pine tree firewood?

[old CB]

Something I like about our Ponderosa pine is that where a limb departs from the main stem of the tree is a rich deposit of pitch that really cranks out heat--and extends the burn time as well.

And a lot of stumps--not all of them--get super saturated with pitch. I believe after the tree is cut the root system is still pumping away. Some years later you find these stumps--I know them on sight--kick them out of the ground, and the pitch saturation is so great, the wood so heavy, that you want only small bits at a time in the stove. I split them up for fire-starter. It takes only a match, and the stuff burns with heavy, black smoke. The guys down east--Georgia and thereabout--make fatwood out of similar stuff.

Not every pine produces this stuff. The white pine I grew up with in the northeast is poor stuff in comparison. And those stumps rot in no time, no fatwood there.

 

[dennis066]

? Guess it depends on your stove. No problem with overnight burns in mine. The Cat really meows when feeding on pine. Interesting stuff.
Maybe not for everybody but it works for me. It's not my go to wood for sure, but I won't let it go to waste by any means.

I don't split my wood like a pie, I split boards 3 to 4 inches thick so that I can stack them directly on top of each other in the stove, only one board burns at a time. With the burn regulated with the draft I can easily get overnite burn (weather permitting). Throwing the wood in the stove randomly you need a very airtite stove and mine needs new caulking/sealing.

 

[Tree Feller]

I burn some southern yellow pine in my OWB, but i mix it with hard wood. Works OK for warmer days when you don't need it to last long. I season it about a year. Much longer and it burns up about as fast as you shut the door on the stove. I don't work too hard to get it! If it's easy to get to or in the way I will burn it.

 

[svk]

Ted, I'm with you.... But I must give the devil his due.. It is my belief, but not researched, or tested, or anything like that, that pine is not always just pine. In Florida is (get this), Florida pine.. Can't hardly get a nail in it, ... Now in Washington is ponderosa pine, and others, but just a whole different critter..easy nailing...I have sold pine for half the price of say,, tamarack, chestnut, maple, locust, red for. The lower priced woods are poplar, cottonwood, and pine.. I burn strictly kauls..if I can't sell it, I burn it. When cleaning my flue, I see no big build-ups of creosote.. That's not to say that different pines don't give off more ash than others.

Exactly.

In my area Norway pine has a btu rating identical to black ash and above silver maple. Jack pine is still above the softwoods and white pine is near the bottom of the barrel.

 

[Beetlejuice]

Nobody touched on this, so am probably by myself.. About 8 yrs ago I was having a fence company drop off old cedar fencing and then I would get out there with my trusty sawsall with a pruning blade and whack the mountains of old 1x6, 2x4, etc stack and burn. Did just that for 3 yrs.. We had NO money at all. Surprising what a person can come up with to stay warm.. And kept all the legs on the tables and chairs.. Cheers. K.. No stretching the truth on this tale..

 

[Ted Jenkins]

Very interesting takes on Pine. Southern California has had a good amount of Ponderosa Pine Coulter Pine Sugar Pine, White Fir, White Mountain Oak and California Cedar. About 20 years ago we had some extra draught issues so the Bark Beetle moved in and pretty much wiped out the Pine by 50 to 90% for hundreds of miles. The cedar is taking over and will be a major issue down the road. For us we have few choices. The Oak we have is scarce and getting very expensive. More and more people are installing wood stoves and inserts so burning Fir and Cedar are options. Will Cedar burn all night in a stove no or will Pine burn all night in a stove yes as long as it is limb wood. A 12'' by 24'' Pine limb will burn just fine for 8 to 10 hours. Now good Pine is getting harder to find. I have about 500 cords available, but just the hauling cost is around $100 per cord and we did not have winter this year. Thanks

 

[Beetlejuice]

Very interesting takes on Pine. Southern California has had a good amount of Ponderosa Pine Coulter Pine Sugar Pine, White Fir, White Mountain Oak and California Cedar. About 20 years ago we had some extra draught issues so the Bark Beetle moved in and pretty much wiped out the Pine by 50 to 90% for hundreds of miles. The cedar is taking over and will be a major issue down the road. For us we have few choices. The Oak we have is scarce and getting very expensive. More and more people are installing wood stoves and inserts so burning Fir and Cedar are options. Will Cedar burn all night in a stove no or will Pine burn all night in a stove yes as long as it is limb wood. A 12'' by 24'' Pine limb will burn just fine for 8 to 10 hours. Now good Pine is getting harder to find. I have about 500 cords available, but just the hauling cost is around $100 per cord and we did not have winter this year. Thanks

My wife liked the dry old fence boards cuz she could lite the fire. It's a training process, and I'm only into it 8 yrs, but she is getting better.. Next year we're working on lighting newspaper..

 

[thor97]

Never used to burn pine as it was capable of burning the house down with all the creosote in the chimney from the pitch in the pine. Now, however, with these extremely efficient wood stoves that recirculate the exhaust gases and burn all that pitch laden exhaust up, I have found that jack pine, in my neck of the woods, burns wonderfully in the woodstove. It is like the split has been soaked in kerosene with all the black smoke and explosive burning, and smells wonderful. I do have to season it for a year, but I now keep on hand a good face cord or two just for quick, fast fires. Don't ever put more than 2 splits in the woodstove with your other wood, as it will blow you out of the house. I put 3 splits in one night with the rest of the hardwood, when it was -20 outside, and in 10 minutes I had a stove roaring like a locomotive and burning red. It hit 750 degrees, and I was scared to death. I closed all vents and dampers and threw in a huge piece of oak to slow it down, and it settled down to about 550, and I left it alone after that. So, the moral of the story is, pine can be great firewood, just be careful!

