Post and Beam Pallet Wall

One version of a post and beam pallet wall using girts for added strength to support earth berming. (click to enlarge)

One of the best benefits of doing this blog is having the opportunity to network with other natural builders. Loads (thousands of people) send us info on their projects, ask questions and share their ideas. Some of the best ideas you see on our blog have come about through this brainstorming process. We share them here for the world to see.

A while back I got an email from Rex, a reader who’s planning an ultra-low cost home in Texas. We exchanged a few emails and each time he would ask if it’s possible to further reduce the cost. He said “Owen, I have pallets, cedar poles from my land and dirt.” His persistence in lowering costs had me racking my brain for cost cutting ideas. Rex’s original plan was to build an earth lodge. Now he’s planning a rectangular design that he thinks will be simpler and easier to build. The latest cost estimate for his 800 sq. ft. earth-bermed house design is around $1,600. That’s only $2/sq. ft.! Time will tell if he can actually build at that cost. Lots of small costs quickly add up and you almost always end up spending more than planned. Rex is certainly determined though and off to a good start. He’s already gathered most of his materials and hopes to start soon.

The drawing above shows one possible pallet wall building system, although it differs somewhat from Rex’s design. He has extra strong pallets and doesn’t need girts. He might add a horizontal plate between courses of pallets just to be on the safe side. Most people, however, don’t have access to these unusually strong pallets, and so girts are recommended to help withhold the pressure of an earth berm. (See Pallet Houses and Interior Pallet Walls if you don’t have bermed walls.) The girts also create extra space for insulation, facilitate installation of plumbing and electrical, and serve as nailers for barnwood wall cladding or other materials. And note the horizontal cedar poles at the bottom that the pallets are nailed to. This is a good application of rot resistant cedar wood (juniper), and it demonstrates another way to gain a lot of strength inexpensively.

More from Rex:
“At the moment I’m looking at a 24’x30′ (720 sq ft) post and beam (juniper) earth bermed pallet wall house with clerestory windows and 80 sq ft loft for a total of 800 sq ft. Connected to the loft, access via sliding glass door, will be a deck (100 sq ft.). I may screen it in and turn it into a sleeping ‘porch’. There will be a porch below.

Total cost projections are still up in the air due to the different possibilities for exterior cladding, etc. If one were to take the concept we have discussed, use reclaimed materials for the exterior (pallet planking for cladding or reclaimed sheet metal), earthen plasters or wood cladding for the interior, then one could build at around 2 bucks a sq ft and that includes new sheet metal for the exterior roof. Depending upon which elements we decide to reclaim or buy new the house will cost us between $2-$4 sq ft to build. New items don’t have to break the bank. We got our clerestory windows from Lowes on clearance for $25 per.” [Note: This is common. People order products that they never pick up. Check your building supply stores often for discounts like this! Sometimes there’s just a tiny ding or scratch and the product is drastically reduced in price.]

Related:
Juniper and Cedar Poles for Construction

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Earth Lodge Pallet Walls

Post and beam pallet wall for a dirt cheap earth lodge (click to enlarge)

From time to time we answer reader’s questions. Here, numerous emails have been combined and edited for brevity.

Rex:
My goal is to learn to build houses with local materials in order to help people in my area build sustainable debt free homes. I’m in love with your Earthbag Lodge plan as I had previously designed one very close to that concept before seeing it. My other main goal is optimal climate control with earth and the freedom that brings.

For the lay person, such as myself, deciding whether a living roof vs. a more conventional metal roof system is best in terms of interior climate control, insulation, etc. Are the benefits of an earthen roof worth the process? A living roof seems more difficult to waterproof without the costly membrane. I have lots of dirt, juniper poles and pallets. Straw bales are out of the question as they are $10-12 a bale around here. I LOVE the earthbag concept. I’m just brainstorming a bit more as I reconsider what is available in bulk and free. Thanks for all the time. The part of Texas I live can get very cold in the winter and is very hot in the summer. I’ve been talking to several friends and really turning them on to the idea of self preservation and taking back our housing needs from the commodity black hole. Keep of the fine work!

Owen: Utilizing low cost and free materials where you live is the way to go. Even though I’m a huge fan of earthbags, you always want to consider different options and decide what makes the most sense for you. Since you have lots of free pallets and rot resistant juniper poles then consider building a double pallet wall on an earthbag foundation as shown in the drawing above. This method may be a little faster than building entirely with earthbags and use fewer bags. (I’m assuming you have access to a chainsaw and posthole auger to speed the work.)

