Yeah splitting is the hard part if you're a hand splitter. I'm a fan of hydraulics now. Even then, on the really bad pieces you have to pay attention to where you're splitting it or it's easy to run into trouble.
I remember as a child when our family finally got a vacation. We went all through the north country and there were numerous places we stopped at that had fireplaces burning and every one of them were burning pine. Then I started noticing that all over and even as a boy it got me wondering. Why did not more people burn pine. Then I was told about the fear of burning down the house. I thought it was dumb then and have never changed my mind about it. Go ahead and burn it!
Both of those appear to have had beetle borers in them by what looks like exit holes. The bottom round has huge ones or it has been poked with a sharp pointy object. The rounds in the pickup bed look like they could have been dead standing, ready to go.
Small pieces of hemlock and eastern white pine from knotless splits make nice kindling to throw on coals in the AM to get a fire going again. Often I'll throw big splits of the same on those after I've had some coffee and really get the stove going hot. Then I'll transition to something that burns a little longer. I've been known to burn pine all day if it is raining and I gots nothing better to do but load the stove.
I’ve been burning a good amount of conifer this year; easy to process, dries fast and gives of decent heat. Yes it burns faster than most of the hardwood I have but that’s what I want sometimes and it’s great for getting the stove up to temperature as some have said.
It's nice to use the softwood to get the fire going. I've been using spruce kindling lately (I also have a bin full of red oak and sugar maple and black locust kindling) and I also mix in spruce and juniper splits with black locust and norway maple (current selection of wood that I brought inside). 1 piece of fatwood on top of a few pieces of the spruce kindling and a few more pieces on top of the fatwood and I literally have an instant fire. I showed my buddy some of my recent adventures via text. This is the conversation we had after I showed him a video of my fireplace. ######################################################### Him: Spruce ain't hardwood. Me: Yeah so? As long as it's dry it's fine. And cedar isn't a hardwood either. And don't tell me it's not safe to burn because that's only what ignorant people say. Anything under 20% moisture content is safe for indoor burning. And my spruce is at 12%. Him: They cause creosote to build up. I hope you have your chimney cleaned every year. Me: All wood causes creosote buildup. If you burn spruce wet it still burns because of the sap and then the moisture causes more creosote buildup. It's perfectly fine to burn indoors when the mc is 20% or less. And yes I have it cleaned every year. Him: Softwood builds more creosote up. You should build an outdoor pit to burn softwood. Me: Wet wood is much more of a problem. People burn wood that is too wet all the time. Him: Try to be carbon neutral, will you? Me: Hardwoods create more creosote. Get rekt. (sent him this link). Or, in other words, you're talking out of your anus. Him: Fake news. Me: Do your research. Read that site and do some useful learning today. Him: Using firewood to heat your house isn't efficient. And carbon emissions is terrible. Me: You don't know what you're talking about. ######################################################### Sometimes I wonder why I am friends with certain people when they clearly don't know what the **** they are talking about. He lives in a $1,000,000 house, 5000 sq ft, and it's just him and his wife and their son. I wonder whose carbon footprint is bigger. This is the same guy who rebuilt his porch step (porch is just off the ground) that was all messed up because the original person didn't use concrete footings and so obviously everything moved and isn't level. So when I told him to use the cardboard tubes and to dig down and make proper footings, he said that was too much work and just did the same way the guy before did. Smh.
Most of the standing dead pine is from beetle kill. Alot of the standing dead douglas fir is from laminated root disease.
You can always tell a thick headed person, but you can't tell him much. To him, your clean burning heat source with no visible smoke from your chimney is basically as bad as if you were shoveling wet coal into your fireplace and using rubber tires and pressure treated lumber as kindling. It might be best for your own peace of mind to stop trying to educate him (since he clearly knows more than you) Fingers crossed he doesn't take up a job in government in the future either.
The only Pine I don't care for much is Austrian, it's hard to get dry before it rots. Of course I have a crap ton on my property that's dying. I cut the dead ones every year & use them. Another thing not mentioned about Confers, is they're excellent for burning down a large coal bed in the stove. Saves time & wasted heat.
I have no problem burning conifers either. We have hemlock, norway spruce, red cedar, arborvitae and white pine ready to go in the stacks. Not much goes to waste here. My brother was burning spruce a few days ago, and he really liked it. He will take more as it becomes available.
I always have some softwoods in the stacks. This year, I have a lot of hemlock I've split for kindling. Some slabwood hemlock as well. One year, we burned pretty much pine for the season. Sure, it doesn't coal up well and you really have to load the stove. But still puts out heat. I've found you can get a lot of it for free; people tend to give it away. Just nod your head politely when they tell you: "It's for fire pits only...."
Ya austrian pine, or scots pine. There is a bit of it here as yard trees. Lots of pitch and I think it would make good fire starter. I've never burned it or cut any. Some has so much pitch oozing out of it ,that I think it would cause saw issues.
Today I split up the little bit of white pine I got last week. The outside was pretty sappy as it was fresh-cut. I couldn't believe the sap veins inside though! Huge pockets of sap deep in the heartwood.
I’ve been feeding the stove mostly black birch all day today and saw it was a good time to burn the coals down. I grabbed a barkless split of Eastern Hemlock from this score to try out. It’s been top covered for over 13 months now and feels more than ready to burn. I’ve got to tell you: pretty underwhelming. In my mind’s eye I saw the coal bed being vaporized within minutes. It’s burning, but more like a low flame piece of hardwood. I don’t think I’ll be hoarding any more of this stuff (for indoor burning anyway)
I like using the sap-laden wood for starting fires. People pay a premium for fatwood and there it is. I also like the smell of evergreens. Its like christmas.
