Burning Pine is it really ok?

[ABMax24]

If you're getting lots of pops are you sure it isn't spruce? Pine does pop some but not as much as spruce.

Either way both species dry very quickly. I cut some this winter and it's already 12%, and it
was left as rounds.

I could cut green pine on July 1st, split and stack it that day, and it would be under 20% by mid September.

 

[thewoodlands]

I measured this on freshly split wood using an axe. Stuck the prongs in the middle of the wood, perpinduclar to the grain. The wood rounds were sawed to about 16 inches last spring (2021). The pine has been sitting for a number of years, just bought the place a year and a half ago.

I did a clearing of a bunch of pines in 2018 for a new garage, we burn six face cord of shoulder season wood per heating season. We still have a bunch of log piles I've been working on since.

Last year I only had five face cord of shoulder season wood (pine) up but c/s/s 10 face cord this spring, I had a reading of 23 percent last week when I checked. The wood that I checked with the moisture meter was some of the last pine I stacked, it will be ready for this fall.

I have eight face cord of pine that has been top covered since spring.

 

[Draughts15]

If you're getting lots of pops are you sure it isn't spruce? Pine does pop some but not as much as spruce.

Either way both species dry very quickly. I cut some this winter and it's already 12%, and it
was left as rounds.

I could cut green pine on July 1st, split and stack it that day, and it would be under 20% by mid September.

It could have been spruce. The few pine splits (or what I thought was pine) I burnt last year was a mixed cord of wood I bought from an older lady, which was mostly oak and some maple. I haven't burnt any of the pine on my property yet. I'm guessing I have a couple cords I am now excited to cut and split.

 

[stoveliker]

Pine (or spruce) is satisfying; while you get less BTUs per stack (volume), it dries fast so the return on the sweat equity investment is quick.

To me, pine is part of a well-stocked woodshed.

 

[brenndatomu]

To me, pine is part of a well-stocked woodshed.

Exactly...why burn "the good stuff" on a cool fall day, when pine fills the bill perfectly?

 

[EbS-P]

It could have been spruce. The few pine splits (or what I thought was pine) I burnt last year was a mixed cord of wood I bought from an older lady, which was mostly oak and some maple. I haven't burnt any of the pine on my property yet. I'm guessing I have a couple cords I am now excited to cut and split.

My last free load of long leaf pine was so knotty and though to split and too short and too long to get me excited for another load. But the price was right. I have not been spoiled by good hard woods yet. Hurricane left a mess of poplar, pine and magnolia. Add some cedar (my neighborhood curb side clean up efforts…. Should have left it but I would have had to drive by it everyday for weeks/months)

Maybe February 2023 I’ll be far enough in to my stack to see if my red live oak is dry enough. And if it is my tune may change but right now free pine is free heat. To short or tough to split it still burns.

 

[bikedennis]

Here in the Trinity Alps (NorCal) folks don't like pne so it's easy to find. I also passed on it till this year. I now have a new Blaze King and get 12 hour burns with pine. I appreciate the easy pickins. BTW. my flue was clean with very little soot after a winter of burning mostly pine (<20% MC).

 

[bunfoolio]

The trick in not getting a chimney fire is to not have crud in your chimney.

If the pine is indeed 13 pct, it's safe to burn. Popping or no popping.(Though I would be a bit surprised for unsplit wood to be 13 pct. Did you measure it on the cut end or did you split it and measure it with the pins along the grain on the freshly exposed (because split) surface?)

I have burned 10+ cordsc in my stove without the popping being an issue. At 13% it will be a nice fire show!

 

[DonTee]

How about this, which is better (or worse, lol), burning pine, or burning poplar? If you had to choose a shoulder season wood between those two, which one would it be?

And I’m curious if the pine lovers are mostly cat stove owners or non cat stove owners.

I’m on the east coast and was always taught softwoods are bad for burning. Creosote in the chimney etc. Only after coming on this site did it really open up my eyes to what people in different areas burn.