The whole process of building a roof that can withstand the heavy load of a living roof, and the time and effort for waterproofing, insulating, making the living roof AND maintaining the plants over time, which is a huge amount of work in itself, would tip the scale for me to pole roofs or framed roofs with lots of insulation, and metal roofing to collect roofwater (super important in dry areas). I suggest a double pole roof that is supported by a post and beam frame. This would be way faster to build than a living roof. It would be low cost, owner built and provide lots of space for insulation. You can achieve zero energy housing with both systems, so my vote is for a more conventional insulated roof with metal roofing.

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Exploring Natural Plasters on Pine Ridge Pallet House

In this video, David Reed of Texas Natural Builders kindly shows us his work with developing the right plaster mix for the pallet house near Pine Ridge. This is his first full-house pallet build and his first in a severe hot-and-cold-weather climate like ours. Critics of natural building often say that natural building is not a good fit for our climate, and natural builders are in some ways blazing new territory with each building project. Plaster has been used elsewhere in the area before, by previous generations, of course, but these old ways are being improved upon by the new generation of natural builders with some trial-and-error learning a given. Reed has over twenty years experience as a conventional builder, before moving to more sustainable methods.

Texas Natural Builders
Pallet Houses

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Recycled Wall Cladding Sample Projects

Salvaged pallet wall

Rustic wall made of salvaged wood pallets

DIY pallet wall

Yesterday’s blog post explained how to install wall cladding made of recycled wood. Here are some sample projects so you can see the final look.

Image source: Shades of Light.com
Image source: Apartment Therapy.com
Image source: Ucreate Before & After

Directions for installing pallet wood accent wall: Bower Power
Directions for installing pallet wood accent walls at JustaGirlBlog.com Part 1 and Part 2

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Reduce Plastering with Recycled Wood Cladding

It’s easy to make wood cladding with pallets, barnwood or other recycled wood. (click to enlarge)

Top view showing four methods of adding wood cladding to earthbags or pallet walls. (click to enlarge)

Look at all the benefits of recycled wood cladding: almost completely free, reduces or eliminates plaster work, creates an interesting and beautiful contrast to plastered walls, can use short sections of wood from pallets or scrap wood. Wood cladding is a good way to avoid plaster work if you’re more of a carpenter than a plasterer. It’s a great way to add warmth and texture to your home, hide any irregular earthbag walls and utilize some of the recycled materials that our wasteful society has piling up everywhere. And best of all, wood cladding like this is super simple and easy. You could even do this on gently curving walls!

I want to hammer home the advantages of using wood cladding instead of plaster. For many, it goes beyond aesthetics and convenience. For instance, you may live in a very cold climate where plaster work is not practical or the cost of plaster is not affordable. You could use wall cladding, and similarly wood siding on the exterior if you want, to continue construction work through the winter.

Construction notes:
– Rent or buy a used brad gun and air compressor to speed production and eliminate hammering and bouncing wood. (Sometimes you can get good deals on used tools.)
– Rent or buy a chop saw, orbital sander and bench size table saw for greater efficiency.
– Prep the wood in advance. Do all the cutting and sanding preferably outside with a good dust mask.
– This method is perfect for pallet wood. Use a saber saw or sawzall to cut off the slats. Then use a chop saw or radial arm saw to trim one end. Then use a stop block to cut all the pieces to the same length.
– The vertical nailers can be made by using several short pieces put end to end. Example: pry off 1 meter slats with a hammer and crowbar for use as nailers.
– Save the best looking wood for cladding. Use inferior wood on the back part of nailers and where it won’t be visible.
– Tamp the earthbags relatively flat as you stack the bags. It’s more difficult to straighten/flatten the walls after the bags have dried.
– For best results on straight walls, use string-lines on the floor and ceiling to align the nailers. Make sure all the nailers are plumb and spaced correctly so the cladding fits neatly.
– To reduce waste, the spacing between nailers can be adjusted to match the size of your wood. For instance, you may decide to cut the slats off pallets instead of prying them off to save time and effort dismantling pallets. Allowing 1” for trimming the ends, you would have boards about 15” long for horizontal cladding.
– You could cut rabbets on the shoulders of the vertical nailers with a table saw as shown in drawing #3. It may be easier to assemble the nailers from smaller pieces of wood as shown in drawings #1 and #2. Join the pieces with a bead of glue and brads.
– Use logging spikes, large nails or possibly ¼” rebar (put in bench vise and flatten one end somewhat) to secure the vertical nailers to the wall. Drive in the spikes or nails at different angles so the nailers can’t pull loose. Counterbore for the nail head so the cladding will sit flat.
– Cladding can be installed with cladding boards set edge to edge (flat) or lapped like exterior siding (see photo).
– Other designs are possible: modified batt and board, angled, chevron.

