That's a good one ,Cernunno... I have several myself....but haven't needed the firewood application yet where i am.
....prompts me to share a favourite of mine:
I've made dozens of multi-use sheds with these over the years.
It is the pallets which are used to ship hot-tubs . They are usually 7'x7' and occassionally 7x8 or 8x8. Generally they are made with 2x4's and 1x4's.
Usually they are too awkward to easily discard for the sellers of tubs, so they don't mind giving them away....before others come to cut them up for firewood.

The simplest arrangement for anyone to build is with 4 of them to create a cube with one side open....using 1 as a roof support. Add 3 more, and you've got a shelter for your midsize tractor, work station out of the rain, or whatever.
I simply stand them up (2x4's vertical) one by one using random 2x4's to brace them, while i double wire-wrap/tighten the top and bottoms of the corners. On the top pallet i use garage doors, usually 7x8, 7x9 , 8x8, etc. ,...contact a garage door installation company and offer to take them away from their depot or offer to pick them up right from the job before they chop them up for recycling.
I use a pointed welding/chipping hammer to whack a hole in each corner , or portable drill, so i can wire door down to the wooden frame as well.
For a double length shed with 2 doors or more, i use the rolls of black roof-adhesive to splice the joint .
I 've never had one collapse from snow, nor blow away if the sides are left open. If in doubt, add more 2x4's into the roof ...just slide/jam them in, don't even have to nail them.
If you like, get more garage doors to make sides and entrance door....not too heavy.
I usually put used patio slabs and/or bricks under the corners and joints so the wood lasts a lot longer. Some have been standing 15 years plus., a few leaning a bit...haven't touched them at all. They grey in a few yrs. and blend right in with tree trunks in winter.

I also use these for finish-curing my garlic and onions out of the sun.
Simply get a good deal on some 1x4x8'or 1x6 x8' boards to slip in over the horizontal 1x4's which are already part of the pallet. They'll last a long time.
Add more of each if you need to double up on your rack space.
If freestanding, best to add corner bracing 2x4's .
Can also build on the sides of an existing conventional building for added stability. shelter firewood, whatever.

I"ve always admired the prepper community for its ingenuity and ability to reuse so many items. This post is a great example.

Villager. Post some photos if you can. We need to build an open outdoor kitchen soon with a rocket stove so the house doesn't need to be cooking wile cooking on wood in the summer or filled with moisture wile canning or just washing dirty garden produce.

Here is another Time sensitive salvage coming up. The week after Halloween, check the green bins in Martha Stuart areas of the city. They will be filled with uncut decorative pumpkins. They store fore a wile and give pies, soups, Survival seeds to replant, compost if you don't use, dog food, cooked for chicken food or raw for pigs, dehydrated after cooking for storage (unfortunately, pumpkin is notoriously hard to can and usually fails). A few years back, we managed to pack our station wagon to the tits in only one block near the university. No need this year as we have about 80 assorted squashes in the house. Some of those were grown from recycled seeds from recycled squashes.

Don't forget those waters beds that ppl end up tossing out.
Good wood in most and the liner themselves work great for many things.

Some of the liners that may have a tiny hole in, I use to kill weeds, as I go along clearing an area for new garden beds. Just keep moving it ahead of where you are working. Its doesn't take long to do them in. Saves mega work pullin them suckers out. 🙂
I have used for firewood cover, green roof on a shed, wind deflector and as shade new transplants (hung over a rope tied from tree to tree or other support), etc..

Here is an extra tip when working with materials like this. If attaching a tarp to a wall or piece of wood, I run a cheap drywall screw through a bottle cap. The bottle cap pins a larger surface of the tarp holding it firmly in place without ripping out. Say, every three to six inches, a bottle cap. I produce no shortage of bottle caps. LOL. I save them on mass for this purpose. Same technique for pinning up a second hand wool blanket over windows during the winter to keep cold out. I also collect old wool blankets any time I can get them for 3$ or less.

It just dawned on me that this post could become a popular post if people shared their best, salvaged material to finished project secrets...In a "I'll show you mine if you show yours" sort of way. 😉
Richard G Mitchell, Sociologist and author of Dancing At Armageddon wrote that he found that Survivalists were masters of "Bricolage". The primary thing I offer a group is that I am a Master of Bricolage. The term comes from the modern art form of Found Object Arrangement. Ive used my skill in the film industry and stumble across my work in the most unusual places. Now, Its all prepping. Finding the potential in bringing two different things together and making them more than the sum of their parts.

So, share with us some of your best recycled Bricolage in relation to prepping...And I will share with you THE BEST recycling secrets I have found that will save your life.

Here is another Time sensitive salvage coming up. The week after Halloween, check the green bins in Martha Stuart areas of the city. They will be filled with ...

...bales of hay and trash bags of hay or straw from the harvest decorations (can extend until Thanksgiving). Thanks for the start, C.

