Convince me its okay to burn pine

DaveInPhilly said:

I have burned wood for more than a decade, but this is only my third year with a stove. I mostly burn ash and oak, but last winter we lost a big pine in one of the ice storms. I cut it, split it and stacked it (well away from my main wood stacks,) and it seems pretty dry (I have not put a meter on it yet) but it has these giant pockets of sap that just scare the heck out of me.

I know a lot of you guys up north, and at high elevations burn pine without hesitation. If you were me, would you burn it? I probably have the better part of a cord stacked.

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Burn it. Sounds like it’s dry. It burns hot and fast. Use a couple pieces in the morning to get the going again. Or just mix in a piece or two in with your more familiar wood.


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let it dry, then burn it. I burn a ton of pine. Most of colorado only burns pine because we don't have access to other stuff.

DaveInPhilly said:

I have burned wood for more than a decade, but this is only third year with a stove. I mostly burn ash and oak, but last winter we lost a big pine in one of the ice storms. I cut it, split it and stacked it (well away from my main wood stacks,) and it seems pretty dry (I have not put a meter on it yet) but it has these giant pockets of sap that just scare the heck out of me.

I know a lot of you guys up north, and at high elevations burn pine without hesitation. If you were me, would you burn it? I probably have the better part of a cord stacked.

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95% of what i have put through my stove is jack pine. No issues - it burns nice and hot and is easy to get going. Also seasons relatively quickly. Send it up to me if you don’t want it!

I burn about a cord or so of it annually. I notice those pockets of pitch as well. Not to worry, that pitch (aka:sap) does not cause creosote. Green or wet wood will though. I’d burn more of it if I had it.

DaveInPhilly said:

I have burned wood for more than a decade, but this is only my third year with a stove. I mostly burn ash and oak, but last winter we lost a big pine in one of the ice storms. I cut it, split it and stacked it (well away from my main wood stacks,) and it seems pretty dry (I have not put a meter on it yet) but it has these giant pockets of sap that just scare the heck out of me.

I know a lot of you guys up north, and at high elevations burn pine without hesitation. If you were me, would you burn it? I probably have the better part of a cord stacked.

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Depends on the stove my guess,non cat stove well seasoned couple of hours at best,cat stove ,particularly BK,full load well seasoned 8 hours easily.

I try and usually fail to convince people around me that it is OK to burn pine--that is why my stacks are full of it Some time, I think back in the 80s the EPA did some tests in open fireplaces to see if pine created the creosote problem that it was infamous for. To the researchers' surprise, the pine was not associated with increased creosote build up. Pine tends to season faster and burn hotter (and of course faster) than hardwoods. For this reason creosote is less likely to form, as slow, smoldering fires (usually caused by wet wood) are the cause. I'm not saying that I go out of my way to get pine, but I don't pass it up if it is easy--heck people on CL often have it already cut up for me! Unfortunately you're too far away for me to come get the pine if my argument doesn't work.Seriously, it is fine to burn. Oh, and the pitch that my grandfather convinced me that would "gum up the chimney," actually acts as an accelerant.

I burned almost 100% pine last year. Other than having to stoke the stove a lot more than oak its awesome. Sap burns like gas at least when its dry. Hardly anything sticks to the stovepipe and it leaves very little ash. Once you learn to leave a couple inches of ash/coals in the bottom for slower overnight burns you'll like it better.

Jazzberry said:

I burned almost 100% pine last year. Other than having to stoke the stove a lot more than oak its awesome. Sap burns like gas at least when its dry. Hardly anything sticks to the stovepipe and it leaves very little ash. Once you learn to leave a couple inches of ash/coals in the bottom for slower overnight burns you'll like it better.

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I just got rid of my Blaze King Woodstove. Burned 90% pine and some Cedar and Such. Some of it has bad smell, but the big thing to watch out for is sap. It can cause mini explosion of SMOKE. Make sure you gasket is good.

It's good wood. Load up my stove at 8pm and it would be good until 5am.

Lots of Heat

CSS it for a year or two and then burn it...the pieces that have lots of sap pockets should be saved for "fat lighter", that stuff works great!
Mix the pine in with other wood at first until you get used to how your stove runs on it.

Well, since you already wasted the time to split and stack it, rather than drag it out to the woods as you should have done, you might as well burn it. It’ll be a good lesson in why folks only want to buy hardwood, where it’s available. Be prepared for shorter burn times.

