Aw yeah. It doesn't get much better than this. I love me some pine. This score has been downed for at least a year was relatively easy to split with the x27. With the bark having fallen off almost completely by itself helped as well. Will probably need the splitter to finish off the knotty ones but did about half of the rounds yesterday and started a new holz hausen. Can also save a few of the rounds and make kindling out of them after the season. This was the first stack I swapped out wood for plastic pallets. Going to need more pallets as well. Going to go back for more pine!!!! A lot of logs here.
Yeah I really love it. Going to try and fill that entire hausen with pine. I already processed all the sugar maple I got from the dump the other day into another hausen that's almost full. And the FBMP guy wants the entire lot gone so that will definitely fill up the hausen no problem.
Noob question here: So pine and spruce are good for burning and don't produce too much creosote? I have a ton of spruce on my property and my neighbor says not too burn it in the wood stove because it is dangerous and can cause a chimney fire. I see tons of posts on here that people burn pine and spruce all the time. Do I just make sure it is seasoned for at least a summer? I checked some of my spruce that is split with a moisture meter and it is like 14%. If it makes a difference, I have a newer EPA catalytic stove.
Make sure its dry and youll be fine. Prior to the FHC i had the same mentality. In some areas all they have are softwoods to burn.
Will do! It is perfectly safe as long as it is dry and under 20%. I had a huge score of spruce and within a year it was right around 14-17% so you are right on track. The reason why the uninformed think it's dangerous is because when the wood is WET it will still burn easily because of the sap in pine and spruce. It's the wetness of the wood that causes creosote buildup. Out in the Pacific northwest firs and pines and softwood is all they got over there and they don't burn their houses down! As long as you are checking a fresh face of a newly split split you are light years ahead of your neighbor. I had my chimney cleaned and the guy could not believe how clean it was given I burned like 15 cord last year (atypical usage with 3 kids at home). Softwoods actually burn hotter faster than hardwoods and are awesome for getting the fire going and up to temp so that then you can burn the hardwoods efficiently. I use plenty (read 4 handfuls) of typically pine/spruce kindling (although I make kindling out of oak, maple, and black locust too) and get the fire going quickly. Here's a pic 2 minutes after lighting the fire. Right after the pic I load up with small/medium mix of hard and soft splits and top off with a few larger hardwood ones.
And here is what it looks like when it's really going. https://youtube.com/shorts/2iDBqWaKrpk?feature=share
Run it! That's great wood to have. I burned a ton of spruce all through last winter, and when I cleaned my chimney a couple weeks ago, it was the least amount of creosote I've ever seen. Of course in general my firewood was much drier than years prior, but that was solid proof for me that conifers definitely do not lead to creosote buildup/chimney fires.
I’m getting totally on board with the soft woods. The pine outside the shed was felled last January and I hope to use it on the back side of the 21/22 season.
Point that needs clarifying - make sure you are measuring a split that you just split. It has to be the inside meat that you measure because the outside will show an incorrect and much lower moisture content.
Your stackable skills are really impressive. Felled last Jan I think that pine will be awesome and ready this season. Have you made some kindling out of it? Sometimes I buck a round in half but I've been lucky so far to either find shorties for kindling or be able to buck myself. I just had an idea - how about dipping pine cones in melted wax as a firestarter? I wonder if it will work.
Have a plot with lots and lots of pine on it that needs thinning out, dies in droughts and falls over in big storms. Been burning pine for years. Started mostly on weekends during the day when I was home and didn't mind loading the stove more often. I use it to get the stove back into heating mode in the morning. It's great for short burns in shoulder season. Short fires with the stove in its most efficient heating mode and not trying to smolder hard wood sure helps keep the chimney cleaner. Yeah you need twice as much. Easy cutting and mostly easy splitting helps. You learn to avoid the sap <issue>. Cutting green trees with green needles still on can be a little messy. You just handle processing a little differently. It wouldn't be your fuel of choice for a HOW LONG CAN MY STOVE BURN A STICK OF WOOD for contest. I certainly don't burn it exclusively as I do have some better wood that's great for when it is real cold and for overnite - times when it isn't convenient to tend the stove so often.
They do, but storing them can take quite a bit of space. I collected 5 bags (50 pound sunflower seed bags) of pine cones once and stored them in a shed. Squirrel(s) found them and chewed them to bits. A lot of work for little tiny seeds, but they must have been hungry. I didn't think there were seeds in the cones that were fully open but there must have been. I think paper and kindling is a lot easier.