 

[old CB]

"Next year we're working on lighting newspaper.."

Probably meant in humor, but it brings up something for those of us who live in the western conifer forest. Since every square foot surrounding my home and those of my neighbors' is carpeted in tinder-box dry fuel that wants to burn in the worst way, we spend much effort reducing the fuel around our homes. For me it provides full-time employment--95% of my business is "fire mitigation" work, cutting and removing trees and limbs that would serve as kindling for homes when a fire comes. We want a ground fire to sputter and run out of fuel about 30--50 ft away from the house.

Besides removing trees and limbs, and raking pine needles in the spring, at beer-time in the evening I often go around with a five-gal. bucket collecting pine cones and needles for fire starter. I generally have 4--5 buckets waiting in the shop, to last thru snow and wet times. (I also save all the little splintery bits that accumulate when operating the splitter.) Haven't burned any newspaper in years.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I burned white pine all one winter,

pitch isn't the problem, not drying the pine is!!

When I cleaned my chimney there wasn't any more build up than if I burned any other wood and I have an old style stove, not one of the new efficient models.

SR

 

[Beetlejuice]

Mostly pine.. Kinda smattering of different woods. And I sell out every year. Hard to keep the rotation..but thats my problem.. Its a space issue.

 

[old CB]

So with pine burning in the stove, I notice that I've got two small pieces almost heating me out of here (where I usually fill or at least half-fill the stove). Maybe the burn time is shorter--I don't time stuff. But a few more bits of fuel will keep the place good till bedtime.

Then a few small chunks will warm the place in the morning.

 

[siouxindian]

i only have the 1 trunk of this pine.but i have learned alot from all the replys and i am sure in the future everybody replys will be a great help to those like me that have not burner pine.thanks everyone very much.Dencie

 

[Streblerm]

Pine is fine indoor or out. If you need all night burns just leave the pieces bigger. I burn all I can get in my indoor woodstove. I like my dense hardwoods to season for 2 yrs but I find pine dries in as little as 6 months with full wind/sun.

 

[Ted Jenkins]

When I lived in Washington and Oregon we had an abundance of Lodge Pole Pine and it was decent. Many people liked it quite a bit. I really do not know for sure how it is since I have been in California for forty years. I remember going to many Western States to fight fires in them, but do no remember how good it burned. Thanks

 

[svk]

Something I like about our Ponderosa pine is that where a limb departs from the main stem of the tree is a rich deposit of pitch that really cranks out heat--and extends the burn time as well.

And a lot of stumps--not all of them--get super saturated with pitch. I believe after the tree is cut the root system is still pumping away. Some years later you find these stumps--I know them on sight--kick them out of the ground, and the pitch saturation is so great, the wood so heavy, that you want only small bits at a time in the stove. I split them up for fire-starter. It takes only a match, and the stuff burns with heavy, black smoke. The guys down east--Georgia and thereabout--make fatwood out of similar stuff.

Not every pine produces this stuff. The white pine I grew up with in the northeast is poor stuff in comparison. And those stumps rot in no time, no fatwood there.

We have pine stumps from a logging operation in 1912 that are still out in the woods. They welled up with sap and when the loggers burbed their brush the heat sealed all of that sap in. You can cut them with a knife and they smell like turpentine.

 

[Ted Jenkins]

I do not know what to call that stuff, but it is the greatest. Saturated Pine stuff or Pine Fat Wood. I keep an eye out for that stuff because it is so useful. Cut a small section and split it into 1/4'' slices ant take it home for the wife. It will make the house smell like Christmas or Pine Sol for a week or use a small chunk to start a fire. All you need to do is set a few pieces of wood in the stove and a chunk of Pine Fat Wood to get a roaring fire going soon.

 

[Marine5068]

I'm sitting in front of a pine fire right now, nice and hot. As we're living in a pine forest (Ponderosa pine), there are people here who burn nothing else but pine.

Me, I get all the hardwood I can from town, down at lower elevation, for cold days and overnight fires. But for a quick warm-up, and for the shoulder season, pine works. It's so dry in this country that anything cut and split by about mid-June is seasoned and ready for the stove by the fall burning season. You probably won't get such quick results in other locations.

Guess it depends of where you live.weather wise I mean.
We get very cold damp weather in Winter.
It usually starts snowing in October/November and stops in about March. But very damp because of all the water in our millions of lakes here in Ontario. We have 1/3 of all the water on the planet here. in the form lakes in glacier built holes in the Canadian Shield rock crust that makes it very humid and damp at times. Lots of mosquitoes too.
Temps in Ontario can go down to -40 C regularly so we need longer burn times to keep the cold out.
Actually most wood burners here don't primarily burn any softwoods if heating their houses by fire, they pass up Pine, Spruce and Fir or use it to supplement hardwood fires.

 

[sb47]

Drying times differ depending on several things. Location, weather, what form the wood is in, like logs, rounds or splits, all determine dry times. Most dumpsters at a new house construction site usually has plenty of pine a fer drop offs that make great firewood with minimal prepping.

 

[turnkey4099]

Pine does not sell here in Virginia to locals anyway.

That is one of the benefits of living where good hardwood is easily available. Out midwest and west, hardwood is rare.

Pine is about all we burned when I was a kid and that is in the days of wood cookstoves all year long with a wood heater in the winter. Central heat and electricity was just coming into common use after WWII