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Burning waste on site


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When filling in the application to demolish our bungalow I ticked the box to say we would be burning waste on site. Having just started demolition, it's soon become clear that there are very few reusable timbers in the place, most of the Internal walls are constructed using secondhand timber. According to our local historian, during the interwar period building materials were in short, hence the reuse of timber. It's so full of nails and such poor quality, it's not even worth cutting it up for firewood.

 

So having received our 'demolition approval' it says we need to contact the plannng department and the fire authority prior to any burning.

Has anyone any experience  of this? What sort of a information are they likely to want? 

Edited by Triassic
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As we are on the national park we were not allowed to burn. The 1950's house we demolished had a similar level of poor quality timber. Full of nails and in general poor quality, 

 

I put an advert on Gumtree for "free firewood" and an entire house worth was gone in one weekend. I could have got rid of it 5 times over! 

Edited by Barney12
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Some waste you can burn, I expect, as a normal bonfire. And you may be able to burn a few extra bits depending on neighbours (if any), location and visibility from the street. I think that would relate to eg untreated wood.

 

Really it is horses for courses. If you choose to push it it is for you to decide, but if you receive a visit (fire brigade, council) then imo it is game over for slightly bending any rules.

 

If you are genuinely domestic then I expect that the initial intervention could be less severe.

 

One thought is that a marginally larger skip may not be that much more expensive.

 

There is also that Waste Transfer Regulations are a bit of a dog's breakfast as to what is "waste" and what is not, and the License you may or may not need, and what is accepted at the domestic tip from whom. I would welcome advice on this, as I do not really understand the system. I do not particularly wish to shell out for a Waste Transfer License if in fact I am moving topsoil from one site to another where it will be reused. I have never explored this one but I think it probably revolves around the correct documentation.

 

Ferdinand

 

Edited by Ferdinand
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@SteamyTea, my intention is to re-use or re-home as much of the old house as possible, not burn it!!

 

  Interestingly, I've offered stuff, for free, on my local Freecycle and Buy sell and swop sites and I often don't get many takers. I've got a load of stuff on eBay and if I get a few quid I'd be happy. Maybe no one wants second hand stuff anymore!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just a quick update. Having offfered the firewood on four different web sites, (buy,sell, swop, freecycle, Facebook and the village web site) I've not had a single taker. I've had a home made sign nailed to the gate for a few days and again no takers. So I've started burning it !!

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5 minutes ago, Triassic said:

Just a quick update. Having offfered the firewood on four different web sites, (buy,sell, swop, freecycle, Facebook and the village web site) I've not had a single taker. I've had a home made sign nailed to the gate for a few days and again no takers. So I've started burning it !!

Change the sign to Firewood £5 I'll bet it then mysteriously disappears.

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Just be careful what you burn, the contractors building at the back of ours have been reprimanded by environmental healt for unauthorised fires. On top of that, a final warning for burning used silicone tubes and other building waste.

 

Something I cannot tolerate.

Edited by craig
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FWIW, bonfires are now unlawful in some areas, too.  We have a bonfire ban now, after years of the valley filling up with smoke from thoughtless people who light them on windless days.  It's made a massive difference so far this summer (the first year the ban has been in force).  To make this work, there was a coordinated effort to improve green waste collection, so that those who used to have bonfires can now get rid of hedge clippings etc more easily.

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To be honest I'm trying my best to recycle, reuse and give stuff away. Mind you, having advertised ten household items on EBay, I only managed to sell four items, I then put the six items on Frrecycle and buy,sel.swop and managed to get rid of two more items.  

 

I put a large sign outside the site advertising free wood but only had one guy coming to look, but he only wanted " nice logs". So Im starting by burning the shingle roof tiles. The officials I talked to regarding a permit to burn, said such things only apply to businesses and although frowned on, a private person would probably not get into trouble burning, so long as the fire is small and there is no smoke. The shingles are so dry they are like burning paper!

 

The plastic is going to the local recycling centre where they have a plastics skip. The bricks will be reused and the concrete paths crushed for backfill for paths etc.

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I think we were lucky, in that we had people calling in to the site asking if we had any scrap wood.  Most of the scrap pallets went to someone local who turned them into fencing, and a lot of the scrap larch offcuts were taken by a young chap who was going to cut them up and sell them as kindling - I think he did well out of it, as he took three small via loads away!

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 23/05/2017 at 22:39, SteamyTea said:

Seems silly to try and make a low energy and low carbon dioxide emitting house, then burn any waste.>:(

Better to bury it if it cannot be reused.

 

The stuff that I have trouble with is very resilient twiggy twigs. 

