psst n00b, what do you really know about pine?

[Poindexter]

As usual, lots of threads this time of year, why isn't my wood drier, need more dry wood, that sort of thing.

It is time, I think, to review the joys of burning softwoods.

1. Softwoods like pines and spruces will dry very quickly once split.
2. Same will burn relatively hot and relatively fast compared to hardwoods like oak and ash.
3. Coal stage is very short, making lots of room to load more wood in the stove.

Downsides:

1. Lower BTU value for a given size stick
2. Spruce especially makes bark chips that are hard to vacuum out of carpet.

Lots and lots of older threads here about burning pine, if you search just the woodshed area here for keyword "pine" in the titles only there is a cast wealth of information here already.

I am not looking for everyone to type everything again. I am encouraging new burners to read up.

Briefly, if you split pine now in the lower 48, split it small, and stack it loosely off the ground, you can probably get some good out of it before the winter is over. You may have a gap in Jan and Feb where you have run out of dry hardwood, but your pine (esp covered on top) might be burnable in March.

I personally like about a 50-50 mix of hard and softwoods in my shed. All I can really get up here is spruce and birch, with a few species of each to choose from. Probably going to burn eight cords this year, glad to have spruce on my team.

Best wishes

 

[Poindexter]

The key to freeze drying wood is airflow. Don't staxk those green splits against the side of the house, put them out in the yard.

Also, if you stick a mm into a frozen piece of wood the meter will read 0% because there is no liquid water to conduct electricity.

Bring your test pieces into the garage for a couple days to thaw, then measure. For most softwoods you can mm them at +50dF and then add "one" for the actual mc at +70dF.

 

[JA600L]

I like the fact that nobody else wants the wood. That means there is a lot of it available for free.

 

[Babaganoosh]

I

I like the fact that nobody else wants the wood. That means there is a lot of it available for free.

I see craigslist ads for pine that last a few weeks. Ones for oak and even maple are gone in hours.

 

[branchburner]

The key to freeze drying wood is airflow. Don't staxk those green splits against the side of the house, put them out in the yard..

And criss-cross them loosely to maximize surface area.

I would add that because fully dried pine (and other lower-BTU woods like poplar) can be very light, you can sometimes be deceived into thinking it's drier than it really is if you try to judge just by how much water weight it loses.

Softwoods are especially great in the fall and spring when you only need a quick fire to take the chill off. Yet in my neck of the woods, probably 90% of burners still refuse to burn them, and believe pine itself means creosote and dirty chimneys... entirely false.

 

[kennyp2339]

I love burning soft woods, I just keep the pieces on the larger side 6-8 thick, and like the other post said, no one wants it so there's more for me.

 

[Squirrel]

At the weekend I heard a chipper running close by my house. I went to investigate and found some township guys with a truck full of chips standing around a large, recently standing dead, pine trunk.
Me - "Hi guys. What you gonna do with that?"
Bossman - "We're just deciding, Fred's gone for the backhoe"
Me - "I could use some kindling"
Bossman - "It's only pine ya know. That's a lot of kindling"
Guy 2 - "Can't burn that, its pine"
Bossman - "We gotta do something with it, How long do you need it"
Me - "10 inches but I can cut it"
Guy 3 - "10 inches will be easy to lift and load"

So I ended up with 1/2 a cord of dry 10 inch pine logs delivered to my back yard, wish you could burn the stuff.

 

[Bspring]

I have a wood stove in my lobby at work and when I am gone they refuse to choke it down so they will use 10 times more wood on those days. I think they start the fire and then forget about it. Anyway, I have not been able to change this behavior so I am only going to be bring pine to work. I have an unlimited supply of pine and will keep the oak for my house. They can burn as much pine as they want and it will save me from having to watch it rot.

 

[JSeery]

Yeah, I'm definitely a n00b who had just accepted the conventional wisdom not to burn pine. After soaking up all the information on this site, I can't wait to burn some pine. Too late for me to have any ready for this winter, but I'm going to make a point of finding pine this winter so I have some ready for next year. I know a tree guy who dumps/chips his, and there's a fallen dead white pine on the edge of my property (I'll cut into it and test it, might actually be ready for an early spring burn as I think it was from Sandy). Very exciting. I love the idea of pine being the secret of people who actually know something about wood heating.

Thanks to all you pine burners for spreading the good word. Now that I know about this, I'm never letting another tree service truck leave my neighborhood with pine rounds.

 

[bodhran]

As usual, lots of threads this time of year, why isn't my wood drier, need more dry wood, that sort of thing.

It is time, I think, to review the joys of burning softwoods.

1. Softwoods like pines and spruces will dry very quickly once split.
2. Same will burn relatively hot and relatively fast compared to hardwoods like oak and ash.
3. Coal stage is very short, making lots of room to load more wood in the stove.

Downsides:

1. Lower BTU value for a given size stick
2. Spruce especially makes bark chips that are hard to vacuum out of carpet.

Lots and lots of older threads here about burning pine, if you search just the woodshed area here for keyword "pine" in the titles only there is a cast wealth of information here already.

I am not looking for everyone to type everything again. I am encouraging new burners to read up.

Briefly, if you split pine now in the lower 48, split it small, and stack it loosely off the ground, you can probably get some good out of it before the winter is over. You may have a gap in Jan and Feb where you have run out of dry hardwood, but your pine (esp covered on top) might be burnable in March.

I personally like about a 50-50 mix of hard and softwoods in my shed. All I can really get up here is spruce and birch, with a few species of each to choose from. Probably going to burn eight cords this year, glad to have spruce on my team.

