pine works AMAZING at burning down coals

Yes, pine should work well as does kindling or very small splits.

I use it for the same purpose. Oh, and the heat. :cheese:

The natural resins in pine do indeed burn very well. I burned about 2/3 a cord of pine this year that was between 18% and 20% moisture content. It all burned clean and hot. I get the same stove top temps with pine as I do with oak, but I don't get 1.) the length of burn time and 2.) the nice bed of coals needed for an easy morning restart when using pine.

Pine burns fast because it is not very dense. It has a lot of air spaces in the wood that oak, etc. does not have. That, along with the natural resins, helps pine to go up pretty quick. It is, however, one of my favorite woods to burn, and I try to use it exclusively during the shoulder seasons when starting a cold stove. I can go from cold to a 600F stove top in about 30 minutes.

I just moved to Richmond, VA, after 6 years in Colorado. Unfortunately, I had a pellet stove there, in spite of owning 72 acres covered with pinon (a type of pine). According to my Pocket Ref, pinon pine is the most energy-packed wood. It has 33.5 million BTUs/cord, compared with 32.9 for osage orange, 29.2 for hickory, and 26.4 for red and white oak. All that fantastic firewood and I didn't use it (slaps forehead)!

DanCorcoran said:

IAccording to my Pocket Ref, pinon pine is the most energy-packed wood.

Click to expand...

Which pocket ref are you using?

This table:
http://www.rfcafe.com/references/general/wood-combustion-heat-values.htm
and this one:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/wood-combustion-heat-d_372.html

list pinion at 33.5. I think it's definitely the "king" of pine, but I'm not sure it's quite that high. I burn it almost exclusively. It has extremely high heat, but without the long lasting coals of a nice hardwood. Some long dead pinion can be so full of dried resin that makes the wood burn like it's soaked in diesel--hot, and smoky black.

a pine species with higher numbers than osage c'mon

must be soaked in diesel if a dry cord of pinon weighs about a ton less than a dry cord of osage orange yet produces more btus.

I'm using the Pocket Ref by Thomas J. Glover.

Yeah . . . pine . . . or any softwood for that matter . . . usually works pretty well to burn down the coals . . . toss a softwood split or two into the firebox, open up the draft and voila (or walla if you prefer . . . sorry . . . inside joke) in a half hour or so the coals will be signifcantly reduced.

Hey Dan,

Welcome to Richmond! Probably not quite as pretty as Colorado here, but lots of free firewood to be had since there's not many serious woodburners around! Oh, and the early Spring weather is great too. I'll withold judgement on the Summer.... :red:

Thanks, pulldownclaw. I lived in Houston for 20 years before Colorado, so I'm not too worried about Richmond summers (maybe just as hot, but at least they're not 6 months long.)