I recently purchased my first dust collector-a Steel City brand. the bottom, see-through bag is now about 2/3d’s to 3/4s full and needs to be emptied. Is their something useful I can do with all this saw dust or do I just throw it in the garbage? It is mostly oak, pine, cherry and maple. No (or extremely little) walnut.
Frank
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Replies
If you have the ability, you can compost it. Since it is sawdust, just mix it to your compost pile. It breaks down about as fast as anything else. It's organic after all. Provided no treated or exotics. But from what you are saying you don't have any of those either. If you do a lot of plywood or MDF, bag it for collection due to the resins in the glue unless you are buying ECO plys and MDF. I get plenty of compost for the flower beds and shrubs.
I compost most of mine. If you have trees, and you want to keep the grass away from the drip-line area around the trunk, you can lay down cardboard and cover it with the shavings, wet it down good, it'll degrade over a period of time.
Worm bins can handle some shavings, has to be in balance with the organic stuff you're tossing in (read: kitchen scraps).
Some folks use shavings for animal bedding. Take note: walnut shavings are toxic to horses. This point needs to be made whenever this topic comes up. Never provide walnut shavings to a horse owner.
wonder why that is. i was raised with horses but no walnut trees for probably 500 miles. otherwise i may have been one sad little boy.
A quick Google <click> will provide you with lots of information about how walnut shavings cause laminitis in horses. Although it is a disease of the hoof, a moderately severe case can doom a horse to death via needle or bullet.
I came home to my barn one afternoon, years ago, opened the doors and found my smallish horse standing in the aisleway with a big stomach, taught as a drum. He'd gotten out of his stall and found the grain supply. I didn't relax for many, many days for fear he'd eaten enough to cause founder (the common term for laminitis). Grain was immediately moved to a separate building, as it should have been in the first place. Slap me, hard! I knew better!
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Edited 8/28/2008 11:49 pm by forestgirl
And don't tie a cow near an apple tree!!! In my younger years I tied our pretty brown eyed Jersey out to the lush grass in the orchard and she preferred the dropped apples. My wife thought the was calving, the neighbor came over to her panic call and said she was just drunk. Tooooo many apples.Work Safe, Count to 10 when your done for the day !!
Bruce S.
Seems like I read an article a long time ago about chimps, or maybe gorillas, that would methodically target over-ripe, fermented berries -- looking for that pleasant buzz no doubt.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
YES! As in the TV thing I saw long ago...Drunk Elephants eating fermented fruit laying on the ground!
If there's one thing you don't want to get too close to, it's a drunk elephant.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
When I was a kid the house two doors down had a grape arbor. I was over visiting one day after a hard freeze and these birds were eating the grapes and appeared to get drunk as at least one of them fell off the arbor, hit the ground and walked around oddly for a bit, before flying off.
Doug M
Yep, I've seen that happen too (not with grapes, some berry). Blue Jays especially like a good party, LOL!
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Edited 9/3/2008 11:19 am by forestgirl
If there's one thing you don't want to get too close to, it's a drunk elephant
Or one with diarrhea
Forest..
One that beats all.. Elephant
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/China-Asian-Elephant-Xiguang-Weaned-Off-Heroin-In-Rehab-And-Allowed-To-Return-Home/Article/200809115093142?lpos=World_News_First_Strange_News__Article_Teaser_Region__0&lid=ARTICLE_15093142_China%3A_Asian_Elephant_Xiguang_Weaned_Off_Heroin_In_Rehab_And_Allowed_To_Return_Home
And the Blue Jays by me fight each other for the peanuts in the shell I put out for them. I do not know if they actually eat them because the winners carry off the prize!
A reasonable way to get rid of old unused paint. Just fill the can with dust and stir until it is a clump and let it dry without the lid on. Once dry, put the lid back on. At least is is allowed by out trash collectors (liquid paint is not. Maybe because it leaks out of the trucks?).
