdust What do you do with yours?

[Baldhead]

I hate waste, this stems from my childhood when we had nowt!

I took a bag of sawdust to our local recycling yard only to be told, 'sorry mate, we can't recycle sawdust, put it with the landfill rubbish', so I bought one of those cheap briqutte presses, now I tear up old newspaper, magazines and mix them with shredded letters and put them in a bucket filled with rain water, after a few days this 'mush' is mixed with sawdust and compressed into briquttes, my daughters friend has a log burner, she is more than happy to accept them, I get the pleasure of knowing someone is benefitting from my waste, the briqutte maker is rubbish though, I will have to make my own, I'm thinking of experimenting with something like soil pipe or wastepipe.

I also collect up all my shavings, these are great for lighting the fire with a few sticks.

What do you do with your 'waste'?

Baldhead

 

[Myfordman]

Freecycle it to chicken keepers - usually I get a gift of a dozen eggs, often double yolkers too!

 

[John15]

I put my sawdust from the dust producing tools and machines onto the several compost heaps I have around the garden. I think they take many months/years to break down but it is like returning them from whence they came, so an honourable way to go.

My shavings and chips on the other hand have a much more worthwhile end - they get bagged up and given to a friend in the village who uses them in his meat smoker. He goes bananas over the aroma given off from the oak.

John

 

[RogerP]

Garden soil and compost.

 

[n0legs]

A friends garage has mine for oil and fluid spills.

 

[cedarwood]

All my wood waste goes into a wood burner to heat the workshop in winter or even if cold the summer

 

[RobinBHM]

Most of the sawdust the workshop produces is collected for use in either stables or for cattle transport (Im guessing for a final journey). Since the sawdust is mostly iroko, oak or accoya, if used for bedding it has to be wetted then covered in straw. I hate to imagine how dusty it is when being spread out.

I keep considering a briquette machine but they are a big investment.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

A friends garage has mine for oil and fluid spills.

Yes. I always kept a cardboard box of sawdust for that purpose - an oil spill, spilt can of paint anything like that when you're in a hurry. Brilliant.

 

[Peter Sefton]

We heat the workshop with one of these.
http://www.stovesonline.co.uk/wood_burn ... stove.html

 

[Stu_2]

Nearly all of mine is MDF, so I bin it. I don't think it's any good for much else.

 

[zb1]

We also heat the workshop with a sawdust burner, only problem is we end up with a lot of dust in the summer then never enough by the end of the winter. Typical!

 

[Benchwayze]

I hate waste, this stems from my childhood when we had nowt!

I took a bag of sawdust to our local recycling yard only to be told, 'sorry mate, we can't recycle sawdust, put it with the landfill rubbish', so I bought one of those cheap briqutte presses, now I tear up old newspaper, magazines and mix them with shredded letters and put them in a bucket filled with rain water, after a few days this 'mush' is mixed with sawdust and compressed into briquttes, my daughters friend has a log burner, she is more than happy to accept them, I get the pleasure of knowing someone is benefitting from my waste, the briqutte maker is rubbish though, I will have to make my own, I'm thinking of experimenting with something like soil pipe or wastepipe.

I also collect up all my shavings, these are great for lighting the fire with a few sticks.

What do you do with your 'waste'?

Baldhead

Hi Baldhead.

have you seen this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aLZ88_DZz8

You might find it interesting.


John

 

[blackrodd]

My son uses sawdust at his garage works for spills etc, and 'Er indoors burns the rest in our rayburn .
Rodders

 

[mickthetree]

I take a bucket full indoors when I have a fire of an evening. Shove a handfull on every now and then. If we are stopping in for the evening and having a long fire I can get through half a dustbin liner. Needs a good strong fire going first and dont put too much on at once or it smothers it and smokes, but it burns very well and gives of a good heat.

I understand there are explosion risks in certain situations but a handfull every ten minutes seems fine. Just keep the bucket away from the fire.

 

[cusimar9]

I have a log burner and I burn all my offcuts, which is very handy. I haven't had much success with sawdust though, I find it messy and not really worth it for the bag I produce every couple of months, so it goes in the bin. I wonder if you could make small paper packets/bags of sawdust which would be easier to handle and put in the fire - perhaps something like this?

 

[wizard]

Use mine for ferret litter all you need is to get some ferrets

 

[Phil Pascoe]

How did I know that was coming?

 

[mickthetree]

I'm no expert but I think I've read that little parcels like you suggets are where the explosion risk occurs.

Maybe someone can confirm or deny? I should point out I put the chippings from my planner on my fire, not dust ie from power tools etc.

 

[Mark A]

Sawdust and fire

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn0bMLCQPW0

 

[cusimar9]

I could be wrong here but I don't see how sawdust can 'explode'. Sawdust burns very well in powder form and when it is dropped from a height and disperses then it ignites very well, but it doesn't 'explode'.

If you were to put sawdust in a paper bag and 'place it' on a fire, it would burn just like anything else. In fact paper burns far more aggressively than sawdust when 'placed' into a fire. If you sprinkle sawdust from a height then obviously that's a different story.

When I've put sawdust on my log burner the bloody stuff WOULDN'T burn (well not as readily as I would have thought), never mind explode. That's why mine has been going in the bin of late.