For those that burn White Pine.

I have a few questions. If I want to be I can be swimming in white pine, basically out my backdoor. A guy that has a camp behind my house is getting 3 monsters takin down. I mean monsters. They have the huge arms growing off the main shoot. All free if I want it. I have plenty of room to stack it. I've never burned pine before. If I wanted to could I burn nothing but it for an entire season. I hate to not get it. Would I be correct in assuming I would burn double what I normally do using nothing but pine. It would be nice to sneak in a year of this free pine and give all my oak an extra year to get even better down the road.

 

Double...yeah that's probably about right. Still needs to dry a year or so though. That's where Pine gets its bad rap, just because you can burn it green, doesn't mean you should!

 

I wouldn't touch it for at least 2-3 years and then I could let a seasons worth of white oak get another year on it. I can't fathom not taking all this wood!

 

I burn pine. Its nice saving hard woods and getting stuff to dry longer. I usually only use it during shoulder season, make kindling, and to burn up coals left by honey locust. I get a lot of ponderosa pine as my neighbor a few doors down has an old row of them that his grandmother planted (he is 70ish) that are slowing dying. I take a few down every year for him.

 

I burn some.
I let it season for a year though.
It's my first fire every morning as it gets the stove and room up to temp quick. On a warm day that might be my only fire until after the sun goes down. On a colder day if I have nothing better to do I'll stuff the stove every two hours with pine. If I have better things to do then maple or oak goes in.
I used about a cord last Winter and two cords of oak. With a smaller stove sometimes we get coal build up from the oak and will have some pine fires on top of them to keep the stove temp up and give the coals time to finish burning.

I've got a bunch of pine trees down from storms last Winter . About a cord stacked up so far. Some still in logs for slabbing. Most are only half down and still alive so they can stay that way for now or until I get to them.

 

I too will burn Pine happily. That close & free you can't really go wrong. It heats quick, burns coals down well, saves hard wood for cold weather etc. A good stove will burn Pine pretty effectively. Burn it on weekends/shoulder season as was stated. Save a good bit of hardwood.

 

Make sure it's dry! We have a bit of Idaho white pine here where I live, but most of the pine is ponderosa. Pretty good stuff if it's standing dead and no twist. Great shoulder wood.

 

Yep, I burn Pine after it's dry (same as any other wood). Plenty of folks have nothing but Pine and get by just fine using it.
We've had quite a few with the tops blown out in the last wind storm that I still need to process. The white can be very gnarly. I've still got several chunks that I gave up trying to split sitting out by the pit waiting their turn.

 

I burn pine. I've burnt white pine in my quadrafire insert.
If you give it a year, it will be very very good burning wood.

Yes, you'll burn a lot more of it, but use it to burn down coals or just for a quick take the chill off fire.

White pine is 14 mbtu's a cord and oak is 24 mbtu's a cord. So it's not half, but you'll definitely use more pine than oak.

 

I think in effect its half because many hardwoods will keep on throwing a lil heat from the coals while pine is done as soon as the flame goes out pretty much...unless you have a soapstone stove, or some huge mass stove...

 

True. The hardwood will throw out heat a lot longer.

I'd take it though, especially if it's close

 

Hawdahs gotta hoard

 

Get it!! Of course, just stack it separately.. If its 45 and damp why burn oak so the wife opens the Windows?? You stack it separately so its easy to get BTU you want when you want them..

 

BeechNut The old saying that the best firewood is what is free and close 95% true. I can get lots of Cedar Deodora around here which has a similar BTU to white pine. Also burn a lot of Fir. We use the soft woods to get a good bed of coals before adding the "hard to get going" woods like oak or medrona. On the other hand, I would not trouble to cut, split and stack cottonwood or alder if it was laying across my driveway. Well maybe I would only cut the cottonwood or alder out of the way if I needed to get to the store or if I knew company was coming. Then again maybe not. It would depend on who the company was.

 

Burn pine?!?! You’ll go blind, sterile, and burn the whole neighborhood down. On top of that it causes magnetic north to wobble on its axis. No sir - do not even think of burning it.

As a community service send it all my way for proper disposal.

 

Pine is fine! My place is surrounded by E.White pine. I've been processing and burning it whenever mother nature topples one. I really like it. Easy to cut. I split the easy portions and campfire the tough stuff. Seasons quickly. Leaves almost zero ash deposit when done (actually kinda hard to believe how little!). I'll bet you enjoy it after giving it a try.

 

Is there a better time of year to cut pine.....I cut some n gots the sh!ts of all the pine tar (sap). Gets all over your saw,gloves,etc. I realize if that's basically all you have to burn...that's one thing.
Just askin?