Related:
Wainscoting
Interior Pallet Walls

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Pallet Craft

Pallet wood shelving unit with built-in desk

Outdoor deck made with pallet wood planks and pallets set on gravel

Coffee table made from discarded pallets

$2 farmhouse coffee table from pallets

Definition: Pallet-craft is reusing wood from shipping crates or pallets to make furniture, shelving, toys, decks, planters, sheds, animal pens, compost bins, ceilings, accent walls (wall cladding), benches and other useful items. Pallet craft can be as simple as making a bird house or an entire custom home out of (typically) free salvaged pallets. The field is booming, which is evident from the proliferation of content on the Internet and from traffic to our site (‘pallet’ and ‘pallet furniture’ are top search terms).

Our focus here is on functional, quality, popular items for DIY builders – how to turn discarded pallets into useful items around your home, and incorporate pallets into construction of the home itself. Previous blog posts include:
Pallet Houses
Interior Pallet Walls
Straw Bale/Pallet Walls
Pallet Floors
Pallet Wood Flooring
Pallet Wood Ceilings
Pallet Trusses

Here are some basic pallet wood building guidelines:
– Search for free pallets from shipping companies, factories, malls, grocery stores, beverage distributors, building supply centers and industrial parks. With over 4 billion pallets in current use, you shouldn’t have to pay for them.
– Pallet quality varies considerably. Find sources who will let you choose good pallets of uniform size.
– Only use pallets marked HT (heat treated). MB (Methyl-Bromide) pallets are treated with pesticides and fungicides to deter insects and mold, and are not recommended for projects in your home (although they will likely be more durable for decks, fences and other outdoor uses). Personally, I can’t stand chemicals and do not use chemically treated wood at all.
– Work with whole or partial pallets (ex: half pallets) whenever practical to minimize disassembling/breaking down pallets.
– Watch videos on YouTube for practical advice on disassembling/breaking down pallets if you need individual boards/planks.
– Prepare pallets in advance, preferably working outside while wearing a good quality dust mask. This includes sanding the wood with an orbital sander and using a blow gun to remove dust.
– Alternate the widths, colors and light/dark wood to create a pleasing, more natural appearance.
– Put unsightly boards (ex: heavily grayed, badly cracked or stained boards) in inconspicuous locations.
– Consider investing in good quality tools. A chop saw, sander, nail gun and compressor will greatly speed the work.

Image source: Blue Velvet Chair
Image source: Esprit Cabane (good directions for building decks)
Image source: Esprit Cabane (good directions for building the coffee table shown above)
Image source: Pinterest pallet craft

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Pallet Wood Flooring

Shipping pallet flooring can be laid in various patterns such as this herringbone design.

Parquet flooring can be made with recycled pallet wood or other recycled woods.

The post the other day on Pallet Floors explained one low cost floor building method made with pallet wood. A photo at Pinterest.com, originally from JetsonGreen.com, shows how pallet flooring can be arranged in different patterns. Very beautiful, and it’s free! (A big thumbs up to Pinterest.com and JetsonGreen.com for their fine work. These sites are producing lots of quality work.)

“Icelander Högni Stefan Thorgeirsson, owner of Iceland-based Arctic Plank, found a better use for it and produces flooring made from upcycled used pallet wood. Obviously, there is a unique and different aesthetic with pallet wood, which is often a mix of whatever junk species of lumber is cheapest and most readily available. Because of their size, pallets might not seem ideally suited for flooring, but Arctic Plank uses herringbone and parquet patterns to work with the short lengths of wood. Arctic Plank has been used for both interior and exterior applications. Turning what is usually regarded as junk wood into a finished flooring material is a fine example of upcycling.”

2nd image source: Reclaimed (click thumbnail images to see different designs)

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Pallet Floors

Free shipping pallets can be used to make durable, comfortable and beautiful wooden floors. (click to enlarge)

We recently discussed Eleven Earth Floor Methods. Here’s another low cost floor method to consider. The drawing above is pretty much self explanatory, but here are the basic steps and a few options. First, create a level, stable base with tamped road base, subsoil or crusher fines. You could use scoria or pumice in cold climates or sand/gravel in rainy climates. Add 6 mil plastic sheeting on top as a moisture barrier and 1” or so of sand that is carefully leveled. Set one pallet at a time, screwing or nail gunning each pallet to previous pallets. Use pallets that are all the same size. This will naturally take extra time and care when you select the pallets. Also, don’t use pallets that are badly broken since they will be supporting your floor.

