Felling pine tree

[swagler85]

Dropped this pine and one other smaller pine at the new house today. It was cold out there, the one in the video was about 20" at the base but very tall. Dropped it within about 5 feet of where I had planned. I was glad for that since this tree is only about 10 feet off the house. Went really well.

 

[Jerry_NJ]

Nice job, so now what are you going to do with all that pine?

 

[Bret Chase]

I personally don't like dropping pines... a 20" one generally isn't bad, but when you get into the "bull" pines (aka eastern white pine 2'+) you NEVER know what those things are going to do.... they can look absolutely perfect on the outside but have a completely rotten core... or barber chair, or spin on the stump as they fall...

... as you can guess pines are not my favorite to fell...

 

[swagler85]

Nice job, so now what are you going to do with all that pine?

not sure yet, I brought it home in log length so I could make boards from it. A guy down the road has a sawmill. Or I could cut and split it, not sure yet. Dont really need the firewood but cant hurt to get further ahead

 

[Bret Chase]

saw it up for boards!

 

[Jerry_NJ]

Bret, I now have a better understanding of what happened on my property when Sandy hit the N East Coast (New Jersey) late last October. I lost several large Eastern White Pines and in the process incurred damage to some equipment I had parked under them. I looked at them in the context of the coming storm for which we, about 40 miles from the shore, expected to seem mostly high, but not hurricane force, winds. I thought the pine, some with multiple trunks that join at the base into a trunk about 30" or more across. These just snapped in the wind, the roots are still firmly connected in the ground, the trunks snapped.

I am in the process of cutting the trunks into rounds that I can move and I figured much as I prefer the Easter Hardwood for my wood stove I would split some for firewood use next year. I am nervous about burning pine and that's why I asked here what the originator planned to do with his pine, which may be different than my White Pine.

 

[swagler85]

There are lots of threads here on burning pine. I have burned a little but am not afraid to, currently have about a cord C/S/S for next year. Ive concluded that if its dry I have no problem burning it.

 

[Wood Duck]

The tree in the video looks like spruce, but it is hard to tell in the video. Either way it will burn nicely and could be ready next year if it is split and stacked soon. Pine, Spruce, Fir, and other conifers all burn hot and fast compared to hardwoods, so be a little cautious until you get used to how to burn it. I really like pine and spruce when I want to get the stove hot in a hurry.

 

[Jerry_NJ]

Thank, then the pine I have may work well meeting one of my needs.

I heat mostly with a geothermal heat pump (Waterfurnace brand great name as it uses water to exchange heat with the earth), and I like to turn the heat down at night.

When home on a cold night, right now in NJ, I will heat from dinner up to about midnight and will thrown on a couple of large hardwood splits before going to bed. This method yields at least 10 hours of wood heating, and a slow turn on of the heat pump during the night, the fireplace insert is still warm and loads of hot coals at 7 AM. Here's the spot Pine should really work - I turn the HP up, slowly to try to keep it out of resistive auxiliary being switched on, and try to get a quick hot fire going. That is possible with small splits of hardwood, taking about 10 minutes. If Pine would ignite real easily and get hot quicker, great then after a hour of building a Pine coal base the hardwood, in goes some larger splits of hardwood. This may also mitigate creosote build up from the Pine, if that is a real problem. .