Welcome to the forum Skibum . Great to have you. You will find lots of knowledgeable folks here willing to share and advise. Lots of humor too. (i fall into both, well at least the latter). You are correct in the lack of Montana members. I only recall seeing one other active one in the several months ive been on here. Some real nice looking stacks you have there. My cousin lives in Columbia Falls, MT and he says its all softwoods as well.
About 1,000 sq. ft., single level. Insulated well enough with 6" studs, but the house is a 25-year-old manufactured. The stove was put in at a central location by the original owner (who I bought from) when built, and I'm pretty sure it's oversized for this house.
Thanks, Brad! Kinda back on topic as well, I've had pretty minimal creosote buildup when making sure I'm burning hot enough. Manufacturer of my stove says up to 30k BTU/hr, but I don't always run full-blast unless it's really chilly out. I have the chimney swept once a year or so and it's been great!
Southwest Montana, Bozeman area! Only a couple hours from Yellowstone, which can be a big temperature sink. On the plus side, I'll be plenty warm when the super volcano blows it's top!
I'm liking all the lodgepole rounds you have there on the left of the picture. I'm not an Montanian, but a Westcoaster who also mainly burns pine and fir. Welcome to the forum!
Hi Skibum and welcome to the site. Pull up one of those big Pine rounds to the fire, have a seat and grab a cup of coffee! Great looking firewood and all neat and squared away also! I burn a lot of Doug Fir here in WA St. and it does fine. Lots of positive aspects to softwoods. Probably the biggest negative is the lesser BYU density when compared to many hardwoods. However, when you look at the big picture, availability, ease of starting, less ash and quick curing go a long way to even things up.
You guys that say that pine is just fine... as I said, I have never seen anyone burn it down here as a main wood and few use it at all. The loblolly and shortleaf pine here... sap can be a real chore to deal with. How do you deal with pine and not have sap on everything? Or is it just our southern pines that do that? If you let the logs sit awhile before cut/split, does that help? Let them get kinda dry before handling them?
A lot of old growth Fir has interior stress cracks that can be quite full of pitch. I guess our answer is to just be sappy and do what you gotta do to get the wood in! I have dedicated overalls, shirts and gloves that I wear. If I ever caught fire, I'd go out in a blaze of glory!
As metalcuttr said, I too have a dedicated set of clothes for processing the wood, however the Lodgepole, Jeffery and Ponderosa pine doesn't have too much pitch or any at all, unless the tree had previously been injured.
Thank you! Indeed, those trees were nice and straight. Thanks, metalcuttr! Agree with all that. Luckily the pine/fir I tend to find (lodgepole, subalpine fir, some occasional douglas fir) really isn't full of sap up here. Much of what I get is dead-standing or fallen beetle-kill. One year I did get a whitebark pine tree that was about 24" at the trunk, had been uprooted due to wind. NEVER AGAIN. More sap than any other pines up here, but the grain was twisty as hell and not fun to split (I split all by hand).
It's been a while since I dropped in....In Oregon I cut wood in the National Forest. A cord permit cost $5.00 (minimum 4 cords must be purchased). For better than 28 years I have cut Tamarack or Douglas Fir. 8 years ago I started burning North Idaho Energy logs (NIELS) due to work travel taking me away from home. Then 3-4 years ago a local tree arborist started delivering full length tree trunks. Black walnut, black locust, silver maple (ugh), cherry and some birch. So I cut to 17", split and stacked under cover. The NIEL's burned spectacularly and my wife preferred them. Then I started into the hardwoods from the arborist and they had now been plenty seasoned. While there was a tremendous amount of heat production, extended burn times...there were also huge amounts of coals. When it get cold (around 0) and we increase the burn rate, those coals keep us from putting another 80-100 lbs in the stove. More like 50 lbs in a load. The softwoods of the NW and NIELS just cook down to ashes leaving plenty of room for the next load. So I decided if I don't acquire NIELS, I would go up and cut some Tamarack and Douglas fir. Well, there's now left within a 1.5 hour drive! The only ones are live trees. It seems the wood cutters have basically cleaned up the Umatilla National Forest. So we grabbed 3-4 really nice lodge pole pines. Dead, standing, no bark. Checked the MC of 3-4 pieces and had a fire last night and found zero coals this morning! Perfect! Now I have to finish up about 6 cords of hardwoods and in 2 years I will start back into the softwoods. There is nothing wrong with burning pine. The most important factor to being satisfied with heat production of your fuel, regardless of species, is burning dry wood. Yes it's good for the environment and that good and all, but it vastly helps in heat production.
Welcome, BKVP, good post, I learned something! Those NIELS are cool. I like the thought of doing something with wood waste. You say you cut to 17 inches. Why? That's interesting because I cut to 16 inches instead of larger due to big hardwood rounds being uber heavy and I don't want to go over 16 inches so I can (hopefully) lift them onto my trailer. It also is the size to make face cords (3 to one cord). However, I sell some firewood and I don't like having the inevitable short pieces for my customers, so, lately, I have been cutting them about 17 inches so there is a little less likelihood of having shorts. I would rather the customer get a little extra.
Well if conifer wasn't a viable firewood, our northern and western friends would all freeze to death....lol Pine, spruce, hemlock, tamarack, fir.......all are good firewood. Maybe not as good as hardwood in some aspects (coaling, BUT per lb, etc), but when you split and season it, and have the proper stove/procedure to burn it, it burns fine.... It's not so much the "wood" that causes issues, but rather the "procedure" in which you process/burn it.
Actually, I think softwood is better for BTU per pound; BTU per volume or cord is where hardwood comes out on top. I.e. hardwood is more dense. I agree with you on all other points.
I burn a King model and load N/S. I want to maximize fuel load density. So long as the fuel has been properly seasoned, no reason to not load larger pieces, reduce total surface area within the load and extend burn times.
So the actual Btu's per pound it constant within resinous and non resinous species. When I taught a course of how we test wood heaters, I brought a bucket full of water to the class. I marked the water level with a sharpie. I took a 16" x 8" diameter 22% MC piece of oak a dropped it into the bucket. I then took a sharpie and marked the water level. Next, removing the oak, I dropped in a piece of cottonwood 16" x 8" diameter and 22% MC. The water line from the cottonwood and the original water line were within 1/2" or less of each other. The line from the oak was substantially higher. When you look at FBV (firebox volume) it makes sense to both fill a stove with a fuel that results in the most lbs and least amount of surface area....if you are trying to get longer burn times.
