Twelve months of grading data, published
11 August 2026 · The grading floor · Sustainability · 8 min
We publish our diversion numbers. This year we are publishing what sits underneath them — what the graders actually decided, and why.
Read it41 pieces · since 2024
Field notes
In short
41 long-form pieces written by the people who grade, repair, haul and kiln-dry wood at 10400 Evendale Dr, Cincinnati, OH 45241. No gated whitepapers, no email wall, no guest-posted keyword filler — each one is bylined by the bench or desk it came from, and several of them tell you when not to buy from us.
Something here raise a question?
Ask it. A lot of these pieces started as a customer email that turned out to be worth answering in public.
Also recent
- 02Summer core supply and the paradox of the busy seasonA customer asked why we were short in July when everybody was clearly busy. Being busy is precisely the reason.7 July 2026
- 03Reclaimed wood in commercial interiors: what actually survivesMost reclaimed pallet-wood installations we are asked to repair failed for the same reason: nobody dried the wood.9 June 2026
- 04What a pallet costs when you count the floor spaceAsk a warehouse manager what a pallet costs and you get the invoice price. Ask what a pallet position costs and the number multiplies.5 May 2026
- 05Export crating for machinery: a checklist that has saved containersThe cheapest export crate is the one that arrives with the machine working. Everything else is a false economy measured in weeks.7 April 2026
- 06Dock scheduling: the appointment you keep missingWe hold windows rather than estimate them. Doing that reliably meant admitting how many of our own misses were self-inflicted.10 March 2026
Topics
Seven things we write about
5 pieces
Compliance
ISPM-15, export holds, fire protection and the rules that strand containers.
Browse 10 piecesEconomics
Where the money in this business genuinely sits, and where it leaks out.
Browse 5 piecesLogistics
Docks, trailers, routes and the geography that decides what freight costs.
Browse 11 piecesSpecification
Choosing the right pallet for the load, the rack and the machine that handles it.
Browse 1 piecesStudio
Reclaimed wood after it stops being a pallet.
Browse 4 piecesSustainability
Diversion, carbon and reporting that survives an auditor rather than a brochure.
Browse 5 piecesYard notes
What actually happens on the grading floor, the repair bench and the dismantling line.
BrowseArchive
Everything, by year
2026 · 8 pieces
- 08.11Twelve months of grading data, publishedWe publish our diversion numbers. This year we are publishing what sits underneath them — what the graders actually decided, and why.Sustainability · 8 min
- 07.07Summer core supply and the paradox of the busy seasonA customer asked why we were short in July when everybody was clearly busy. Being busy is precisely the reason.Economics · 6 min
- 06.09Reclaimed wood in commercial interiors: what actually survivesMost reclaimed pallet-wood installations we are asked to repair failed for the same reason: nobody dried the wood.Studio · 8 min
- 05.05What a pallet costs when you count the floor spaceAsk a warehouse manager what a pallet costs and you get the invoice price. Ask what a pallet position costs and the number multiplies.Economics · 8 min
- 04.07Export crating for machinery: a checklist that has saved containersThe cheapest export crate is the one that arrives with the machine working. Everything else is a false economy measured in weeks.Compliance · 9 min
- 03.10Dock scheduling: the appointment you keep missingWe hold windows rather than estimate them. Doing that reliably meant admitting how many of our own misses were self-inflicted.Logistics · 7 min
- 02.10The first 90 days of a managed pallet programmeThe savings people expect come from unit price. The savings that actually arrive come from grade right-sizing and paired freight, and they show up in weeks four to ten.Economics · 9 min
- 01.13Softwood is not a downgradeWe sell mostly hardwood and we will still tell you when pine is the better specification. It happens more often than the industry admits.Specification · 7 min
2025 · 16 pieces
- 12.02What we learned weighing every trailer for a yearWe put a scale house in expecting it to be an audit tool. It turned out to be the most useful diagnostic instrument in the building.Sustainability · 8 min
- 11.04Pallet specification for a plant you have not built yetBy the time somebody asks us what pallet to use, the steel is usually ordered. It is the cheapest decision in the project and it gets made last.Specification · 8 min
- 10.14A short history of the 48×40, and why it is still herePeople assume the 48×40 is a committee decision. It is closer to an archaeological record of three separate constraints that happened to agree.Yard notes · 8 min
- 09.23Wet cores: what rain actually costs you per palletA pallet that spends a week in Ohio spring weather is a different commodity from the one that went outside.Yard notes · 6 min
- 09.02Why odd-size pallets do not have to cost odd-size moneyA wrecked 48-inch stringer trims to a perfectly sound 42-inch member. That single fact is why our odd sizes price near standard.Economics · 7 min
- 08.12Mulch colour chemistry, and why cheap mulch fades by JulyTwo yards of mulch that look identical in April can look completely different in July, and the difference was decided before it left the plant.Sustainability · 7 min
- 07.22The economics of on-site repair, worked through properlyEveryone assumes you need a mega-DC to justify an in-house repair crew. The arithmetic says otherwise once you stop ignoring freight on broken wood.Economics · 8 min
- 07.01Designing a pallet for a robot instead of a forkliftA forklift operator sees a pallet leaning and adjusts. An autonomous mobile robot sees a valid pick location and drives into it.Specification · 8 min
- 06.10Pooled pallets: the reconciliation nobody staffsPooling is a genuinely good product for the right lane. The trouble is that people budget for the rental and not for the accounting.Economics · 8 min
