# "You know that's pine, right?"



## lumbering on (Apr 27, 2013)

Someone was kind enough to stack a car load of 16" long Pine rounds on the curb, presumably for the trash pick up.

So as I was loading up, this same someone took the time to walk down and warn me: "You know that's pine, right?"

Trying to save me from myself, I guess.

Now granted, I've needed to be saved from myself a few times this year, but I feel pretty good about the cord or so of pine I've collected this year. (I got a whole white pine earlier this year)

But trying to split it?  I assumed it would split like butter.  But there are like 10 knots in every round. More frustrating than my oak.


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## Woody Stover (Apr 27, 2013)

Did you "educate" him about Pine? And yes, it can be a bear to split if it has a lot of knots. I ended up power-splitting the last load of Red Pine I got.


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## lumbering on (Apr 27, 2013)

I told him I didn't care, I'll burn anything.  

Got a funny look and a shoulder shrug in return.


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## paul bunion (Apr 27, 2013)

You need to come up with a stock answer about how you have a fake Xmas tree and how you store it with pine chunks and that is 'abosrbs' the aroma so is smells real when you set it up in December.


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## wingsfan (Apr 27, 2013)

My wife's nephew turns his head at pine. I told him there are places in the U.S. that pine is the only wood some people have to burn and they burn it ok. He just looked at me like people just don't burn it.I'll burn it, if it's seasoned. It's all BTU's.


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## bogydave (Apr 27, 2013)

lumbering on said:


> But trying to split it? I assumed it would split like butter. But there are like 10 knots in every round. More frustrating than my oak.


 
When I was hand splitting, -10° F, it splits easy if it's green 

Like said, "It's all BTUs"


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## mywaynow (Apr 28, 2013)

It may be BTUs, but it is the only one that will ruin pants, jackets, gloves, and cake up your saws with sap.  Hate it.  Causes chimney fires too


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## Oldhippie (Apr 28, 2013)

I've got a bunch of big pines in my woodlot and this year, now that I'm getting rid of my 30 year old smoke dragon and putting in a Woodstock Fireview I'm going to start downing them and CSS in a separate set of stacks. They are so big the block the sun rise until late in the morning behind the house.

When I started burning in the late 70s, the wisdom in New England was don't burn pine. Because back then all there were was smoke dragons and people would burn unseasoned and cranked way down at night. Of course chimney fires were routine with that combo. With EPA stoves that changes quite a bit and pine is fine, but yeah it is a PITA.


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## Wood Duck (Apr 28, 2013)

Pines that grow in the forest naturally self-prune; the lower branches fall off because they don't get enough sun. The trunks of those pines are easy to split. Pines (and other conifers) grown in  somebody's yard tend to hold their branches as the tree grows, and those can be a bear to split. I think the worst splitting wood I have ever had was a Norway Spruce with lots of branches.


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## Lumber-Jack (Apr 28, 2013)

Here in the interior of Southern BC we have two main types of pine, Ponderosa and Lodgepole. The Ponderosa can get very big, both tall and wide. They have very large heavy branches and correspondingly large knots, it is a real pain to split because of the knots.
Lodgpole on the other hand, has very thin weak branches and the trees grow very tall and the trunk doesn't get very wide at all, they are very easy to split because they don't have much in the way of knots. Lodgpole also has a much higher BTU rating compared to ponderosa pine, (21 vs 16). Dead lodgepole trees are way more abundant than dead ponderosa trees too, so the only ponderosa wood I have around here are some big rounds I use as chopping blocks.
I've never had a problem with sticky sap on pine, possibly because I don't cut live trees, so any sap may have dried up long ago. On the other hand, I stopped cutting douglas fir because of the sap mess, even on trees that have been dead for years and year.
Speaking of Douglas fir, we have our myths out West here too. Almost everybody here is convinced that Douglas fir makes better firewood than pine, but I have proven to myself that Lodgepole pine is a superior firewood on just about every level. BTU content, ease of processing, availability, aroma, and sap content.


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## Woody Stover (Apr 28, 2013)

mywaynow said:


> It may be BTUs, but it is the only one that will ruin pants, jackets, gloves, and cake up your saws with sap.