 

[brenndatomu]

I burn both...and a bunch of Boxelder too

 

[stoveliker]

It's all BTU's. All is good - with "good" conditional upon dryness.

Poplar has less BTUs per cord though than pine, so you'll go thru it faster. Poplar may be half as much as oak (per cord)?

I also burn pine in dead of winter, when e.g. I have 12-16 hrs loads, and I need something shorter in between. Yes, I can load less, but I prefer to load it full and burn a bit quicker for the same heat output. So pine for those times - if I have it available.

Cat stove with thermostat tho. For me it really doesn't matter what I stuff it with, I just dial in and walk away. Oak in shoulder season just gives me 30+ hr burns. That's ok too...

The only thing I need to pay attention to is that the load is not "done" in the middle of the night - so in the middle of the winter I tend to do a good (harder wood) load in the evening, and then do whatever is needed the next day to tide me over to the evening reload.

Poplar would be suitable for that too. It burns quick though.

If the poplar is free, and you don't have anything else for free, take it.
If you end up with other wood for your stove, it's nice to burn in a fire pit. Burns quickly, so nice flames.

 

[EbS-P]

As someone who has burned quite a bit of both. My southern long leaf pine can rival oak on its btu content. It’s dense and pitchy. Poplar just doesn’t have the heat content. Pine smells more like campfire when burning. Poplar has great secondary combustion flames. Less yellow than pine. Pine coals better than poplar, but it’s not great. My pine leaves stringy ash deposits in my flue.

I like splitting poplar better. No sap.

Probably would choose pine.

 

[stoveliker]

yeah, our eastern white pine is not as BTU rich.

The sap forces a waterproof coating on your gear

 

[stoveliker]

Where does Poplar fall in the BTU chart

Because its not listed on the wood btu chart here http://www.chimneysweeponline.com/howood.htm Is it comparable to paper birch? we have lots of poplar in Alberta and can find the city cutting them down and leaving the wood for free pick up. Cheers

www.hearth.com

 

[ABMax24]

How about this, which is better (or worse, lol), burning pine, or burning poplar? If you had to choose a shoulder season wood between those two, which one would it be?

And I’m curious if the pine lovers are mostly cat stove owners or non cat stove owners.

I’m on the east coast and was always taught softwoods are bad for burning. Creosote in the chimney etc. Only after coming on this site did it really open up my eyes to what people in different areas burn.

Both, I actually prefer a 50/50 mix of pine and poplar over 100% of either.

Pine is often resinous and can produce soot when burned, burning poplar with it seems to combat this to some extent.

Now poplar should always have it's caveat, as there is at least a dozen sub species often denotes as poplar. In my case poplar is trembling Aspen, and good solid aspen makes pretty good firewood, partially rotten it does not. Other species like balsam poplar are garbage IMO.

The most extreme climates on this continent burn the most inferior woods for heating. I'm actually in the Northwest Territories right now and about 50% of the homes rely on some amount of wood heat. That wood of course is the short scruffy pine, swamp spruce and trembling Aspen trees covering the land scape. I also know they get winters colder than 99% of residents in North America see.

 

[stoveliker]

^^That. You burn what you have. If it's dry and affordable, it's good.
Discussion only ensues when a choice can be made. If poplar is all you have, it's the best there is...

 

[brenndatomu]

The interesting thing about "low BTU" wood that burns fast and doesn't tend to build up a pile of coals, is that many/most people don't realize that if you have a modern stove that you really need to push hard in exceptionally cold weather, (and you are home to do so) you can run a bunch of pine/poplar/etc through it and keep the stove hot, instead of letting the STT drop (and hence, the house temp) while you wait for the coal pile from the "heavy hitters" (like oak) to finish burning down. Kinda seems backwards, but I've done it, it works pretty darn well.

