White Pine

[woodsHAM]

Good friend works for local tree service in town , asks if I had any interest in a load of pine logs. While I have access to plenty of hardwood i figured why not , it's free and can burn to just take chill out of house and mix in with my better wood. I let my wood season a year so pine will be worked ASAP and burned next spring and then early fall. Is white pine decent wood , have never burned it before

 

[peakbagger]

There is a definitely bias against white pine and old timers claim it will burns someone's house down. The reality is its not a very dense wood so when dry it doesn't last long and while its burning it burns hot. If someone has a smoke dragon pre EAP stove with lousy air control it can "take off" and burn real hot.

Many folks try to burn it wet and it can really crank out the creosote, mix that with its tendency to burn hot and it can be cause of chimney fires, far more the operators fault than the wood . Its great shoulder season wood when you just want a quick fire to take the chill off the house. It also makes great kindling. No need for fire starters if you have hand ax an chunk of dry pine.

 

[Slimjim]

It is ok for shoulder season, and it splits fairly easy. Most of the white pine I get ends up in the firepit or used for campwood.

 

[Boiler74]

White pine around here grows with "rings" of branches. I hope that makes sense. My next white pine I have to process I am going to cute between the rings for splits and push the branch rings into the burn pile. I love burning pine but if you process and split with those branch rings included you will have some hard to stack splits. You're trees may be different though.

 

[billb3]

It burns kinda fast. Eastern white pine can have a lot of flame ( at least it does if you let it dry out for a year like I do ) so I tend to not load up the stove. So I end up reloading much more often than some of the oak I've been blessed with in the past. It makes great kindling if you can split the pieces with no knots, but so do pine branches if you let them dry out for a year too. I've got plenty of both. With a small stove I like a load of it to get back to business in the morning. Or a quick fire to knock the chill out of the room. I'll have a pine fire if I get a load of oak or cherry coals and really need the stove to be a little hotter instead of trying to just burn the coals down.
I've heated with it because it was all I had, but would rather not.
It's light so carrying a huge armload looks impressive, at least to anyone who doesn't know better..

edit: and yeah, be careful splitting it in a hydraulic splitter, knots and twists can pop and splits go flying.

 

[Doug MacIVER]

A BTU IS A BTU! 1# pine = 1 # oak? pine 1# = ?sq.ft. 1#oak= sq.ft.? . burn it

 

[woodsHAM]

A BTU IS A BTU! 1# pine = 1 # oak? pine 1# = ?sq.ft. 1#oak= sq.ft.? . burn it

Agreed ! I mix in and burn hemlock with my hardwood and that's the only pine I have experience with. I guess it's too late anyway if they're no count since there's a load of pine logs laying in my yard !

 

[weatherguy]

I've been burning some the last couple of weeks, it doesn't coal at all so I throw a couple splits in when the mornings cold but expected to warm up during the day just to have a nice warm room to drink my coffee.

 

[FTG-05]

Of all the wood I have, the one wood that I'm hoarding is pine. I love it. Dries/seasons fast, starts super easy, burns hot. Doesn't burn long as others have said, but then again I don't live in Siberia - nor the American version of it.

I need to start calling some local tree services and see if I can get a bunch of free pine logs.

Thanks for the idea

 

[firefighterjake]

Great for kindling and shoulder season fires where you want a quick, hot fire.

 

[bunfoolio]

I love to burn white pine. When dry it's like throwing gasoline into the stove. Watch the fire show. Does not last long but I enjoyed burning about 2 cords this year