# Forum More Stuff At the end of the day  Cooking with treated timber

## PhilT2

On another forum I ran across somebody using treated timber in his pizza oven. His story is that "once it's burnt down to coals all the nasties have gone...done it hundreds of times"
Your thoughts?

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## SilentButDeadly

Bit like eating Chinese frozen berries... 
Copper, chromium, arsenic...yeah they burn real well. And his pizzas are cooked directly on the ash dusted base of the oven. No thanks...

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## Bros

I'm sure that would be correct as the Copper Chrome Arsenic will be burnt off but how are you going to get to that stage? 
You could only do that with hardwood as pine just burns to ash no coals

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## PhilT2

> I'm sure that would be correct as the Copper Chrome Arsenic will be burnt off but how are you going to get to that stage? 
> You could only do that with hardwood as pine just burns to ash no coals

  Harriet Lane Handbook: Seasonal arsenic exposure from burning chromium-copper-arsenate-treated wood. 
The ash is apparently still quite toxic, but the pizza man does say that he is mostly using pallets and packing crates he gets from factories. I don't know (and probably he doesn't either) whether these are local or imported. If imported are they likely to contain toxins or is only heat treatment used now? 
I'm half inclined to let darwinian evolution take its course here and let him eliminate himself from the gene pool. But his kids, if he has any, deserve better so once I get my facts straight I'll post a cautionary reply.

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## OBBob

> " ..done it hundreds of times"

  Over what period? Not sure these are the sorts of things that would result in immediate illness.

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## Farmer Geoff

The smoke would be unhealthy and if it drifts beyond his boundary and lands on neighbours vegies and in their lungs then it's pretty unfriendly!

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## Bros

Old pallets would be a waste of time as they are pine and they don't burn down to coals. Our dump has a great pile of timber and old pallets that are dumped there and from time to time they chip it and the much is available for free but you cannot dump painted timber nor treated timber on the pile.
From what I can gather imported timber is fumigated as it would be a quicker and cheaper process to CCA treatment and leaves no residue.

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## METRIX

> On another forum I ran across somebody using treated timber in his pizza oven. His story is that "once it's burnt down to coals all the nasties have gone...done it hundreds of times"
> Your thoughts?

  Good luck to him, Some people are plain stupid, He will be the first to cry when he gets some weird disease and says it didn't say it on the wood not to burn it, which is true but every car does not have printed on the bonnet don;t walk in front of me when moving. 
Well it does say it in all the literature released by the manufacturers of various treated timbers, if he's that hard up to find wood to burn then bigger fool him.

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## SilentButDeadly

Pallets and crates are these days (so I'm told) merely heat treated (UHT berries anyone) so he might be on better ground.  That said though...is it really worth the risk?

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## mudbrick

Pallets are stamped on the side what type of treatment they have undergone.
The letters HT on the side show the pallet has been Heat Treated not chemically treated.
if it says MB (Methylene Bromide) then don't touch it.
Cooking with chemically treated timber is really stupid.

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## REBSS

Not a good idea. Methyl Bromide is still being used for fumigation, although it is being phased out and only heat treatment will be done in Aus soon. Don't know about O/s though.

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## Bros

Methyl Bromide is used to fumigate grain and fruit that is used for human consumption so I wouldn't be to worried about Methyl Bromide.  Biosecurity in Australia Methyl Bromide - Questions and Answers

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## DBR

> On another forum I ran across somebody using treated timber in his pizza oven. His story is that "once it's burnt down to coals all the nasties have gone...done it hundreds of times"
> Your thoughts?