The Red Pine I got wasn't very sappy at all...


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## bogydave (Apr 28, 2013)

Lumber-Jack said:


> Lodgepole pine is a superior firewood on just about every level. BTU content, ease of processing, availability, aroma, and sap content.


 
Geography !

The " availability" part is really key  the other attributes are icing on the cake 

Birch & spruce here (have cottonwod in abundance & some aspen) 
I try to get mostly birch, due to higher BTUs. Spruce BTU is OK 
Spruce burns well & fairly clean to process in the winter.

BTU's:


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## Backwoods Savage (Apr 28, 2013)

lumbering on said:


> Someone was kind enough to stack a car load of 16" long Pine rounds on the curb, presumably for the trash pick up.
> 
> So as I was loading up, this same someone took the time to walk down and warn me: "You know that's pine, right?"
> 
> ...


 

For sure that is one of the worst things about most pine is all the knots. Sort of reminds you of pin oak in that regard.


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## StihlHead (Apr 28, 2013)

Woody Stover said:


> Did you "educate" him about Pine? And yes, it can be a bear to split if it has a lot of knots. I ended up power-splitting the last load of Red Pine I got.


 
Nooooo! Just tell him he is right, that pine is complete crap. He will put out more of it out on the curb that way. I use a chainsaw to noodle cut the knotted and crotchwood of fir and pine that does not split easy with a maul.


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## StihlHead (Apr 28, 2013)

mywaynow said:


> It may be BTUs, but it is the only one that will ruin pants, jackets, gloves, and cake up your saws with sap. Hate it. Causes chimney fires too


 
Not only pine... Grand fir is worse. They call it 'piss fir' here for a reason.


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## ChrisNJ (Apr 29, 2013)

lumbering on said:


> . But there are like 10 knots in every round. More frustrating than my oak.


 
Only reason I keep driving past those piles.


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## Ralphie Boy (Apr 29, 2013)

lumbering on said:


> "You know that's pine, right?"


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## privatejoker75 (Apr 29, 2013)

100 acres here just south of the border in NE Washington. We have 99% ponderosa pine here, the rest is fir. I burn whatever dies which is usually 100% pine (making a new thread about that). No chimney fires, no sap, easily split, burns hot. When I clean my chimney, there's hardly any buildup whatsoever. I'll take free pine over $200 cords of tamarack any day.


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## fossil (Apr 29, 2013)

If I didn't have Pine, I wouldn't have any firewood.  Well, almost...I do burn some Juniper and Larch.  But nearly all Lodgepole Pine.  It's pretty much all we have.  I'd love to burn all the wonderful hardwoods so many are accustomed to, but there are vast areas of the western U.S. in which they simply aren't available.  As far as characteristics like knots and sap go, there are something like 120 different species of Pine.  So when I say I don't have any significant trouble with either pitch or knots (which I don't), you gotta keep in mind that I'm most likely talking about a different Pine than that Pine with which you're familiar.  Rick


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## gmule (Apr 29, 2013)

If you come across beetle killed lodgepole pine it will be at 10% or less standing dead because of the way the bark beetles kill the tree. Probably the only tree you can bet a sandwich on that you can cut it, split it, and burn it in the same hour


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## Lumber-Jack (Apr 30, 2013)

bogydave said:


> Geography !
> 
> The " availability" part is really key  the other attributes are icing on the cake


No doubt, but some people turn their noses up at cake if it doesn't have the right icing on it.
My most readily available wood is cottonwood. There are a bunch of big ole cottonwoods just down the street from me. No thanks, I only have so much space to store wood, and i'm not going to waste it on cottonwood.
Next most available wood for me is spruce. It's a pain to split and kind of low on the BTU chart, main reason I don't bother with it is because it usually isn't dry enough to burn when I cut it. Which brings me too Lodgepole pine, I may have to drive a little further to get it, but I know the stuff I cut I can burn right away, and since I have limited space to store my firewood I want to get stuff that's already seasoned. So if getting wood that is pre-seasoned  is "icing", it's a kind of icing I can't do without.


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