Flooring options include rough sawn wood from a local saw mill, recycled wood or ‘barn wood’ from old buildings or gymnasium floors (excellent source of hard maple flooring), manufactured bamboo flooring or even split bamboo if you want a really rustic look, or tongue and groove flooring (T&G). You could mill your own wood with a bandsaw sawmill. Milling your own wood enables you to use unusual woods that are not commercially available and/or cut to special dimensions – wide planks, for instance. If money is really tight, you could use pieces of pallets for the floor itself. This would definitely require a floor sander to smooth and level the floor, and a nail set to pound the nails below the surface. The drawing shows trim screws that have small, inconspicuous heads, which would work well in most instances. T&G flooring can be toe-nailed with a toe-nail gun so the nail is not visible. (This is what most pros use.) Another beautiful flooring method – although much more time consuming – is achieved by using screws and dowel plugs.

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Straw Bale/Pallet Walls

Straw bales with pallets on each side tied together create a strong, superinsulated wall.

“Hello, We want to add two rooms to an existing small older home, my question is: We want to build a straw bale home with pallets on both sides, the thought is to put up the straw bales, then put on earth/clay/mud on the bales. As we put the mud on we will put a pallet up against the mud on each side and finish the wall, then once the mud is dry put adobe mud with straw [straw/clay] inside the pallets. This would create a very thick insulated wall. We live in North Dakota where it gets very cold and windy. Maybe we could put a somewhat flat roof so that it can be an earth roof with herbs. We will recycle rain water. Has anyone built walls in this manner? The room would be about 20ftx12ft Would this be sturdy enough to hold two story? There would be a partition wall in the center. We want to build being considerate of the environment and have little money. The pallets we are collecting free of charge just gas to pick them up. We would make our own mud/adobe and can get straw inexpensive, otherwise we will not be able to add on. We appreciate all the help you can give us as our funds are limited and work up here in the North is very little in the winter months and pay is not so good either.”

Owen: I like your idea very much. A straw bale/pallet wall will work for your purpose. One suggestion is to lay lengths of baling twine between the bales as you stack them and then later tie to the pallets. This will add a lot of strength. Be sure to raise the bales well off the ground away from snow and rain on gravel filled earthbags. And you’ll want to build a bond beam along the top of the wall to tie the whole structure together. If you do everything correctly, then I believe a 2nd story is possible, but only with careful workmanship and working out the details.
Key points:
– It’s way faster and easier to use earthbags filled with gravel instead of tires.
– Brick on the outside is possible, but will greatly add to the cost unless it’s recycled.
– Typical living roofs are very heavy. Research thin, lightweight living roofs.
– Do not use a moisture barrier on the walls. Vapor must be able to pass through the wall.
– Build a strong bond beam as shown in the drawing and then you can add a second story. Insulate the cavity in the bond beam.
– Papercrete is prone to molding, especially in damp, cool climates. Do not use in your area.
– Add plaster mesh or chicken wire to the pallets, and plaster the walls. Wood siding is another option.
– Rainy areas create risk of the walls getting wet during construction. I suggest building a post and beam structure (pole building) first, then the roof and then the walls.

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Pallet Furniture

China cabinet made with reclaimed pallet wood

These traditional looking arm chairs made of pallet wood don’t require complicated joinery

Recycled shipping pallet furniture

This is a continuation of the previous blog post on recycled wood. A reader left a comment about the door they built from pallets and so I thought a post about pallet furniture would be interesting. Many don’t realize how countless thousands of pallets are discarded every day. Some pallets are made with strong wood such as oak. With enough patience and care, this free resource can be turned into functional furniture, shelving and other items.

So where do you find wood shipping pallets? Some stores may not give them away because they reuse them over and over until they’re damaged beyond repair. But some stores have a surplus and will gladly let you haul truckloads away. The best source we found was a roofing supply company. Once the shingles were sold, there were loads of leftover pallets. We hauled them off and built animal pens, and cut them up for firewood with a sawzall. The pens were strong enough to contain horses and goats, and the pallets burned great because the wood was hard and dry.

Image source: Green Eco Services
Image source: Sun Ministries, Inc.
Image source: Design Squish

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