  
Gday Phil, 
I know a fair bit about this sort of thing after being exposed several times a year over many years without knowing.. 
Unfortunately my wife, child and i discovered that a relative of ours regularly uses building offcuts including treated timbers (CCA) for their spit barbecue. We visited about 3 times a year for a period of 8 years and stopped attending once i discovered what the host had been using for fuel... 
Nonetheless each time we visited we didn't become ill, no side effects etc.. Furthermore, 2 days after our last visit upon which i didn't eat from the barbecue and my wife did (which i know he used cca timber to cook with) we had our copper, arsenic and chromium blood levels checked and both my wife and my levels came back fine and surprisingly enough my wifes levels came back lower than mine despite eating from the barbecue We all have a certain amount of chromium, copper and arsenic in us.. 
I spent weeks and weeks worrying myself sick about long term effects until i got in touch with some toxicology experts on arsenic and chromium etc- they outlined that a one off dosage here or there particularly with no acute symptoms will pose negligible future risk of issues such as cancer etc.... It is daily exposure over many years to arsenic that increases cancer risk and along with this increase of risk comes other more obvious symptoms before hand such as keratosis (scaly skin etc)----- this cancer risk is from daily exposure to small amounts in water supply over many years.. not two or three one offs a year as the body expels arsenic quickly and chromium isn't overly toxic if ingested  
I think you will find that it is actually common place for people to burn treated timber without knowing One risk is usage in pizza ovens given the current pizza oven craze.. anyways so there you go..  
anyways thought this information might assist.. for a while there my wife and i were convinced we were doomed but i realised that the body expels all those heavy metals quickly and its daily exposure over many years that increases cancer risk and even then individual risk is low... 
nonetheless we aren't in a hurry to attend another barbecue..  
Cheers..

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## DBR

Gday Metrix,, 
Unfortunatly my wife and i were exposed about 2 to 3 times a year to smoke and food cooked over treated timbers without knowing at a relatives house… The last time we attended i found out the following day after a barbecue so we had our blood levels tested and surprise surprise our copper, chromium arsenic levels actually came back medium - not high…. We had no symptoms either.. the other thing is that my wife who ate from the barbecue (i didn't) had lower levels than i did…. but the doctor said that our levels were normal... 
Also after the barbecue i got in touch with a couple of toxicologists who advised that one or two exposures each year poses negligible risk.. it is daily exposure that poses an increase risk of future illness such as cancer etc…  
Don't get me wrong, i won't be rushing back for another barbecue but nonetheless i don't think that an occasional barbecue poses a significant risk based on my research.. 
cheers.

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## METRIX

That may be true, but then again it may not be true, but why would you deliberately burn treated timbers while smothering your food in the fumes from it. 
To me that is just stupid, and I cannot understand the thinking of people who knowingly do that, there are so many sources of free timber to fuel your average pizza oven, that using treated timbers is just not needed.
Lots of chemicals are safe while in there solid form, but once you ignite them it's a whole different story, such as manganese fumes given off when welding metal, or simply burning a piece of PVC releases dioxins and furans which are highly toxic. 
 The manufacturers of these timbers, state in their MSDS that self contained breathing apparatus must be worn if exposed to the material being burnt, that's good enough for me to say I won;t be burning it anytime in a hurry, let alone burning it to cook m food. 
But then were all entitled to have our own opinions, and do whatever you think is in your best interest, that's fine but don't expose others unknowingly to your bad practices.

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## Marc

Heating your pizza oven with treated pine is a stupid as using old tires. To barbecue with treated pine equates to swallowing a handful of nails. 
Pallets is another story. The pallet wood is safe to burn if you know where it comes from. It is not the treatment since heat or methyl bromide are both safe and leave no residue, it is what was kep on those pallets that can be a problem. Burn a pallet that was holding drums of pesticides and had some spilled on it and you are in a world of trouble. Burn one that had paint pigment stored on them and you may be dead in no time depending on the colour.  
As a side comment Bros, what makes you say that pine does not produce coal? The coals from pine may not be as long lasting or as hot as hardwood but they certainly exist and work a treat to heat up an oven or even to barbecue on them.  Done it hundreds of times. 
As fas as heating up a pizza oven, if the oven is built properly, you can heat it up with anything that burns, even paper, sticks, kinderly anything, since the heat is stored in the walls and floor of the oven and is given up slowly to allow cooking after sweeping it clean, with no coals at all in it. Only if you need to cook for long time say 4-5 hours that you need to keep some hardwood coals in the oven or a gas flame.