 

[DonTee]

I have some pine that’s called scotch pine I think. I’m going to take some of them out to make room for a barn. In the past I’ve just cut it up and thrown it in the woods. But I was considering saving it for some kind of burning next time.

In the past I’ve cut down white pine for lumber and just left the tops in the woods. That probably would’ve been good for burning also. I know the lumber scraps are good for starting fires for sure.

My poplar is actually big tooth aspen I think. I did cut up a face cord of that for shoulder season this year.

My issue with pine is it’s harder to split than the straight grain red oak, ash, and soft maple I’m used to splitting. But I hate to see it go to waste.

 

[patrickk222]

i burn pine every now and again and had no problems whatsoever with creosote or anythin

 

[Poindexter]

The interesting thing about "low BTU" wood that burns fast and doesn't tend to build up a pile of coals, is that many/most people don't realize that if you have a modern stove that you really need to push hard in exceptionally cold weather, (and you are home to do so) you can run a bunch of pine/poplar/etc through it and keep the stove hot, instead of letting the STT drop (and hence, the house temp) while you wait for the coal pile from the "heavy hitters" (like oak) to finish burning down. Kinda seems backwards, but I've done it, it works pretty darn well.

This exactly. I burn spruce only, even at -55dF. I LIKE the short coaling stage because I can reload on just a few short lived coals and have a raging firebox again, rather than wait for the coals to burn down. If I someday move back to the NE USA I will plan to burn long coaling stage woods like oak in spring and autumn when I only need a little heat out of the stove, and run spruce-pine-fir in deep winter when I don't want a firebox full of coals.

It is counter intuitive. High BTU/cord seems desirable, but in really cold weather short coaling stage is, to me, more desirable.

My local popple, one of the aspens, is aka "gopher wood" as in load one piece in the stove, 'go for' another. At 14M BTU/cord I can't recommend popple with spruce coming in at 18M BTU/cord and some wonderful sap globs in it, and mixed birch coming in at 22M BTU/ cord with a 'medium' (frighteningly long) coaling stage to go with the birch.

The other great thing about SPF (Spruce-Pine-Fir) is it is fairly easy to get it dry in one summer. SPF is the new burner's best friend.

Running dry spruce at 12-16% MC I routinely recover one half to one full kitchen measuring cup from my (roughly 18 foot) chimney pipe from four cords burnt. Grey/brown powder with some shiny black flecks in it. Once upon a time I read a hypothesis on the internet that folks maybe used to burn moist/wet oak until they ran out in Feb, building up creosote all winter. Then when they ran out of hardwood they would resort to their stack of pine, that was probably dry in one summer, have a chimney fire, and blame the fire on the pine that was dry enough to light off the creosote left behind by the damp hardwoods.

This idea rings true for me. I have been burning dry spruce only for >5 years. Dry fuel does not leave creosote in my pipe regardless of species. Damp and moist wood does leaves deposits in my pipe, regardless of species.

 

[brenndatomu]

Dry fuel does not leave creosote in my pipe regardless of species. Damp and moist wood does leaves deposits in my pipe, regardless of species.

I have noticed more dry fluffy soot buildup when burning pine though...and this stuff is super dry... I always assumed it was from the pitch pockets

 

[Eightball1313]

How about this, which is better (or worse, lol), burning pine, or burning poplar? If you had to choose a shoulder season wood between those two, which one would it be?

And I’m curious if the pine lovers are mostly cat stove owners or non cat stove owners.

I’m on the east coast and was always taught softwoods are bad for burning. Creosote in the chimney etc. Only after coming on this site did it really open up my eyes to what people in different areas burn.

yeah me too, i cant stand hearing people say how pine will burn your house down lol

 

[j7art2]

I'm late to the party, but here's a post of mine from 2015.

