Free slab wood ???

[mustash29]

I found a guy relatively close to me who is offering a significany quantity of free pine slab wood.

Would that be something worth while to use for kindling & quick shoulder season fires in my Englander 28-3500 furnace or bad idea due to the sap / creosote issue?

I've mixed in a bit of various pallet wood and some 2x4 scraps from home projects before with no issues.

Just thinking it might be worth while to pick up a pile, free, I have a trailer to haul it on.

 

[will711]

As long as it's seasoned and not green most folks out west all they have is softwood, pine, spruce & fir not as many hardwoods out there.

 

[chazcarr]

I found a guy relatively close to me who is offering a significany quantity of free pine slab wood.

Would that be something worth while to use for kindling & quick shoulder season fires in my Englander 28-3500 furnace or bad idea due to the sap / creosote issue?

I've mixed in a bit of various pallet wood and some 2x4 scraps from home projects before with no issues.

Just thinking it might be worth while to pick up a pile, free, I have a trailer to haul it on.

GET IT! I wood sculptor near me in Prospect, CT retired and wanted to get rid of all of his slab wood cast offs. They were dry and ready to use immediately and I heated almost exclusively with that wood for the first year of owning my stove. Burns great when you are home, and plenty of heat. I just had to use some Envi-8s for the night burns.

If I could get some more softwoods slabs I would be so happy. I even call tree services and many say they will drop them off, but none have yet. One other bonus is that they are very easily sawed to length if you have a sawhorse.

Lastly, my chimney was no dirtier than usual after burning it. I even used some of the slabs to make a nice bench for the porch.

 

[ScotO]

Slabwood burns fine (yes, even pine). Only downer with slabwood is it burns quick in most cases. But if you need some good shoulder season/daytime firewood, that would be a great deal there. That would help you save your more "primo" wood for mid winter and overnight burns....I'd say go get it, get it cut up and stacked.....

 

[Woody Stover]

I use a couple pieces of small Pine (finger-sized) to start a load. It gives off black smoke, but as long as it's dry it shouldn't be a creosote problem I wouldn't think. Because it burns a little dirtier I don't like putting a lot of that smoke through my combustor. But a lot of folks are burning Pine through Blaze Kings and other cat stoves, and I don't recall hearing of any problems....

 

[Backwoods Savage]

I found a guy relatively close to me who is offering a significany quantity of free pine slab wood.

Would that be something worth while to use for kindling & quick shoulder season fires in my Englander 28-3500 furnace or bad idea due to the sap / creosote issue?

I've mixed in a bit of various pallet wood and some 2x4 scraps from home projects before with no issues.

Just thinking it might be worth while to pick up a pile, free, I have a trailer to haul it on.

Sounds like you've heard the horror stories about burning pine mustash. Don't believe it. You'll no doubt have a problem finding anyone on hearth.com saying bad things about pine and it certainly does not cause chimney fires. Just dry it like you would with any other wood and it will burn fine.

The only word of caution would be that when you burn slab wood, it is best to not fill the stove with it. The reason is no matter how you load the stove there will be lots of air spaces and the wood will probably be really dry so it is possible to overheat the stove. So for shoulder season, fill the stove only half way. If you burn later in the winter, then mix it in.

 

[jeramy]

yes be careful with overloading the stove with dry pine.It can get scary quickly especially if there is still bark on the slabs.I heat almost exclusively with pine and fir.While I would not go out of my way to get it I have always gotten it for free and usually already cut to stove length,its not the best but definitely worth taking. Like some others said if not anything hack it up into 2x2 size pieces and they make good starter pieces

 

[Thistle]

Grab all that you can.Great to have around for early/late season & small quick fires in the evenings.

 

[Bster13]

Would packing your stove full with small splits of hardwood have the same problem of over firing? Just curious.

 

[mustash29]

Thanks fellas. Going to see if I can pick some up next week. I'll be sure to have the camera handy.

