A Little Free Pine

[Catfish Hunter]

I was at the dump and there was some decent pine just sittin' around, picked up a load and after reading about everyone burning it on here I'm going to keep some around. Added about 10 minutes to my day since I was at the dump anyway. Burn baby burn...

 

[Lake Girl]

Good deal ... great for those shoulder seasons and for kindling!

 

[baseroom]

Hmmmmm I might be disposed to grab some free spruce! Not sure though......still a bit jaded from the lies from my past! Good score! Any wood is better than no wood.

 

[Catfish Hunter]

Hmmmmm I might be disposed to grab some free spruce! Not sure though......still a bit jaded from the lies from my past! Good score! Any wood is better than no wood.

I'm with you, there isn't much of this around, but just lying there so tempting I thought why not give it a shot. I just split it so I'll just toss it in the wood shed and check back in three years or so.

Now it's time to get serious, a neighbor has several large old sugar maples that he wants me to cut up...(I might need a bigger saw!)

 

[firefighterjake]

Once you start burning pine in the shoulder seasons (not to mention as kindling) and you see how you're saving your "good wood" for when it truly is cold you'll be happy you spent those few minutes loading up the pine.

 

[Dobish]

great score! its easy to split too! (i like that part best ! )

 

[HisTreeNut]

You picked up some free pine??? Don't burn it, what ever you do! ! !
I burned some pine once...and not just a split or two to get the stove going, but I mixed it with hardwoods. Not only was it pine, but some of it was on the punky side as well. The wood burned nice & hot and took the chill off the house. It burned for several hours and left a good coal bed...the stove really liked it. But I did not stop there. I keep putting more in as the coals burned down.
Then it happened...all of my neighbors became zombies, these 4 guys on horses keep riding through town yelling about some apocalypse thing, planes started falling from the sky, cars crashed everywhere, the ground constantly shook, an energy vortex of some kind slowly started absorbing the sun & everything in the sky, and my family disappeared. Don't burn pine...pine is bad!

Just kidding...my family is still around but the rest is true.

Great score there...splits pretty nice also. I was able to split 36" rounds with my mighty, mighty, Fiskars. Looking forward to the 2017-2018 shoulder season with what I have stacked.

 

[Seanm]

@HisTreeNut that was funny. To the op, many of us burn large amounts of pine in the north, north west. Lodgepole pine (15.3 mbtus) is what I burn during the day as well as some doug fir (17.5 mbtus) and then use larch (19.5 mbtus) for overnight burns. Free pine is great. I wouldnt leave it three years though unless you must. Most pines are ready in the fall if harvested green in the spring as long as its processed properly. Very,very dry pine will off gas to quickly in your stove making a mess of your glass and belch black smoke, not to mention what it does to your stove pipe. Glad you got an easy score. The benefits of burning pine are numerous. You will get a hot, quickish, clean burning fire that will keep you warm even in the coldest weather. FYI I can get a 5-6 hr burn out of a 3/4 box load in a non cat.

 

[red oak]

Another advantage is it dries fast. Really really fast. I have had it in the stack for 4 months (over the summer) and it burned like a dream. And free is even better!

 

[Catfish Hunter]

I'm getting this split and it might be dry enough this winter - really drying fast!

 

[JA600L]

You will love burning pine. I saw a different side of my stove when I threw pine in. It is also very handy in the coldest months when you are pushing a lot of hardwoods through the stove and get coal build up. Put pine on top of the coals and it burns them down quickly.

 

[onetracker]

I burn a 1/2 cord every fall and a 1/2 cord every spring. it sure feels good not to burn 2 year seasoned oak when its 40 degrees outside.

 

[Hogwildz]

Do yourself a favor, don't load the stove full with small to medium pine splits, unless you want a serious nuclear fire show. I split pine a little on the large side, and jumbo size. Works well for me. Great sacrificial starter to get a cold stove up to temp quickly, and great shoulder season burning.

 

[mstoelton]

I love burning pine. Great for the shoulder seasons and it is lighter to carry from the pile than the hardwoods!

 

[Seanm]

Yeah heed @Hogwildz advice.... dont stuff it full of pine. I burn the high for pine btu lodgepole during my daytime loading all winter long and average a 3/4 full load and get a real shot in the arm heating out of it. Out here we burn lots of pine and not just for shoulder season. Pine is the bomb lol!