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May 31, 2008 8:17 AM

Is it safe to burn untreated pine which was stained ~10 years ago?

We are tearing down our deck, which was built about 10 years ago with untreated pine and has been stained with an oil-based stain. We'd like to burn the torn-off wood. Most of the stain has now worn off but the burn site is in the garden area and we fear contamination of our veggies.

Should we burn the decking or attempt to Freecycle the stuff instead?

posted by mezzanayne to Home & Garden (6 answers total)

It should be fine. Remember, a ton of household heating is done by burning oil; think of kerosene space heaters. There isn't a ton of hurt in it from one burn. Treated wood is a different matter because of the nice chemicals they put in it, of course.

The biggest risk you're running burning your wood is making your house smell like woodsmoke. Plus a fine, if you don't get a permit.
posted by sonic meat machine at 8:37 AM on May 31, 2008

The risk would be if the stain contained metallic dryers. Even something as mundane as boiled linseed oil often contains these oils. Personally unless I knew the composition of the stain I wouldn't expose my vegetables to the ashes.
posted by Mitheral at 9:41 AM on May 31, 2008

Ignoring the question of the stain's content for a moment, ash is also, as you likely know, a common soil amendment. Which could be good or bad, depending on how much is generated from the corpse of your deck, what your soil is like, and what you grow in it. It has a high pH, so if your garden soil is acidic, it will sweeten it. You may not want much of this, depending on your current soil, since most vegetables favor acidic soil. If you do go ahead, though, make sure to rake it out evenly before turning it in... big wet clumps of ash can be terrible for plants. Oh, and apparently ash promotes potato scab, so, you know, not on the potato crop.

But yeah, given that you'll be eating food grown in this soil and you don't know what was in the stain, I'd try freecycling the boards instead.
posted by mumkin at 10:40 AM on May 31, 2008

I've done some looking at linseed drying agents. For the most part they're not the sorts of things you need to be terribly worried about like lead, mercury or cadmium. If you're not doing this all the time it's probably not a big deal.

If it's still in semi-decent shape I'd say go for the freecycle option, but that's just me.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 12:34 PM on May 31, 2008

Burning stained wood, especially at low temperatures (i.e. in a burn pile), is very bad for air quality. It may even be illegal in your area. Give it away, if you can, otherwise, haul it to the dump.
posted by ssg at 5:56 PM on May 31, 2008

Recycling is always better. I think the soot in the atmosphere is more of an environmental hazard than the prospect of post-burn residual stain ash. If you eat off a table coated with varnish, out of potato chip bags made of coated film, and from wax coated or plastic milk jugs, the veggies will not be the first thing to kill you.
posted by Wagging Dog at 12:05 PM on June 2, 2008