I’ve been burning a decent amount of pine from some trees we had cut down on the yard. Great for kindling and mixing some smaller pieces in with some hardwoods. If I burn just pine, it’s usually a smaller load in the shoulder season. I’ve had no problems controlling the burn rate. Sure the burn times are shorter than hardwood, but you get more heat out of the pine in your stove than it rotting in the woods behind your house.


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Ahh the pine myth, we deal with that a few times a year, so here it goes...… Many people that burn regular hardwoods don't burn correctly, they either have an older stove that they "damp" down to a smoldering mess for longer burn times or they are burning relatively under-seasoned wood.
As with most myths, many novices or under educated wood burners primarily in the hardwood zones of the country will have a mixture of wood, stuff they harvest in the summer, split in the fall and burn in the winter, they will separate the pine (possibly used as kindling or last resort firewood) The pine ends up sitting on a rack for a full season, then bam.. we have a long bad winter, the normal 4 cords of wood is wiped out by march, but its still cold.. the light bulb goes off on the pine that's been sitting on the back rack for a year, they grab the pine and load it in the stove. Now the wood burner is burning truly seasoned "dry wood" in a stove that has been burning damp hardwioods all winter, the chimney is dirty with crud, the operator doesn't adjust the air because they're not use to doing that, the pine lights off, burning quick and hot, lighting off the creosote that built up in the chimney. The pine load didn't do anything wrong, the operator of the stove did many things wrong, like burning under seasoned wood (wood above 20% moisture) not keeping a clean chimney, not monitoring or adjusting the air after a few minutes of loading the stove.
Moral of the pine / soft wood myth... burn only dry wood <20% moisture content, check your chimney after every 2 cords of wood, clean it as necessary, monitor your fire / stove top temps, if you do those things, you can burn all the wood you want.
This isn't made to scare you, but if you need me down by your house with my truck and trailer to take away that pine you have, I'll be glad to do so.

Well @DaveInPhilly , we all know burning pine causes baldness, ED and chronic leg cramps. Don't burn it! PM me your address and I will pick it up!
I am close to Philly.

Jan Pijpelink said:

Well @DaveInPhilly , we all know burning pine causes baldness, ED and chronic leg cramps. Don't burn it! PM me your address and I will pick it up!
I am close to Philly.

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Don't wait for him to pick deliver it to me
Why suffer any after effects just send it off
quick as possible

I thought I'd never burn pine, but now I want my stacks to be 1/3rd dry pine. Don't waste good hardwood on days where you only want to take the chill out of the house. And on weekends in the dead of winter, when I can feed the furnace all day, I'd rather feed three loads of pine, than 1 of oak, saving the oak for overnights or weekdays. The shorter burn times are better sometimes. When I get home from work at 5, I don't want to load up 8 hours of hardwood. I get a quick, hot 3 hour pine burn, the furnace is up to temperature and the house is warm.

Jan Pijpelink said:

Well @DaveInPhilly , we all know burning pine causes baldness, ED and chronic leg cramps. Don't burn it! PM me your address and I will pick it up!
I am close to Philly.

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Are we to assume you'll burn the pine because your already bald, have ED and leg cramps?

weatherguy said:

Are we to assume you'll burn the pine because your already bald, have ED and leg cramps?

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And even more.

Burn it.

Burning 100% pine here.... Just had my chimney cleaned, 6" liner that goes up two stories and the technician said they pulled about a half gallon of creosote out (one year worth). He said that's about normal, nothing to worry about. For context that's from burning 4 cords worth of pine last season, some of it not fully seasoned.

Pine burns hot and fast, but also dries very fast (especially in my climate). In my experience I've had it go from saturated, splashing water wet when trying to split (40%) in the spring to bone dry by fall (15%).

I'd love to have access to hardwood but I live in a pine forest, as you can see in the background.

DaveInPhilly said:

@Ashfull, for what its worth, I thought it was just going to be campfire wood, but it turned out to be a lot of campfire wood.

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I hear you... and no need to explain yourself to me. If a pine fell in my yard and I had no better way to get rid of it, I’d split it and burn it. I’d probably split it small, to use as kindling, but whatever.

My point was more that, with ample hardwood around and time in short supply, I wouldn’t be spending those precious hours to collect or process it. The amount of wood I burn in a year, and thus the amount of oil $ I save per year, is dependent on only one limitation: time.

Dry and burn it just like any other wood. It does burn hot and fast, make sure your chimney is clean and temper down the air intake. I usually go through about a cord each year for shoulder season.