Spruce and pine are both softwoods in the pineacea family bit different genius. Ok I said my forester bit, carry on.
An amount of people use the word pine and evergreen interchangeably even though one shouldn't. I think misty of us know what they mean. Oh, my avatar pic is the troll outside a store/visitor center/souvenir shop in Honningsvag,No. ( Not me. In case you thought it was - ha-ha )
I think I might be the only person who specifically goes after pine (beetle kill standing dead lodgepole pine to be specific). It has all sorts of advantages and no draw backs. First of all it's very plentiful where I live, and I can find standing dead groves that are less then 20% moisture content while still standing. That means they can go directly into the stove when bucked and split. Also the lodgepole is one of the highest BTU pines, and we can get fires that last long enough that we can reload the stove before going to bed and have plenty of coals to ignite a fresh load in the morning. I have absolutely no problem with pitch when processing the wood, and it's one of the easiest woods I know to buck and split. I can't say all those things about any other wood that I have ever cut, so that's why pine is my primary wood.
They can say as they wish about pine but that ranger of yours has got 9 lives man. I would like to find a 4x4 shorty for a in the woods truck but the salt and calcium has done most of the later model ones in up here that the cash for clunkers didn't get.
Dead standing pine never gets to 20% around here. Its spunky and rotten in about 1-1.5 years on the stump. And green pine like I cut will gum your gloves all up while handling.
got to get to it the first winter after the needles turn brown from beetle kill here. I think it's the southeast's humidity and bugs that cause it to go down hill so fast. Just restarted a shoulder load of SYP and some dogwood swept the liner this afternoon so I shouldn't have a chimney fire
It's pretty dry here so I guess that helps, however if you drop those trees or the wind blows them over on their side those same trees begin to rot pretty quickly here too. Also I've found they reabsorb moisture when they are lying on the ground, even if they are held up by their branches or lying on top of other logs. For that reason I will seldom buck up windfall trees if I plan to burn them that winter. The standing dead trees seem to dry out quicker and in their upright position they seem to shed the water better, and dry out in the wind better then lying on the ground.
Really super light and very low heat. Both east and west white pine is at the bottom of the BTU lists. Had some at my ex's place some years ago. Western white pine = 14.3 MBTU/cord Eastern white pine = 13.2 MBTU/cord
c.mon now - it's still better than cedar, bamboo and balsa wood and it does get hot - a handy thing in Winter -at least in the northern hemisphere might even be considered a diet wood - cuz it will keep you off the couch filling the stove
Most cedar here is actually a lot better than white pine, except eastern white cedar. And basswood (whatever that is).
Basswood is just a hardwood. Very light though. Used for carving and those oldschool wood fishing lures.
which I believe is what we have here in Western Wa, That is why I pass on it ( low BTU value) I have limited space to stack and would rather stack something with a higher btu rating like Doug fir or Big Leaf Maple both of which are very accessible for me
Pine makes up a good portion of my mix. I prefer lodgepole over the other species, but will burn whatever I can get in my mix with the most reasonable amount of effort. I too believed the malarky about creosoting the chimney, but I learned. When I bought my present home (first "rural" home I have had), I asked the seller, "where do you get your firewood?" He gave me a "silly city boy" look, rolled his eyes and motioned into the woods full of pines and douglas firs. He burned his almost green, and apparently got by. After the first cold winter of chopping the next week's wood over the weekend, I now have a much better system, aka the 3-year plan. And the pine is a good part of it. Greg
Greg, I agree with you. My father burned alot of pine as we were growing up in a tiled masonry chimney. I burned pine in a triple metal chimney for 20 plus years. I will this winter get into my pile that has 2 years dried dead pine. Yesterday, one of my "wood elves" called and have a blown down pine tree for me to take. That is green so I will probably put that in the 17-18 stack. I do clean my chimney every two years. It used to be just opposite of the election cycle was the year to clean the chimney, so we would clean this August. Cleaning the chimney is cheap insurance. IMO.
