Fix It With Fire by Burn Unit
July 26th, 2006 10:21 PMCasa del Burn Unit received a letter dated 25-May-06 that stated we were in violation of Minneapolis Code of Ordinances 244.40, 244.610, 244.690, 244.700, 227.90 and 227.100. "This violation is a nuisance condition," it read. "For more information on proper disposal, call Recycling at 673-2917. THIS VIOLATION IS EXEMPT FROM REINSPECTION FEES. THIS VIOLATION IS NOT APPEALABLE TO THE MINNEAPOLIS HOUSING BOARD OF APPEALS. Violation Text 021. Inspector's Comments: SCRAP WOOD Due Date: 05-JUN-2006."
Thus, The Problem: we were in violation of The Law and had NO APPEAL. We decided that if we must comply, we must innovate to keep our sense of sanity and get back in control of the situation. We also had an old tree stump that we needed to get rid of. We were gonna fix this problem with fire! We researched Minneapolis fire ring ordinances (anything within 25 feet of the house has to be in a ring, chiminea or bowl) and then built a fast and simple fire ring with trapezoidal concrete blocks, roughly centered around the stump. We separated the treated wood from the untreated wood--it would break the law to burn treated wood, plus I don't like the thought of burning God-knows-what-chemicals. Most of the treated wood is still in our garage. We piled up a good sized pile of the untreated wood, including the tree branches.
Then we started dismantling the pile and burning it!
We've heard nothing on the subject from the city since. Problem solved.
In the photos you can see some of the scrap wood we piled up and burned. There's also a photo of the fire ring with some of the burned stuff .
(I'd like more photos in this proof, but there was a problem with the new camera used to shoot these photos, and many pictures were lost when the card went to shite. The camera store was able to restore some of the pictures, but the shots of the fire actually burning were lost. )
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I had the exact same experience at my house in Coon Rapids. We probably burned for 12 straight hours, and then tried to just make the rest of the wood look stacked and pretty. We were ok in the end, but it was such a waste of good fire potential!
in SF beach, you can only burn treated would without nails. of course people don't actually abide.
(small public service announcement in response to that last post)
For those of you who burn wood with nails (as in the bonfires on Ocean Beach), take a good magnet with you to pick up the nails. If you take apart an old hard drive, you can get a pair of strong magnets. Tie one to a string, run it through the ashes, and your nails are extracted. Easy!
I think the fire ring looks pretty cool. Plus I was able to pick up a handy trick from reading the posts. Heck ya it gets a vote!
"treated" and "pressure treated" wood often have arsenic in them (plus other stuff, I imagine). probably not the best thing to burn. Good call.