- 05.20Bulk bags, slump, and why 48×48 existsA one-tonne bag is not a box. It is a flexible container that changes shape under its own weight, and it will find the edge of your pallet.Specification · 6 min
- 04.29What happens when a container is held for wood packagingThe pallet cost forty dollars. The hold cost five figures and eleven days. This is not a rare story.Compliance · 8 min
- 04.08Reading a diversion report criticallyA 99% diversion rate is easy to produce. Producing one that survives an auditor is a different exercise entirely.Sustainability · 8 min
- 03.18How a drop trailer changes your dock arithmeticThe question is not whether you have space for a trailer. It is what a live load is costing you every week that nobody measures.Logistics · 6 min
- 02.25Automated warehouses and the quarter-inch that stops a lineA forklift driver compensates for a bad pallet without noticing. A shuttle system does not compensate for anything.Specification · 8 min
- 02.04Moisture content, warehouse humidity, and the pallets that shrankA customer told us their brand-new pallets were falling apart while our recycled ones were fine. They were right, and the reason is water.Specification · 8 min
- 01.14January is the best month to renegotiate pallet supplyEverybody negotiates supply in the autumn, which is the single worst time to do it. The market is telling you something and almost nobody listens.Economics · 7 min
2024 · 17 pieces
- 12.17Reverse logistics for pallets, without a reverse logistics teamEvery operation we talk to knows it should be recovering pallets. Most of them have nobody whose job that is.Logistics · 7 min
- 11.26Nail schedules: the spec nobody reads and everybody blamesWhen a deck board comes off in month two, people blame the wood. It is almost always the nail.Specification · 7 min
- 11.05What "heat treated" does — and does not — steriliseWe get asked for heat-treated pallets for food plants surprisingly often, and the reason given is almost always wrong.Compliance · 7 min
- 10.15Container loading: when a smaller pallet ships more productA 40-ft container does not care about your standard footprint. It cares about 7 feet 8 inches of usable width, and the arithmetic is unforgiving.Logistics · 8 min
- 09.24The 30% rule: overhang, and why your cases crushAn inch of overhang looks like nothing. It is the difference between a stack that arrives and a stack that arrives crushed.Specification · 6 min
- 09.03Why we stopped using metal plates in 2011It takes eleven seconds to plate a cracked stringer and it makes the pallet somebody else’s problem for years.Yard notes · 6 min
- 08.13How to run a pallet audit in one afternoonYou do not need a consultant for this. You need a clipboard, four hours and access to two invoice folders.Economics · 9 min
- 07.23Pallet storage and sprinkler design: what warehouse managers get wrongA stack of empty pallets is the most concentrated fuel load most warehouses contain, and it is usually the least planned part of the building.Compliance · 8 min
- 07.02Mould bloom: what it is, what it isn't, and when to rejectMost of the dark marks people call mould are not mould. Some of them matter anyway, and one of them matters a great deal.Compliance · 7 min
- 06.11Eight things that make a pallet quote come back slowlyWe answer within one business day. Whether that answer is a price or a question depends entirely on what arrived in the request.Economics · 6 min
- 05.21The freezer problem: pallets below zeroCold does not weaken wood. It makes it brittle, which is a different problem and a worse one on a busy dock.Specification · 7 min
- 04.30Stretch wrap is doing more work than your palletWhen a load arrives leaning, the pallet gets blamed. In our experience it is almost never the pallet.Specification · 8 min
- 04.09Why Q4 pallet prices move before Q4 doesThe recycled pallet market tightens in August, not November. By the time the retail peak arrives, the pricing has already happened.Economics · 7 min
- 03.19Reading a pallet's history from its nail holesEvery repair leaves a record in the wood. Once you know what to look for, a stringer will tell you roughly how many lives it has already had.Yard notes · 6 min
- 02.27What a grader actually looks at in four secondsPeople assume grading is a judgement call. It is closer to a decision tree, and the order of the checks is the part that takes six weeks to learn.Yard notes · 7 min
- 02.06The hidden cost of a 40-foot dock apronTwo customers, four miles apart, same volume, same grade. One pays noticeably more per pallet than the other, and the reason is forty feet of concrete.Logistics · 7 min
- 01.18Why your pallets keep failing in the third rack positionA customer called us out to look at four broken pallets. All four had failed in the same rack bay, at the same height, along the same stringer. That is never a coincidence.Specification · 8 min
How these are written, and why they are bylined by benches
Every piece here comes from a specific place in the building, and the byline says which. It is not a stylistic affectation — it tells you whose experience the piece is drawn from, and it means there is somebody to ask.
| Byline | Where it sits | What it writes about |
|---|---|---|
| The grading floor | Stations 1 and 2 | Grades, rejection criteria, what arrives and in what condition |
| Repair bench | The bench floor | Repairs, fasteners, teardown, what fails and why |
| Route desk | The office, Thursday afternoons | Docks, trailers, routes, access, scheduling |
| Kiln & export | The chamber | ISPM-15, treatment, container holds, export crating |
| Grinder line | The fibre plant | Mulch, screening, magnets, colour chemistry |
| Studio | The shop at the back | Reclaimed wood after it stops being a pallet |
| Front office | Everywhere else | Economics, programmes, reporting, the awkward questions |
- Every piece closes with an appendix drawn from our operating record — the slice of measured data that bears on what it argues.
- Nothing is gated, guest-posted or written for links.
- A lot of these started as a customer email that turned out to be worth answering in public.
- Several of them argue against buying things from us. That is deliberate.