Combo pallets: recycled and new lumber in one build

How a combo pallet is made

The base is used wood that still has life in it: sound stringers or blocks and good deck boards. Where a part is cracked, worn or missing, new lumber goes in. The result is rebuilt to a common pattern, so a stack of combo pallets looks and handles like a stack of the same pallet, which a stack of used pallets does not.

That consistency is the product. Automated lines, racks and conveyors care about small differences in height and board spacing, and a combo build keeps them small.

When it beats used or new

• Freight that runs every week and needs pallets that behave the same way each time.
• Loads where Grade B variation is a nuisance but an all-new build is too much money.
• Docks that want to reuse their own recovered lumber in a more predictable form.

Where it falls short

A combo pallet is not the answer to a spec that demands all-new wood, and it is not a substitute for heat treatment on export freight. Ask for the treatment separately, and read the ISPM 15 guide first.

Terms you will hear

Recycled

A previously used pallet that has been repaired, refurbished or remanufactured for reuse.

Remanufactured

Rebuilt from parts of used pallets, plus new boards where needed. The remanufactured pallets guide goes further.

Core

A used pallet sent to a recycler, the raw material for the rebuild. See cores.

Why uniformity is measurable

The Forest Service survey measured deck-board thickness on new, remanufactured and repaired pallets. New pallets averaged 0.614 inch, remanufactured ones 0.632 and repaired grades between 0.642 and 0.657, and the remanufactured group showed a wide range too. The authors concluded that performance improves most by standardising repair practice and sorting deck boards into narrow thickness groups. That is the practical test of a combo pallet: ask whether the boards in it were sorted by thickness and fastened the same way, since the label alone does not guarantee it.

What to specify

• The footprint, with the stringer length first: 48 x 40 means 48-inch stringers.
• Whether the lumber must all be one species or thickness.
• Entry: two-way, or four-way with notched stringers or blocks.
• Whether the freight needs a heat-treatment mark. A combo pallet has it only if it was treated and stamped.

The cut list

Combo builders cut new lumber to fit the gaps. A stringer for a 48 x 40 pallet is 48 inches long, and every saw cut takes some wood, so an 8-foot nominal 2 by 4, which is 96 inches, gives one full stringer and a second piece that comes up short. A 10-foot board, 120 inches, gives two stringers and an offcut of a little under 24 inches. Deck boards are 40 inches, so a 10-foot board, 120 inches, cannot give three once the cuts are taken, and a 16-foot board, 192 inches, gives four with an offcut a little under 32 inches. Planning boards by length is how a builder keeps waste low, and why the lumber a combo builder buys follows the pallet it intends to build.