Burning scrap crap

[H. Walker]

To support "my maple habit" I have to work out doing construction, so I end up with a lot of construction waste. I for years have burned scrap dimentional lumber for sugar wood,nails and all. What I was wondering is, does anyone have any advice or experiance at burning melamine covered MDF kitchen cabinet material? Will it burn to hot? Will it leave a pile of crap in the arch?

[peacemaker]

i would think its gonna flavor your syrup it stinks and your burning plastic

[Brent]

my knee jerk reaction is that I wouldn't burn it withing 50 miles of my house.

most plastics that burn produce bad toxins. Historically more people have died for inhaling burning plastic fumes in aircraft crash and burn accidents, than are killed by impact.

I don't know what Melamines make when they burn but if I had any control I wouldn't take the opportunity to be the guinea pig.

If you can smell it ... it's in you.

[gmcooper]

H Walker,

I have tossed a few pieces in the wood stove here with no major problem, but I wouldn't plan on burning large amounts. A cabinet shop near us grinds all thier scrap and burns it. Melamine, laminates, particle board, mdf, mdo, and any other product they use gets ground and burned in wood fired boiler. It is EPA approved and there are several small business in the attached builds including the busiest coffee shop in town. I have never heard any complaints about the boiler and it has been in use for years.

A few small scraps mixed in you'll never notice but I wouldn't plan on using it.

[peacemaker]

like u said epa approved usaul has a filter syatem ... but i have been building caninets for over ...wow just did the math 28 years ... and i never burned it its as we call sawdusted holding hands coated in a plastic coating then u have the glue they use which isnt nice to begin with when we ran melly i had such headaches and i really made a mess out of the dust collectors ... not to mention the nice plastic line in front of the blade ... u would be better asking the cabinet shop for any hardwood sraps ... or find pallets the burn so nice
and that way you are recycling and let them burn the crap... mann and parker was one of our biggest suppliers of lumber huge lumber mill the kiln drie all the lumber using a chip furnace all the scrap was feed in ground and burned ..they had a fire in the hopper i burned for a month before the could get it out ...

[Brent]

approved .... yeh sure

a few years ago it was approved to line your boiler with asbestos.

I wouldn't touch it.

Weigh the risk reward balance.

[thenewguy]

when I bought my new flue pan, the man told me never burn any sort of plywood, chipboard, mdf, etc in your arch. After paying that much on pretty stainless I'd hate to have a glob of glue or particulate matter stuck to the bottom of my pan....

[Fred Henderson]

If you don't care about your health, your kids or your neighbors you can burn anything that you want.

[H. Walker]

I realize that there is particulate matter from every thing that goes through the combustion process including the continuous string of jet engines that fly over head. What I didn't know was-
a) if the melamine and the MDF wood would burn in the arch at high enough temperature to make "complete combustion" to lower the chance of particulate fall out.
b) if the melamine would burn at all

I was a firefighter for 20 years and I don't think my body can take many more toxins. But I also don't think that just because we have products that are past their original use that we should just bury it in the ground.