Every species of wood has its value and its use, including pine. I myself keep several cords of it around for the season, and we use pine almost exclusively to get a hot fire going quickly. it burns very hot when seasoned and dry, but doesnt last long. We shove a half a dozen pine pieces in the stove when we first get home, get up in the morning, and within 20 minutes the living room and kitchen are warm.
Pine has gotten a bad rap from folks who have burned wet and unseasoned pine, unless its fairly dry it will have a tendency to create more cresote in your stove and flue.However, cleaning your flue should be part of your regular home maintenance, no matter what species you burn.I clean my flue every fall, and perform an inspection, and I can tell you that after one winter of burning mostly pine, I had no noticeable increase in cresote over the usual oak, hickory, and ash.
If you have a ready supply, and not a lot of other options, pine will do just fine. Just because it has layed around for a year on the ground does not make it seasoned and dry to burn right now, buck it up, split and stack it, and check it out this fall prior to burning.Lots of check marks on the end, and a dark brown to almost black ends should be a good indication that its dry enough to burn. Start your fire and after ten mintues with the damper wide open go outside and check your chimney.If all you see is a heat vapor and little to no smoke then you should be fine.