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## DBR

> Heating your pizza oven with treated pine is a stupid as using old tires. To barbecue with treated pine equates to swallowing a handful of nails. 
> Pallets is another story. The pallet wood is safe to burn if you know where it comes from. It is not the treatment since heat or methyl bromide are both safe and leave no residue, it is what was kep on those pallets that can be a problem. Burn a pallet that was holding drums of pesticides and had some spilled on it and you are in a world of trouble. Burn one that had paint pigment stored on them and you may be dead in no time depending on the colour.  
> As a side comment Bros, what makes you say that pine does not produce coal? The coals from pine may not be as long lasting or as hot as hardwood but they certainly exist and work a treat to heat up an oven or even to barbecue on them.  Done it hundreds of times. 
> As fas as heating up a pizza oven, if the oven is built properly, you can heat it up with anything that burns, even paper, sticks, kinderly anything, since the heat is stored in the walls and floor of the oven and is given up slowly to allow cooking after sweeping it clean, with no coals at all in it. Only if you need to cook for long time say 4-5 hours that you need to keep some hardwood coals in the oven or a gas flame.

   
Hi Marc, 
Good point,, I guess with these things it also comes down to common sense although some things are less obvious than others... 
As a younger fella I used to cook spits in an old chemical drum with cut up railway sleepers as wood fuel.. At the time if you asked me if it was safe I would have said of course... But now I think of all the asbestos and chemicals from sprays in the sleepers.. I don't worry because I only did it half a dozen times and never became Ill from it.. I figure that the amount of asbestos that would make it's way onto the meat would be negligible... 
But how far do you take it? I've had people tell me to rip up our raised vegetable garden bed because it is made from rail sleepers.. I think this is ridiculous and that it would be taking it too far. I know numerous people who used these as veggie garden beds in the 60s and are happy and healthy today..  
In regards to using treated timber for cooking I have never knowingly done so.. I have used offcuts before but wouldn't be critical about whether they are treated or not... I do know many people burn treated wood for heating and cooking and whilst I don't believe it is smart I believe that unless they do this week in week out over many years they won't become Ill in the long term from it... Reason is that arsenic is in our food and water that we consume daily- ann odd larger amount here or there is expelled from the body and provided a person doesn't become acutely sick from it I think they will be ok.. It's not radioactive or agent orange.... 
As far as I know they sprayed apples with arsenate until the 1970s? And they even used it as a medication for skin conditions at one stage and use it today to treat cancer... 
Id like to believe it's the dose that makes the poison and generally if you have been exposed to something your body will show you through immediate illness symptoms- unless it's asbestos but I think asbestos is not harmful when ingested only inhaled.... 
In South Africa for some reason many caterers use offcuts and pallets for firewood for cooking http://www.sajs.co.za/sites/default/...rticle_DOI.pdf 
Whilst studies have been made in this I don't feel that those who have eaten a dozen times from these businesses  should be concerned.. Perhaps the caterers who burn pallets including treated ones daily are at higher risk.... 
Lastly, my famu and I attended spit barbecues at a relatives place until recently when I found he uses treated and all sorts of offcuts... We've visited 20 or so times and so god knows what he has used as firewood each time--- sleepers? Plywood? Painted timber? Treated?    I'll never know,, I take peace in knowing that each time we visited that nobody showed and illness symptoms (as you would of exposed to most nasties in sufficient amounts)...- I would like to think that our risk of future illness is low - particularly for my child as we only had 20 meal exposures not daily... But I just don't know and sometimes it gets me down.... Do u think we should worry?

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## Marc

Yes, burning old sleepers may be an issue more to do with creosote and like you say herbicides then asbestos. Using treated pine is clearly an ignorant action to take. After all firewood is not that expensive. I pay $40 for a cubic meter of hardwood off cuts, mainly electricity poles cross members free of any treatments and air dry for about 40 years. You can run the pizza oven in an Italian restaurant for a week with that, may be two if it's not too busy  :Smilie:

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## Bros

> As a side comment Bros, what makes you say that pine does not produce coal? The coals from pine may not be as long lasting or as hot as hardwood but they certainly exist and work a treat to heat up an oven or even to barbecue on them.  Done it hundreds of times.

