Leftover deck boards, torn-down fence sections, pallets, firewood that never got burned, the remains of a shed that finally gave up. We haul the whole pile, nails and all.
Wood sitting on the ground for years is not just ugly. It creates specific problems that get worse the longer it sits.
A wood pile in contact with soil is exactly what subterranean termites are looking for. From there it is a short trip to your deck, shed, or house framing.
They nest in damp, decaying wood — which is what an old pile becomes. A colony in the yard is a colony next to the house.
Stacked wood is ideal cover for mice, rats, and chipmunks, and it holds heat and hides prey for snakes. Nobody wants to find out by reaching in.
Wet, shaded wood grows mold, and the rot spreads to anything wooden it touches, including fence posts and shed walls.
A large pile of dry scrap wood near a house or garage is fuel. Insurers and fire marshals do not love it either.
There is also standing water. Piles trap rain in the gaps and hold it in rotting cavities, which turns the whole thing into a mosquito nursery through a Connecticut summer.
Pressure-treated lumber — deck boards, fence posts, landscape timbers, anything chemically treated to resist rot — must never be burned. Not in a fire pit, not in a wood stove, not in a burn pile. Burning releases the preservative chemicals into the smoke and concentrates them in the ash. Older treated wood may contain arsenic-based preservatives; newer copper-based treatments are not something you want in your lungs or your garden soil either.
Treated wood also cannot go into clean wood recycling or brush and yard waste streams. It has to go to a facility that accepts it as construction debris — a different destination, and often a different fee, from untreated wood.
How to tell: treated lumber usually has a greenish or brownish tint, small incision marks along the surface, and sometimes an end tag. When in doubt, assume anything that lived outdoors as structure is treated, and do not burn it.
Old lumber piles are full of fasteners. Deck boards come up with the screws still in them, fence sections keep their nails, and pallets are held together with ring-shank nails that are nearly impossible to pull cleanly.
Rusted nails cause puncture wounds, which is a tetanus conversation nobody wants to have on a Saturday. Nails work loose into the grass, and lawn mowers find them. So do bare feet and dog paws. Our crews load with gloves and boots and sweep the ground afterward. It is one of the better arguments for not doing this one yourself.
Connecticut towns set their own rules. Some accept clean wood at the transfer station with a resident permit, some cap the volume per visit. Almost none will take a decade-old mixed pile of treated lumber, pallets, and rotted timbers off your curb.
We pull the pile apart by hand, separating what can be recycled as clean wood from what has to go out as treated or mixed construction debris. Treated lumber goes to the facility licensed to take it, and metal hardware and scrap metal get pulled for recycling.
Then we deal with the part underneath. Old piles sink, and the bottom layer is usually wet, half-composted, and locked into the soil with roots and vines. It comes out with the rest, and we rake the footprint clean. This is standard yard debris and junk pile removal work for us.
No. Leave it exactly where it is. We sort as we load, and moving it yourself usually just spreads it out.
Not if there is any treated wood in it, and most old piles have some. Open burning is also regulated by your town and may require a permit or be prohibited outright. Hauling it is the clean answer.
Yes. Do not spend your weekend pulling nails. We handle it as-is.
Tell us up front if there are any. Creosote-treated ties have their own disposal handling and we would rather plan for them than find them at the bottom of the pile.
Yes, and most of them have. Digging the bottom layer out of the dirt is part of the job — it just takes longer than loading a fresh pile, which is why we like to see it before quoting.
Common, and not a problem. Old grills, tires, and broken furniture usually end up in the same corner. One trip handles all of it and costs less than separate visits.
We remove lumber and scrap wood piles across New Haven, Hartford, Middlesex, Litchfield, and Fairfield counties, including Waterbury, New Britain, Meriden, Bristol, Middletown, Hamden, Naugatuck, Southington, Wallingford, Cheshire, and East Haven.
Tell us what is in it and where it sits. We will give you a firm price, load every board, and clean up the ground underneath.