I scored something like 20 pickup truckloads full of pine. C/S/S, it was around 30 face cord. Pics can be found in the original thread. I heat solely with firewood and heated my house on nothing but pine for 2 years straight in northern Michigan with an external uninsulated 30' masonry chimney; literally about the worst chimney setup one can have. I had more black soot than other woods in my chimney, but had less hard and dangerous creosote as my pine was likely a lower MC than the previous years burning mixed hardwoods.

My pine seasoned from green to 16% MC in direct sun in less than 9 months. The pine slab I'm burning currently at 18% or less was C/S/S in March.

ignorance is bliss (massive wood score)

Free wood = me wood ;) j7art2 don't be telling too many people about pine. The more reformers there are the less pine for us! Haha

www.hearth.com

Pine is 100% fine to burn. It is an essential staple to my regular fire routines. My dad to this day still clings deeply to the myth and will let me harvest all of his dead pine, but won't so much as use a twig of his own to start his own fires.

Also, pine resin (AKA Fat wood) burns HOT. It's a natural hydrocarbon. If you take pine sap and put it in a still, you'll distill out terpentine -- that's what causes the extra flammability in your pine.

This year for the new stove, I bought a bundle of pine slab ($10 at the amish, one full cord full once C/S/S) and I'm regretting not buying more.

Next year, I'm going to get at least 5 bundles. I'd get a semi load, but I'm afraid it'll rot faster than I can burn it.

 

[DonTee]

The Amish sawmill by me offers pickup truck loads of pine/hemlock slab wood for 10$ a load. Already cut to size.

Another mill offers full length slab wood for free. You can cut it to length on site.

If people around here weren’t so anti burning softwoods, they would see there are many sources of free or cheap firewood right down the road.

Speaking of the Amish, they do burn softwood. Those guys have a fire in the woodstove/cookstove 24/7/365. And I have never seen an Amish person have a chimney fire. Or even clean their chimney. Lol.

 

[Dieselhead]

I've been burning a fair amount of eastern white pine (and just about every other softwood species) for a number of years now.

Great for the shoulder seasons when you want a quick, hot fire . . . or for making kindling . . . or for those days when you really don't mind tending to the woodstove a bit more.

Not so great at coaling.

I haven't noticed any issues whatsoever . . . other than the wood burns down quicker than higher BTU hardwoods.

As others have noted . . . it does need to be seasoned. I suspect one of the reasons for the "pine is bad" mantra among many Easterners is that even unseasoned pine may seem lighter in weight compared to a similar hardwood. If folks toss in unseasoned pine (thinking it is light and therefore seasoned) they will in fact produce creosote . . . much in the same way that unseasoned hardwood would produce creosote.

The only bit of caution I should mention (but it is probably in the "very rarely happens" category) is I once had some large bucked pine. Tried to burn them in the whole form in a small fire. It pretty much only seared the outside of the bucked pieces. A year or so later I finally got around to splitting those pieces up for use as campfire wood due to the twists and gnarly looking wood. That wood burned like no other wood I have had before or since then . . . it burned very intensely and unlike other wood had a dark, black smoke as if I was burning diesel (in fact a friend of mine called it "diesel wood.") All I can theorize is the first fire charred the outside and prevented (or slowed) the sap from leaving the wood and when burned the second time the dried sap burned a lot more intensely. Again . . . only happened the one time and it was with camp fire wood. It is however far more common to have the snap, crackle and pop from the pine wood -- a bonus for me when I am looking for some "action" in the firebox.

Possibly a lot of fatwood in that round. Once dry it's like oil burning... (I recently came into a few rounds with a lot of fatwood - cut it out and made fatwood starters; at 1/2" square they dried quickly. And it is like an oil lamp...)

Interesting enough I have taken down a few pines in my yard and have it stacked for a few years now. When I use it for campfire it gives off a not so pleasant smell and the smoke is black. I gave some to a friend with a solo stove and was over there last Saturday and noticed the black smoke was burning off through the secondary chamber holes and actually sending up soot bunnies (like running a oxy/acetylene torch wrong) and smelled like an out of adjustment oil burner.