There is a method of growing that calls for soaking bales of hay or straw, letting them start to decomp, and then planting directly in them. You can also use bales that are prepped the same way as low, temporary cold frames - the decomp helps with some heat, arrange them on three sides, use discarded transparent green or colorless shower curtains (Salvation Army and Goodwill throw them away), painting drop cloths (call local renovation and painting companies) or glass (home and vehicle window repair shops and custom window makers for scratched and chipped panes) to cover the top and the fourth side.

I have been salvaging and recreating for my whole life. One note before I relate some of my "Bricolage" – the bottle cap washers is sheer genius. I have been a wrap-the-tarp-end-around-a-1x3-and-nail-it guy but beer caps are easier to find than a piece of 1x3 strapping.

A few years back, “tank enclosures” were popular. To prevent oil spills, a 200-gallon oil tank would sit in this large plastic tub. Then there were sides on top of the tub and then a cover. Unfortunately, the sides would break, making the whole thing worthless. I found a bottom tub (measures about 3’x7’) and cover and for several years used it to store the kids’ outdoor toys. It then became feed storage in the barn until I realized that the mice could get in but the cats could not. It now doubles as a brooder and a transport container. For a brooder, I hang two heat lamps in the tub and put the chicks inside on some bedding - no way for the cool air to waft across the chicks. Later, after moving the larger birds out of the tub, I clean it out and put fresh hay in the bottom. When I take the birds to the butcher, I load the tub in the van and gently place the 20 or so meat birds into it. I can slide the tub out of the van to unload and when I get home, clean up is easy.

Speaking of oil tanks, I split an old 100-gallon tank in two. Now I have two great stone boats for behind the tractor. I just run a chain through the leg lugs and hook to the draw bar. I have also partly filled these with rock (for weight) and dragged a freshly seeded field in lieu of a land roller.
I took a, um, I mean, somebody I know took a 250-gallon round oil tank and turned it into a septic tank. Worked well for years.
My neighbour cut a door in one end of his 200-gallon tank and a chimney hole in the other, and made an incinerator.

Staying with the tank theme - I needed a good forge hood, so after some thinking, came up with an old 80-gallon galvanized water pressure tank. I cut the bottom off, cut about a third of one “side” out, and a 10” hole in the top. I welded a ring to the hole for a smoke pipe and lined the back with two levels of firebrick. I then scrounged some 10” stainless flue but there was no base support. I looked around and found an old Chev rally rim. I cut a 10” hole in the center and cut the outside rim off one side. It sits into the ceiling above the forge and the flue sits nicely into it. For a fire-pot, I welded an 8" ring to a 8x4” coupling and the coupling to a 4x3” tee. The ring keeps the pot from sliding through the hole in the iron forge table. I made a hinged cover on the tee for an ash dump. I then ran a found piece of 3” aluminum propane venting from the tee to the hand-cranking blower and voila, one forge. Not too fancy but it works pretty good, something like myself.

I’ll think of some more later. I have to spread manure now. Shoveling helps me think.

OK. Tit for Tat. We just finished moving the wood pile for the year with the help of the person I helped haying in the summer. (labour exchange). I ache all over and am digging into the beer so I will keep this short till next round. Ill start with a little philosophy. Since 70% of Canadians live in cities and most of our preppers are urban preppers, this is most important to them.

It starts by beginning to see that a city is a MINE of Stored Materials. There is nothing, really, out in nature but wood and rocks and critters...and illegal dumpsites...but that's another issue. A city produces NOTHING. Every thing is shipped in. There is very limited space. If it comes into the city on a truck...It eventually leaves through the garbage...often before its usefulness is done. You just have to find it. You need four things. Mobility and transport. Patience like a hunter to wait for you bounty to appear and pounce on it. The hunting skill to envision where you might find it. Imagination to see the potential in an object or resource you stumble appon wile Hunting and Gathering something else.

Lets start with the Hunter part of hunter, gatherer. You can save some boot tread by letting your fingers do the walking. Start with a phone book.(don't call. just show up and observe) If you need a water heater core as a boiler or wood gasifier, look for a company that installs water heaters and hauls away the old. Before even dumpster diving in the middle of the night, It never hurts to just ask the owner that is often overjoyed to not have to pay to have their scrap hauled away. Never make a mess or burn your bridge. If they have said yes once, you are in next time.

(Bonus item- Many of these water heaters are covered in reflective bubble wrap or reflective insolation to use blacking out windows or insulating window to keep heat in when you have limited heat. The outer sheet metal is rust proof for other projects)

MODS,

Please move this thread to Canadian General Discussions. It deserves a wider audience. And if you are not like C5 and don't produce enough bottle caps on your own 🙂 . Visit your local legion and ask the friendly bartender.

MODS,

Please move this thread to Canadian General Discussions. It deserves a wider audience. And if you are not like C5 and don't produce enough bottle caps on your own 🙂 . Visit your local legion and ask the friendly bartender.

