WARNINGS! and Precautions when Working with Driftwood

DRIFTWOOD FOR SALE WARNINGS ! — WARNINGS ! — TWO WARNINGS BELOW ! — BE CAREFUL !

CHLORINE WARNING ! — and — PETS AND PLANTS WARNING ! — and 2 MORE PRECAUTION TIPS TOO !

CHLORINE WARNING !
DO NOT mix chlorine powder with hot water or warm water when or if disinfecting pieces of driftwood yourself. USE ONLY COLD WATER. The resulting fumes (from mixing chlorine with hot or warm water) may close up your chest, and you may struggle to breathe! We learned this by mistake. It was a horrible, FRIGHTENING, and potentially very dangerous incident. DO NOT mix hot or warm water with chlorine.

PETS AND PLANTS WARNINGS !

Warnings! - pets and driftwood

Warnings! – Pets and driftwood. Be careful when working with driftwood, bleach and chlorine. Avoid using pieces of driftwood with your pets or plants if the driftwood pieces have been disinfected in bleach or chlorine solutions, and are not very well rinsed.

Although the disinfecting (with bleach or chlorine) is only light – we recommend NOT using bleached (or chlorine disinfected) pieces with your pets. In other words consider the health of your pets if using driftwood in a cage for small mammals, birds, reptiles or spiders to perch on or climb on.

You can make special requests for us to put together some pieces that we don’t disinfect, and that we only wash with cold water and a bit of dish washing liquid or laundry detergent.

After your driftwood pieces (your special request pieces that we have only washed and have not also disinfected) have arrived at you, you can boil them in water with salt added to the water, to disinfect them yourself.

We do not do any boiling of our pieces ourselves – you’d have to do that.
See our driftwood treatment page for tips.

2 OTHER PRECAUTIONS TO TAKE

1)
To help protect your lungs and eyes from driftwood fibres when working with driftwood – especially when dusting off the pieces of driftwood or brushing them off or down with a paintbrush or wire brush – wear an industrial mask or disposable mask over your mouth and nose, and glasses or goggles.

2)
When working with bleach or chlorine wear rubber gloves to help protect your hands, or at least wash your hands with warm water and soap afterwards, and apply hand or skin lotion to your hands and at least half way up to your elbows.

Final Reminder / Further Notes:

We make no guarantees that the driftwood pieces won’t harm your plants or animals. We are upfront in telling you we lightly disinfect the driftwood pieces in a water and bleach solution. You can make a special request for pieces that we don’t disinfect in bleach or chlorine and that we only wash the pieces with water and dish washing liquid or with water and laundry detergent. You can even request that we don’t even do that washing, and that we only brush off the pieces with a brush and rinse them off with tap water, and then you can do any further cleaning or disinfecting yourself.

Some driftwood pieces have nails in them. We usually inform you if there are nails in the driftwood pieces (that you may not be able to see in the photos), but whether we do or not, you order at your own risk.

Please be aware of these warnings and be aware of dangers. Take precautions and be careful! Also see our disclaimer.

© Copyright Teresa Schultz and Tony Flanigan 2014