I have to say that it may be a fire hazard until it has dried. I do it outside and never in the shop.
Many have stated compost. I am not doubting them but I have found that compost with alot of wood shavings rarely has worms under it. Compost (I'll call 'normal') has worms living under it. I'd think the worms know best.
Just a thought I had.
We have some trails through the woods near our house. I use the sawdust on the trails to keep down weeds. It works well for about a year, until it composts. My wife likes to have a sort if sawdust highway in her garden. Less weeding. If you have a bunch of shavings from using a hand plane, those look particularly splendid in the garden.
david b
One thing that has not been stressed by others is that fine saw dust is a hazardous material. It is hazardous to your lungs and eyes. I personally want to handle and dump it as little as possible, and certainly do not want to dump it around my small lot in the dry season, when it could blow around or be stired up by children. If I take caution to protect myself from dust in the shop, but befreind it once the machines are shut down, what's the point? I just can't see it as a landscaping material, at least in larger quantities. Maybe things are different once it has begun to decompose, but I haven't experienced that. All mine goes to the landfill for now, but am curious about donating to large scale composters. Or maybe I'll look at hauling some out to the family ranch.
Brian
Frank,
If you have a place that needs heating and you can use a stove to do so then consider one of these, which claim to be able to burn sawdust as well as the usual chunks of wood. I'll be getting the smallest one in a month oe so to install in the ladywife's new summerhouse at the bottom of the garden:
http://www.workshopstoves.co.uk/
In Britain we currently have diferentiated trash collection, so that plastic, glass, paper, cardboard and green waste are all seperated out and recycled. We're allowed to put sawdust into the green waste, which all goes to a giant composter. The compost is sold at a break-even price, to go towards the cost of trash collection.
However, I'm looking forward to burning sawdust for heat down in the new bolt-hole at the bottom of the garden.
Lataxe
Lataxe,
Please keep us informed as to how the sawdust stove works. It sounds like a great idea - and they've targeted the name to just the sort of person who would use it.
One who lacks sufficient heat in his own shop..
ZoltonIf you see a possum running around in here, kill it. It's not a pet. - Jackie Moon
diferentiated trash collection, LOL LOL..
My trash can is marked Recyclable!
Interestingly enough there is a thread with a couple usefull ideas over on The Wood Whisperer forum. Its even free to use the forum, unless you want to donate that is.
http://thewoodwhisperer.com/townsquare/index.php?topic=141.0
Lataxe,
The write up doesn't give a lot of details as to the actual custruction of this heater. They state you fill it with sawdust, not shaving, light a piece of paper at the top and off it goes. Almost sounds like a very large candle.
Does it smolder or actually burn? Have you given thought to the emissions? Over here in the colony, some folks think it is wonderful to have a fire pit in the back yard. Trouble is the smoke never stays in their yard, always finds its way into the neighbors lungs.
The solution is practical, but doesn't appear to be environmentally friendly compared to some of the other solutions that burn waste - wood pellet stoves at least claim to have been engineered to be efficient, some of the traditional wood burners have been redesigned to greatly improve efficiency and emissions. This product make no such claims.
I hope I am wrong and it is positive on all fronts. Won't it be interesting to see if the heat value of your shop effluent is of greater value than the cost of the raw wood and the value of your effort.
It frankly looks dang dangerous. Sawdust is highly explosive in the right particle size and density in air. Probably not a concern with the kind of material produced by a planer and jointer, but I wouldn't want to try this with the leftovers collected from a sanding operation.
Don,
The heaters appear to be sealed units (when the door is shut) with contollable air intake and smoke outlet. The chimney is single skin from the stove but double (and insulated) skin through the roof; and for at least 2 feet either side of the roof-hole.
The sawdust presumably burns rather than smoulders - but I can only await actual installation to see the truth of how well it works with sawdust. I won't be allowing it to smoke, although where I live is not regulated as a totally smoke-free zone - e.g. we are even allowed to burn coal, although in practice no one does much.
