As we are layed up in Nth Qld and its the Wet Season, the van is located on a double slab, however when we get a good tropical thunderstorm, the run-off travels through the front third of the annex.
The floor mat gets absolutely soaking wet, rendering it totally useless, solution a raised timber floor would be ideal allowing the water to flow.
Another Park resident had a similar issue, his solution was buying all timber from the big green shed, he done a terrific job, but what does do with it if you have to bug out when a cyclone threatens.
Looking through Facebook Marketplace, I saw a number of adds for free pallets, from one place I grabbed 6 pine light single use pallets, now lucks a fortune 2 pallets are the exact width of the annex, but they are too high.. So the last couple of days I have been dismantling a couple of the pallets taking the top and bottoms off with a jimmy bar, pulling all the nails that many can be re used, turning the main spars onto their sides that reduces the height to a bit over 2 inches, the cross pieces are then nailed in place leaving approximately a 1/16th between boards , not placing any on the bottom.
I'm giving each completed pallet a good spray with a surface spray to attempt to ward off spiders etc.
Oh because it humid, I have been sweating like a pig, rendering the need to fall in the pool to to lower my core temp and rehydrate with a tinnie or two, thus this job is slow paced one duckboard complete and one ready to be reassembled.
Based on this pace most likely it will be another 2 or 3 days to reconfigure the other 4 pallets, after which I will decide do I get another 6 pallets to complete the whole annex.
Whenarewethere said
06:40 AM Jan 11, 2022
The timber in pallets these days is absolute crap. I spent hours pulling one apart at the insistence of other half. Only to throw all the rubbish timber away, & a few bandaids later!
Rob Driver said
08:38 AM Jan 11, 2022
We were in a park last year and there were a couple camped there that had gained work at a statewide transport company.
They managed to gain the use of the new type plastic pallets. These pallets are 1.2m x 1.2m which is standard pallet size and usually half the width of a standard concrete annexe pad. The made an excellent underfloor structure, being plastic they were termite proof. They are slightly higher than a standard Chep or similar pallet which makes for a small step up but not a real hassle at all.
When they were moving on I approached them for the pallets but the deal was that they had to return the pallets to their place of work when they were leaving.
As these become popular they will be ideal for annexe floors.
Unfortunately all quality pallets attract a deposit. The wood ones used to attract a $10 deposit many years ago when I used to cart full loads of them back to Chep.
Single use pallets are generally soft wood and are exactly what their name says.
I wonder what the deposit cost is on one of these new plastic jobs.
Dougwe said
11:09 AM Jan 11, 2022
Plastic money Rob.
Sooooorry!
Rob Driver said
11:57 AM Jan 11, 2022
Dougwe wrote:
Plastic money Rob.
Sooooorry!
Hi Doug,
You would want a big plastic card to buy these plastic pallets.
A quick search from one supplier indicated $135.00 plus the government grab of 10%
Another search from one company is charging $50.00 deposit for a Chep pallet.
Unless you can get good pallets for little cost it would be cheaper to use a frame of hardwood or even C channel steel and sheets of form ply.
As gundog indicated, pallets are easy to move and secure in case of a cyclone whereby a built structure may be a problem if it was constructed so it could not be left in place.
As we are layed up in Nth Qld and its the Wet Season, the van is located on a double slab, however when we get a good tropical thunderstorm, the run-off travels through the front third of the annex.
The floor mat gets absolutely soaking wet, rendering it totally useless, solution a raised timber floor would be ideal allowing the water to flow.
Another Park resident had a similar issue, his solution was buying all timber from the big green shed, he done a terrific job, but what does do with it if you have to bug out when a cyclone threatens.
Looking through Facebook Marketplace, I saw a number of adds for free pallets, from one place I grabbed 6 pine light single use pallets, now lucks a fortune 2 pallets are the exact width of the annex, but they are too high.. So the last couple of days I have been dismantling a couple of the pallets taking the top and bottoms off with a jimmy bar, pulling all the nails that many can be re used, turning the main spars onto their sides that reduces the height to a bit over 2 inches, the cross pieces are then nailed in place leaving approximately a 1/16th between boards , not placing any on the bottom.
I'm giving each completed pallet a good spray with a surface spray to attempt to ward off spiders etc.
Oh because it humid, I have been sweating like a pig, rendering the need to fall in the pool to to lower my core temp and rehydrate with a tinnie or two, thus this job is slow paced one duckboard complete and one ready to be reassembled.
Based on this pace most likely it will be another 2 or 3 days to reconfigure the other 4 pallets, after which I will decide do I get another 6 pallets to complete the whole annex.
The timber in pallets these days is absolute crap. I spent hours pulling one apart at the insistence of other half. Only to throw all the rubbish timber away, & a few bandaids later!
We were in a park last year and there were a couple camped there that had gained work at a statewide transport company.
They managed to gain the use of the new type plastic pallets.
These pallets are 1.2m x 1.2m which is standard pallet size and usually half the width of a standard concrete annexe pad.
The made an excellent underfloor structure, being plastic they were termite proof.
They are slightly higher than a standard Chep or similar pallet which makes for a small step up but not a real hassle at all.
When they were moving on I approached them for the pallets but the deal was that they had to return the pallets to their place of work when they were leaving.
As these become popular they will be ideal for annexe floors.
Unfortunately all quality pallets attract a deposit. The wood ones used to attract a $10 deposit many years ago when I used to cart full loads of them back to Chep.
Single use pallets are generally soft wood and are exactly what their name says.
I wonder what the deposit cost is on one of these new plastic jobs.
Sooooorry!
Hi Doug,
You would want a big plastic card to buy these plastic pallets.
A quick search from one supplier indicated $135.00 plus the government grab of 10%
Another search from one company is charging $50.00 deposit for a Chep pallet.
Unless you can get good pallets for little cost it would be cheaper to use a frame of hardwood or even C channel steel and sheets of form ply.
As gundog indicated, pallets are easy to move and secure in case of a cyclone whereby a built structure may be a problem if it was constructed so it could not be left in place.