If you feel that way, feel free to PM Denob, farmgal or anitapreciouspearl . Im flattered. I have no shortage of things to share on the subject. Tit for Tat.

In a slight direction change to the other side of this post, Here is someone else's FIRE POWER porn.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VSGJyxYM1s

I can wholeheartedly agree with southernprepper1 when he states that houses built today are not built to be lived in without electricity. My old house is comfortable winter and summer even though it is not well insulated. It is smaller and easy to heat in winter and located/built in such a way as to be cooler in the summer.

A friend recently built a new home. It is a 70' long split entry built across a 100' lot. It is a well insulated stick construction and is heated entirely with geothermal. So far, so good.

He cut down every tree on the lot before the house was built, so there is no shade. The the lowest level (basement) is mostly above grade with several doors and large windows, making it harder to heat in winter and eliminating the cool basement area that many homes have in the summer. The vinyl siding is brown and the asphalt roofing is black - no heat reflection at all. Lo and behold the compressor failed in the geothermal heat pump. It took over a week to get a replacement. That week was the during the hottest time of the summer. The house became so hot that they felt that they could not stay there and moved into their air conditioned R/V for a week. Also, they do not have a wood stove so if the compressor/power fails in the winter, they would have to leave then, too. I personally would not want to live in a home that I would have to leave if the power was out.

OK. Ive got some time today. Let me tell you the story of the USELESS PREPPER "EXPERT". A popular Youtube prepper with many viewers, put out a video to his subscribers. He said," Sorry but I cant do any more 'Prepper' videos for you. I lost my job last month and I cant buy any more GUNS to show you. We are going to lose the house in a few weeks (behind him was the suburban Barbie dream house)." his head dropped and in a little lower voice said," I guess they are going to repossess the truck too.(to his side was flashy Mondo truck that has no usefulness other than out Alfa maleing others narcissist males). I cant afford the gas anyhow."

You've heard me pushing the value of bicycles. http://internationalpreppersnetwork.net/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4307
This is the Mobility part of salvage. Stop thinking of a bike as a bug out vehicle. A bike greatly increases your ability to salvage and saves you gas money to put into other purchases. I spent a lot of time watching the homeless dumpster divers. I even got to know a few of them and learned about their routes, and how it became a full time job for them when they were just too messed up to ever be employed. The more successful had a bike and trailer and they got up each day to do their routes. It kept them from going crazy with nothing to do. Then My turn came. Once the van was gone and I was trapped...My only option was piecing together a few scrap bicycles to get moving and rebuild from the ground up. Movement allowed me to find better parts and supplies. Once I got a vehicle again, the two worked in tandem. The bike allowed me scower at just the right speed to really SEE whats around, going into place un noticed, covering large distances without wasting gas and then, if I found to much to carry, Ild get the vehicle. I was able to keep going until opportunity presented itsef again.
Now I am back on top of the world again with a Far better setup than 99% of the preppers out there. Paid for land. Solar. Food storage and food PRODUCTION. Security. A trailer to live in if it all burns. Multiple vehicles in case of breakdowns and gas to run it...until that day when the bicycle is the only vehicle that still runs. Salvaging material is still a large part of my life. Why waist my money when I know where to find things.

What brought me out of the prepper closet was reading a lot if youtube responders that I saw over and over. "Ild like to prep but the SHTF has already happened to me. I lost my job," or ,"I don't know what to do. I only make enough to keep the family fed and pay the rent". I realised I could help and sat down and worked out a plan where people could start with salvaging and eventually build a food storage and take the necessary steps toward mobile shelter encase of homelessness as the economic collapse worsened. My first Video in the series was on building a cargo bicycle.

Lets shorten this a bit and tell you where to find a bike if all else fails. A couple sets of Vice grips, hex keys, a multi head screwdriver, binding wire, WD40, Tube repair kits, and a bike pumps should never be far from your mind or your kit. Bikes are often discarded because a part broke, or its rusty, a wheel was bent or sometimes something as simple as a flat tire. They get stolen and then dumped. They end up in dump sites. People leave them in back allies hoping someone will recycle them. When I find a bike, If nothing else is useful to me, I still stop, pop off the wheel and remove the inner tube. Even if flat, they have multiple other uses. One place to look for parts is in the bushes underneath bridges and over passes, especially in the poor parts od a city. People will toss stolen bike or just do it for the thrill. One day, I pieced together 2 bikes into one from the three bikes I found under one bridge. Same goes with kids trailers that get left outside and the and the nylon breaks down. Strip off all the crap, and put a board on it to turn it into a flatdeck.
Well, that's all for today. Ive got to get on to digging up the cabbages, replanting them in a recycled cooler and moving them into the house for winter storage.

SO, if I am far from home...If I can scrounge a BIKE, a pot, a 2l plastic pop bottle, some decent string, some sort of tarp, and a sharpened piece of metal...I WILL make it home again.