  All the pine I have ever used goes straight to ash. Some hardwood is not as good for coals but the best timber for coals is gidgee.

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## DBR

> All the pine I have ever used goes straight to ash. Some hardwood is not as good for coals but the best timber for coals is gidgee.

  
In a way, thank goodness that pine turns straight to ash and is no good for cooking,, because there is alot of nutcases out there that will do anything to save a dollar Ive experienced 2 or 3 family on my wifes side who will happily burn various building offcuts/ sleepers regardless of what it is made of/ impregnated with or coated with thank god in nsw the CCA treatment only applies to pine otherwise they would not only be starting their charcoal briquets with the stuff but they would be cooking with it as well   Not to say that starting briquettes with it alone isn't bad enough but I'm more comfortable with the fact I've unknowingly eaten from barbecues whereby the host uses treated crap to start the briquetes as oppose to cook with,, thank god it burns out within 10-15minutes by the time the meat is put on... 
You could say i now get nervous every time i attend a multicultural barbecue or pizza oven event. Lets just say i turn to a vegetarian unless I'm comfortable with knowing the chef is not ignorant..

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## Smurf

If the pallet is heat treated and you are absolutely certain it hasn't had anything toxic stored or transported on it which could have been spilled then it's fine to burn. But there's a lot of "ifs" there and in the context of a fire used directly for cooking I wouldn't take the risk. A bonfire yes, but not to cook directly over. 
For the small amounts of wood needed to run a pizza oven it should be no trouble obtaining it. Firewood is very easy to get in country areas and even in the big cities you can get either a bulk quantity delivered or buy it in bags from service stations, hardware stores and even some supermarkets. So there's no actual need to take the risk and doing so is foolish in my view - we're talking about saving $20 here. 
I thought it was very common knowledge that you shouldn't burn treated timber? It's in the same league of being well known as saying that you shouldn't step in front of a moving vehicle or use a lighted match as a light source to see how much fuel's in a drum. Always thought that everyone knew this stuff?

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## METRIX

> IFirewood is very easy to get in country areas and even in the big cities you can get either a bulk quantity delivered or buy it in bags from service stations, hardware stores and even some supermarkets. So there's no actual need to take the risk and doing so is foolish in my view - we're talking about saving $20 here.

   If your in Sydney, just drive past any of the treed  Northern suburbs, after any day of heavy winds, you will find heaps of trees down, or massive branches on the ground, the resident would only be too happy for you to cut it up and take it away, unless they want it themself.   

> I thought it was very common knowledge that you shouldn't burn treated timber? It's in the same league of being well known as saying that you shouldn't step in front of a moving vehicle or use a lighted match as a light source to see how much fuel's in a drum. Always thought that everyone knew this stuff?

  Assumptions are a wonderful thing

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## DBR

> If your in Sydney, just drive past any of the treed  Northern suburbs, after any day of heavy winds, you will find heaps of trees down, or massive branches on the ground, the resident would only be too happy for you to cut it up and take it away, unless they want it themself.  
> Assumptions are a wonderful thing

  
Correct, there ar always people who simply have no idea out there. they know enough to get themselves into trouble.. Simply go onto gumtree and see how many people across australia are selling X Railway sleepers for firewood-- and with the current pizza oven trend and the occasional spit,, you can't assume that people don't use this stuff as fuel.. 
In relation to CCA i have witnessed first hand some serious stupidity and ignorance. personally however i would prefer to eat from a CCA barbecue then from a old railway sleeper barbecue - although both bad I can count on my hand the number of people i know who do and would happily burn railway sleepers as fuel..

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## Smurf

So far as railway sleepers are concerned, there's sleepers and then there's sleepers. 
I've come across timber yards selling "railway sleepers" that have never been anywhere near a railway (well, not unless the logs just happened to be transported by train on their way to the sawmill). They're just using the term generically to refer to large pieces of wood of equivalent size to an actual sleeper. Since they're not treated, off cuts from those would be fine to burn. 
 A tip someone gave me a long time ago is to mix anthracite coal with the wood for cooking. That's the highest grade of coal, burns with a blue flame and no smoke, and it throws out a heap of radiant heat too. Mix it 50 / 50 with the wood. I've seen it done and it worked very well, the only trouble being that I've no idea where you'd buy it from.

