Pine.. burn or not to burn?

I've got a pre-EPA stove and pine burns quite well in the thing. Once I dry the pine.

+1
Pretty much the only hardwood trees we have around here in Washington are the ones people have growing in their yards. Outside of town all we have are them needle trees.

So your only chance at harvesting any decent hardwoods is under the cover of darkness.

If a tree falls while the neighbor is sleeping, does it make a sound?

"DO NOT BURN PINE" mantra is for wood snobs...the other end of the spectrum is "I would never drink wine that has a screw top" good wine is good wine.....BTU's are BTU's. Pine dries out 3x's as fast as hardwood, it burns fine, you use a more of it as it does burn quicker, but it is great wood, nothing wrong with it.

Enjoy the heat.

A sound? No not at all.

What you do is during a good wind storm like we had about a month ago and now. You cut the tree down when it (key word) LOOKS like its going to fall over on you house. Then you claim you did it to protect your house.

Not that I have ever done this.... Wind sounds like its pick up pretty good outside. This maybe my chance to get something from my neighbors.

Pine cones are good as fire lighters, too. We were lucky enough to be given lots of pine which came from a friend's taverna garden. Blew down in a gale last year shedding thousands of cones and smashing his storeroom. Fortunately nobody was hurt and we have enjoyed wonderful heat from the logs mixed with olive wood. One thing to be careful of is that you do tend to get sparks from pine when you open the stove door so you need to be prepared.

One note of caution:
If you start burning too much pine that wine in a box starts looking rather attractive.

I drink wine out of a box the use the box for kindling..LOL..It works just fine getting the draft up though leaves a bit of ash so only use it if I clean the stove down to bare bricks.

well the lumber company around my house just called this morning and was going to swing past my house with the logging truck to see if he wanted to buy the pine i recently cut down... waiting to hear back from him.. if he doesn't buy it then take the picture above i posted and times it by 3... lol

Yes - great point. I'm a scrounger and do 99% of my work with an axe. Pine is a treat to split and stack. I would be very happy to have that stack of rounds on my property.

I have a couple acres of hardwoods and love the maple and yellow birch I burn, and I'm in Canada - but I can pretty much guarantee not one piece of that pine would go to waste. Split it big, it will be awesome by next winter. Even in my non-cat - I'd be happy to throw a piece or 2 in with the hardwoods, and/or feed the stove a bit more often, etc. Lots of free heat...

You guys must have unlimited time to split and stack wood. I can barely find time to do the 12 - 14 cords I am doing per year (6 to use, 6 to get another year ahead), and I wouldn't be wasting my time with Pine for anything but kindling, unless I ran out of hardwoods to split and stack. Thanks to Sandy, I think it will be a LOOOoooong time before I run out of hardwoods.

I do split cedar for kindling, since I seem to always have a cedar tree blowing over or falling down, but again... only for kindling.

I think they are just saying not to give or throw it away.
I have burnt some pine with very good results.

i make the hardwood my first wood of choice when it comes to c/s then ill move to that pine when i finished with that... im young and from the time i get home til dark im outside playing around my 5.5 acres... so splitting a little here and there adds up...

You're on the right road kid..kudos!

i'm sure what neighbors i do have love the wake up call i give on the weekends.. its either the john deere, the husqavarna saw, or ripping around on my ranger side x side...

Give it to her!
We run snowmobiles ..quads ..go carts and a occasional chain saw!
But I don't and will not smoke them out!

Fortunately Sandy didn't come close to NC so scrounging isn't what it is in your neck of the woods. I do remember when hurricane Hugo hit here in '89. It was heaven for scroungers like me. Course I was 38 at the time with a LOT more energy than I have now.

Actually just the opposite for me - time is really tight - but I love playing around outside and often try to find any excuse to do so when I can . And the OP had this great pile of pine literally dropped on his doorstep. Give it away? Only that which would otherwise rot (or to a friend or neighbor in need). No it's not a substitute for a nice pile of hardwood. But as mentioned, this stuff is so easy to split and handle that it would be a fraction of the effort (my back still hurts from some of the big knarly yellow birch knots) - and it's already "delivered" - and there's no ready supply of hardwood (if I read the posts right). So it's all good IMHO.

Also I have to admit, I'll tear into a couple pine or spruce or cedar rounds just to round out an afternoon, or as "confidence builders" when I first pick up the axe. Nothing like seeing those big splits fly almost as fast as I can sit the next round on the block...

I could put some box wines in a glass and put them next to a glass from a $250 bottle and 99% of the folks out there would say they prefer the box wine. Pine burns fine, just shorter burn times.

Got 6 cords of free pine in the round,
Lucky cuz not much time on the ground,
Cut, split and stacked for bout a year,
In quick drying time, pine has hardly a peer,
Like any wood, it needs to season,
Moisture causes creosote, dat's the reason!

Burn that pine up if anything you have to worry about it burning too hot !

I constantly run noisy stuff my retard loud air tools and my bad habit of running chainsaws always gets a neighbor or two over for some home brew beer !

Pete

That is a beautiful supply of wood you have there.

Half our fuel supply every year is beetle kill pine. I heart pine!