 

[pyroholic]

Would packing your stove full with small splits of hardwood have the same problem of over firing? Just curious.

It sure can, but the speed of the burn with the pine makes it more likely. But yes, you can definitely over fire with a full load of kindling regardless of the species.

 

[Bster13]

A little worried now that I've split my stuff as small as possible so it dried decently for my first year. *gulp*

 

[ScotO]

A little worried now that I've split my stuff as small as possible so it dried decently for my first year. *gulp*

3x3 is about as small as I split for burning wood....I split most of my stuff 4x4 to 5x5 as it seems to season best no bigger than that. Yes, I do have some monster splits that I use for the dead of winter, but you have to remember all of my wood seasons for 3 years......so it has plenty of time to dry out.

Don't sweat it.....you'll be fine. You are still on the learning curve that we all go through, keep with us here and you'll learn a lot.

 

[PapaDave]

Get it, dry it, burn it.

 

[pyroholic]

A little worried now that I've split my stuff as small as possible so it dried decently for my first year. *gulp*

A little worried now that I've split my stuff as small as possible so it dried decently for my first year. *gulp*

I would rather be careful with dry wood than care free with wet wood. Mostly because at least for your extra effort you will be warmer and have a clean chimney.

 

[Grisu]

I actually got fond of pine even in the midst of winter. Since it burns quickly and hot I could keep the stove cruising all day long when we really needed the heat. The pine burned off with little coals in a relatively short time frame. I could do a full reload when the stove and the house was still warm. With hardwood the coaling stage can take quite some time and the stove cools off to much for my liking. Raking the coals forward helped somewhat but at the end of the day I often ended up with too many coals and not much space for fresh wood when I wanted to fill it up for an overnight burn.

 

[Missouri Frontier]

A little worried now that I've split my stuff as small as possible so it dried decently for my first year. *gulp*

Check with others that know more than me about the BK stoves but, with the air control on your BK over fire would be tough. Get your cat up to temp throw the bypass and the start cranking it down. I don't think over fire is going to be a problem. The biggest problem with pine is that a full load might only get you a 20 hr burn time

 

[weatherguy]

Check with others that know more than me about the BK stoves but, with the air control on your BK over fire would be tough. Get your cat up to temp throw the bypass and the start cranking it down. I don't think over fire is going to be a problem. The biggest problem with pine is that a full load might only get you a 20 hr burn time

Was just going to type the same thing, I've burned lots of pine and small splits in mine you just have to keep an eye on it and turn it down quicker.No way will he get a 20 hour burn, maybe 18 if he's lucky

 

[PapaDave]

No way will he get a 20 hour burn, maybe 18 if he's lucky

Yeah, that'd be tough to live with. Only an 18 hour burn.
I should have that kind of problem.

 

[basod]

Slab wood is great stuff, just build some type of 2x4 jig to cut it in if your getting a lot of it - The squared edges will catch a chain and throw a piece at your shins.

I always grab a few slabs after filling the bag, first thing on a hot bed of coals in the morning or evening

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Would packing your stove full with small splits of hardwood have the same problem of over firing? Just curious.

If you pack a stove with small splits, you'd best know what type of wood it is and how that wood tends to burn. For example, many hate cottonwood or even the thought of it but I'd hate to pack a stove with small pieces of dry cottonwood! But there are many types of wood, we we normally call soft wood that can and will burn hot and fast if you are not careful. This is just one more reason to learn what kind of wood you have and learn how it burns.

 

[chazcarr]

Here is a pic of the bench I made from slab wood.

 

[pyroholic]

Cool bench!

 

[ajreid]

I like that bench.

 

[firefighterjake]

Slab wood . . . dries pretty quickly and as mentioned is great for saving your good wood for the deep of the winter by burning it when you need a quick, hot fire without a lot of "legs." Also it's handy to have on hand for reloads and for starting a fire. Free is almost always good.