If sawdust doesn't burn clean, I'll continue to put that in the composted waste bin and just burn my many, many offcuts from WW. It would be good to be able to make the sawdust a fuel though.....
Lataxe
Well I hope it works well for you. We await your evaluation.Don
I just empty my bag on the garden,then add blood and bone occasionally,as apparently sawdust consumes nitrogen.
I think what actually happens is that the bacteria that help to decay the sawdust or shavings use up nitrogen as they do their work, "tying up" the nitrogen and making it unavailable to plants that need it.
Same difference in the long run, adding nitrogen helps keep things in balance.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Yeah, that's correct. The bacteria and fungi that break down the cellulose need nitrates as fuel. If you do nothing (not adding any fertilizer), colonies of nitrogen-fixing bacteria will develop in symbiosis with the ones that break down the cellulose, so it will all decay eventually in a compost pile, it just takes longer.
I use it as mulch (not compost). The breakdown of wood chips requires nitrogen, so unless and until it is very thoroughly rotten, it will sequester nitrogen from the soil if mixed in as an amendment. You can counter this with a chemical fertilizer, but being placed on the top of the soil to kill the weeds and slow the evaporation of soil moisture doesn't require doing so, and I never have enough mulch anyway (I hate weeding!).
The larger shavings make a great beading for my brothers Chicken coup. once used it make for a great fertilizer.
This posting about mulching is spot on. Truth be told, wood shavings and saw dust are very difficult for composting and soil to handle. As far as composting goes, a little saw dust does a long ways. I leave my sawdust out in the open to deteriorate or weather, and I add it one small shovel full at a time to cover scraps that have been dumped in. Turning to the soil, sawdust actually robs soil of nutrients because the sawdust is breaking down and robs nutrients from the soil to do this. But, weathered sawdust is helpful because it has already sucked up the nitrogen it needs. Consequently, I let my sawdust weather for a year in between my raised beds, and then I incorporate it into the beds (and, yes, into the compost).
Cheers, JIMBELL
You could try what they did on Myth Busters on TV last night. They loaded it into an air canon set a flair in the top and then fired it into the air making a pretty large explosion. Of course they were using pretty course "saw dust" not the fine stuff so the bang was kind of wimpy. If they had used the fine saw dust I think it would have been more exciting. That does bring up the point, that if you burn it be careful as tossing a handful of fine saw dust into a fire is about like tossing a handful of gas into the fire. (Don't ask me how I know).
Doug M
To elaborate on the subject a little - It isn't really the wood chips that rob the nutrients, mainly nitrogen, but rather the new microbes that come to break down the wood, which is full of nutrients, that absorb the nutrients in their bodies so that it becomes temporarily unavailable. When the wood chips break down to humus, the microbes die and the whole amount of nutrients becomes available. So if you can add just a little at a time, or wait for the wood chips to decompose they can be a good source of nutrients.
So if you can add just a little at a time, or wait for the wood chips to decompose they can be a good source of nutrients.
Yep.. Sort of like forest leaf litter.. New supply every year on top of the stuff from forever before.
I have a serious amount to dispose of,so I use blood and bone to compensate.
I never new exactly what happened so that explanation was good.
This forum doesn't let us look back,so I hope you know who I am speaking to.
Bri.
Sounds reasonable to me as long as not my blood and bone!
This forum doesn't let us look back,so I hope you know who I am speaking to.
I'm lost at that statement.. NOT that you are wrong! I can go to anyplace..
nobody has said the best disposal method yet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvPL7KC1DEA
yep I change my oil every 3000
miles or when I get bored...
which ever comes first
Yes I did talk about this in post 26
Doug M
yup, I missed that, did they confirm it after all, I missed the end
yep I change my oil every 3000 miles or when I get bored...which ever comes first
Not sure if it is right, but I use it as sweeping compound. It probably should have some type of oil mixed w/ it (I don't know). But it helps capture dirt on smooth concrete floors.
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