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## Bros

> A tip someone gave me a long time ago is to mix anthracite coal with the wood for cooking. That's the highest grade of coal, burns with a blue flame and no smoke, and it throws out a heap of radiant heat too.

  Was that the bloke who sent us a train load once to try out? Terrible coal for out boilers as it kept going out, not nice in PF boilers at high load in addition it was to hot and high levels of spray was needed to get the temp down. We never got any more.

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## DBR

> So far as railway sleepers are concerned, there's sleepers and then there's sleepers. 
> I've come across timber yards selling "railway sleepers" that have never been anywhere near a railway (well, not unless the logs just happened to be transported by train on their way to the sawmill). They're just using the term generically to refer to large pieces of wood of equivalent size to an actual sleeper. Since they're not treated, off cuts from those would be fine to burn. 
>  A tip someone gave me a long time ago is to mix anthracite coal with the wood for cooking. That's the highest grade of coal, burns with a blue flame and no smoke, and it throws out a heap of radiant heat too. Mix it 50 / 50 with the wood. I've seen it done and it worked very well, the only trouble being that I've no idea where you'd buy it from.

  
Gday Smurf,,, 
If you go on gumtree and type in railway sleeper firewood there are heaps of sellers across australia.. Unfortunately these are used railway sleepers- if they weren't used they would be worth much more as garden beds etc. They sell the deteriorating ones of as firewood. I question how safe this is.. 
I think even if they are used they would be safe to uses as garden/ vegetable garden beds so long as they are not creosote treated- however burning them for say a pizza oven/ spit barbecue i wonder how much herbicide/ asbestos/ heavy metal would make its way onto food.. I personally and unluckily enough have experienced CCA pine barbecues in my time (host ignorance) and two or three old rail sleeper timber spits (from when i was very young an naive).  Im now punching on 35 and fit as a fiddle.. But nonetheless i wouldnt go tracking down old rail sleepers to serve up a spit for my kids.. 
Garden beds/ veggie beds ok- burning for food= not...

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## Smurf

> Was that the bloke who sent us a train load once to try out? Terrible coal for out boilers as it kept going out, not nice in PF boilers at high load in addition it was to hot and high levels of spray was needed to get the temp down. We never got any more.

  Don't know the situation you're referring to but my knowledge of anthracite is that in the Australian context it's only found in Queensland.  
Down here in Tas the coal they mine is sub-bituminous (fairly low quality black coal). It's good enough to fire the cement works, the boilers at the paper mill and the odd steam loco tourist train but TEMCO has to import (from NSW) better coal to put in their furnaces as the local stuff isn't good enough (though they've been looking at trying to process the local coal somehow to make it suitable, thus saving the cost of shipping from NSW). 
Another thing I have seen is a pellet fired pizza oven. The pellets don't contain any chemicals, they're just compressed wood, and being dried in a factory they burn cleanly. Convenient too as they come in bags. Just another option I thought I'd mention (noting that you need a proper burner to use pellets, you can't just use them in place of ordinary firewood).

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## Bros

> Don't know the situation you're referring to but my knowledge of anthracite is that in the Australian context it's only found in Queensland.

  My profile says I am from Queensland. Power stations here burn bituminous coal as it is high in volitiles well suited to PF boilers.

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## Smurf

I could have been a bit clearer there I think.  :Smilie:  
Within Australia anthracite is only found in Qld to my knowledge - but most coal in Qld is not anthracite. 
Anthracite - mined in Qld. 
Bituminous coal - mined in Qld, NSW, WA. 
Sub-bituminous - mined in Tas and SA (though the only coal mine in SA is about to close). Also exists in Vic but not currently mined (was many years ago) and also in Qld but I don't think it's being mined there.  
Lignite - mined in Vic but also found in SA (lots of it) and on a much smaller scale in Tas.

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## Bros

> Lignite - mined in Vic but also found in SA (lots of it) and on a much smaller scale in Tas.

  Called Fossilized mud.

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