 

1 inch or so branches can be mulched; firewood sized stuff can be piled by the gate with a "free to a good home" sign; but many branched twigs cannot be mulched or burnt in a stove.

 

Was having a mini fire of dry twigs for half an hour this am as the neighours are on holida, and the local nimby mafia appeared out of a hole in the ground from the opposite direction to where the smoke was actually going with dire threats of calling the Council "if you don't f*cking put that f*cking fire out" because "fires are illegal before 7pm" (which is nonsense on stilts, and explained as such on the Council website).

 

But most the of twigs had gone by then.

 

The grey area is what is a "commercial bonfire" in the context of a renovation, and whether such would be a problem if no statutory nuisance actually exists.

 

Our Council relies on an alleged "duty of care" to declare commercial bonfires "illegal" as they cause a "Statutory Nuisance". It all sounds a bit of a presumptive stretch, but they love handing out tickets.

 

Edited by Ferdinand
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On 23/05/2017 at 21:24, Triassic said:

When filling in the application to demolish our bungalow I ticked the box to say we would be burning waste on site. Having just started demolition, it's soon become clear that there are very few reusable timbers in the place, most of the Internal walls are constructed using secondhand timber. According to our local historian, during the interwar period building materials were in short, hence the reuse of timber. It's so full of nails and such poor quality, it's not even worth cutting it up for firewood.

 

So having received our 'demolition approval' it says we need to contact the plannng department and the fire authority prior to any burning.

Has anyone any experience  of this? What sort of a information are they likely to want? 

 

I am not sure whether a Burn on SIte question appears on the English form. 

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On 23/05/2017 at 21:24, Triassic said:

When filling in the application to demolish our bungalow I ticked the box to say we would be burning waste on site. Having just started demolition, it's soon become clear that there are very few reusable timbers in the place, most of the Internal walls are constructed using secondhand timber. According to our local historian, during the interwar period building materials were in short, hence the reuse of timber. It's so full of nails and such poor quality, it's not even worth cutting it up for firewood.

 

So having received our 'demolition approval' it says we need to contact the plannng department and the fire authority prior to any burning.

Has anyone any experience  of this? What sort of a information are they likely to want? 

 

When I help on my friends farm we often build bonfires to get rid of large quantities of hawthorn which is a pig to handle in fact considered a hazardous waste (bacterial infections, allergic reactions and can be fatal).

 

We need to phone the local fire control, they can also advise you don't burn if it is considered too high a risk that due to hot weather the fire could spread etc. and give them details of the site of the fire and rough timings, this helps to reduce people reporting it and the FB responding - such as the summers night we had 3 appliances stuck down a farm road - the FB actually commended us on our burn pile and the safety measures we had employed including firefighting equipment on site in case it got out of control, mind you, the fire was 20 feet high and about 1000sq feet in area!

 

Re. planning department, I would assume it is just notifying them of planning destruction of materials by fire - I would also cite the issues regarding the nails making it difficult to cut up safely and that it would not recycle well owing to the fact the chippers would hate all the nails. Also don't burn anything that is going to generate acrid smoke like plastics and things.

 

 

 

 

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We had quite a large garden fire last week after demolishing an old timber greenhouse, chicken coop and a pile of hedge and tree cuttings that had dried out nicely over the last 6 months.

 

Was about 12ft high and 20ft wide, I missed the actual burn but the lads said it went straight up, virtually no smoke but big flames (even they had a minor panic) and I can see scorch marks in a few nearby trees about 20-30ft up! Was all done and dusted in 30 mins, no complaints although I pre-warned immediate neighbours.

 

Then before going home they dumped a bunch of freshly trimmed hedge cuttings and it smoked like hell, got a few complaints then so they just put a hose on it and killed it.

 

 

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2 hours ago, Bitpipe said:

Then before going home they dumped a bunch of freshly trimmed hedge cuttings and it smoked like hell, got a few complaints then so they just put a hose on it and killed it.

 

 

That used to be our problem.  Every bonfire that filled the valley with smoke was mainly fairly green hedge trimmings, one bloke used to try and burn his grass clippings, believe it or not!  The three persistent bonfire-creators have now stopped, thanks to a long battle that eventually involved the local authority getting involved because of the road safety hazard that the thick smoke created.  It seems that road safety trumps public nuisance by a couple of orders of magnitude when it comes to getting action.............

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  • 2 weeks later...

Interesting, I visited our local recycling centre to get find of a varied selection of waste, including two bags of plaster waste and some plasterboard off cuts. These were turned away as inert waste is now charged at £3.50 a bag and for this you need a permit.

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