Best wishes

All I can get here is balsam fir and spruce for the most part...tamarack and birch isn't common on this part of the island. Birch is the only other wood that's used here and that has to be trucked in from central Newfoundland. People can't even get that anymore. I've always found that I get plenty of heat from softwood.

 

[DoubleB]

I reluctantly scrounged a cord of red pine this summer, mostly because it was already cut to length. Then I read that (at least on the charts) red pine has the same or more Btu's than box elder and silver maple, both of which I burn a lot of. So I have a new respect for pine (at least red pine) and will gladly take it from now on. Unfortunately I have to wait a couple more winters in my drying rotation until I get to burn and enjoy that pine.

 

[owingsia]

Buddy of mine was telling me after seeing my 4 cord of CSS pine that I cant burn that. He was over at his dads house and sees like 10 cord of pine at the back of the property and asked his dad about it. His dad said "What do you think I burn in fall and the spring? We have also gotten through a few winter storms on pine!" my buddy thought his dad had only ever burned hard woods. Growing up he always remembered the wood stove going all winter long. He never knew his dad was burning soft woods.

I love it because it helps heat up the house etc.. I love to run a full load in the evenings on a cold night. I start it at dinner time and run the stove hard... Once it coals up (not for long) I toss in the night time hard wood load. Those hot coals get it going and then I set it up for an overnight burn.

We once had a storm blow in and I had the house at 78-80 degrees off of pine. Neighbors had complained that they could not get the house warm enough with all the wind. I suggested they burn some of my pine and they all freaked out about dirty chimneys.

End of the burning season came by and everyone was getting their stacks cleaned... guy came and looked at mine and said "You dont need a sweep" he asked if I was doing hot burns ever few weeks. I said I burn a few loads of dry pine every so often and further explained that I would burn the pine hot and hard. He said "Yeah, wish more people would run those hot fires instead of smoldering everything it would be a lot safer for them.. then he stopped himself and said... ha then I would be out of work! "

 

[JSeery]

Are there any conifers I should NOT be burning? Although I live in the woods surrounded by plenty of oak and black birch, you've all convinced me to take advantage of any conifers that come my way. However, I just want to make sure there aren't some that I really should be avoiding. I was thinking cedar would fit into that category, but maybe that's OK too?

 

[Little Digger]

If it's wood, it'll burn! It's all BTU's to me. Pine, conifers, hard or softwoods. That includes cedar. I love the smell of cedar in either burning or lining the closet/trunk/dresser drawers.

 

[Oldman47]

Are there any conifers I should NOT be burning? Although I live in the woods surrounded by plenty of oak and black birch, you've all convinced me to take advantage of any conifers that come my way. However, I just want to make sure there aren't some that I really should be avoiding. I was thinking cedar would fit into that category, but maybe that's OK too?

That's easy. Don't burn anything you would rather use some other way. I have 4 tallish rounds of ash that my wife insists are seats so I won't burn them until she gets tired of those seats.

 

[TommyTally]

That's easy. Don't burn anything you would rather use some other way. I have 4 tallish rounds of ash that my wife insists are seats so I won't burn them until she gets tired of those seats.

Exactly. We have an abundance of wood this year, and instead of splitting it all, put some logs together on the ground to create a few more raised garden beds.

 

[Isaac Carlson]

The only thing I don't like about pine is the sticky mess

 

[Little Digger]

The only thing I don't like about pine is the sticky mess

That sticky mess, pitch or sap, can be cleaned from skin relatively easily using things in the kitchen. Olive Oil, Vegetable Oil, Margarine, Mayonnaise, and the list goes on. Or you could use gasoline, turpentine, possibly transmission fluid or lighter fluid from in the garage. At the end, use some sort of dish soap or you'd smell like whatever you used. I prefer the Olive Oil followed by Dawn dish soap. For cleaning from your equipment like chainsaws, turpentine works well.

Don't wear your Sunday go to meeting cloths because the chances are the pitch isn't going to come out. Since I seem to be doing a lot of painting around the house, I use those outfits when handling pine.

 

[Seanm]

Unless Ive missed it there is something that hasnt been discussed on this thread yet. Moisture meters are calibrated in many cases to doug fir and are meant to be used in 70. This means that when you use your moisture meter on pine and it says 20% it may be 25%! or if its below freezing you may not get an accurate reading. Some meters come with a calibration chart for different species but mine didnt. I emailed them twice and didnt get one response back. Not the end of the world just though you all should know.

 

[iamlucky13]

I have a wood stove in my lobby at work and when I am gone they refuse to choke it down so they will use 10 times more wood on those days. I think they start the fire and then forget about it. Anyway, I have not been able to change this behavior so I am only going to be bring pine to work. I have an unlimited supply of pine and will keep the oak for my house. They can burn as much pine as they want and it will save me from having to watch it rot.

Burning pine with the vent fully open? Maybe they'll learn to close the vent when the office hits 80 degrees.

 

[bodhran]

That sticky mess, pitch or sap, can be cleaned from skin relatively easily using things in the kitchen. Olive Oil, Vegetable Oil, Margarine, Mayonnaise, and the list goes on. Or you could use gasoline, turpentine, possibly transmission fluid or lighter fluid from in the garage. At the end, use some sort of dish soap or you'd smell like whatever you used. I prefer the Olive Oil followed by Dawn dish soap. For cleaning from your equipment like chainsaws, turpentine works well.

Don't wear your Sunday go to meeting cloths because the chances are the pitch isn't going to come out. Since I seem to be doing a lot of painting around the house, I use those outfits when handling pine.

Soak your woods clothes in a bucket with pinesol...works.