# Norway spruce any good.



## ohlongarm (Feb 2, 2012)

A neighbor a mile up the road is taking down 6 norway spruce trees about 60 feet tall and maybe 18 to 20 inches diameter. I can probably get all of them,my question any good for shoulder season burning in my stove. Thanks


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## CTYank (Feb 2, 2012)

ohlongarm said:
			
		

> A neighbor a mile up the road is taking down 6 norway spruce trees about 60 feet tall and maybe 18 to 20 inches diameter. I can probably get all of them,my question any good for shoulder season burning in my stove. Thanks



Sure, once properly dried. Maybe for next fall. Some spruce dry slowly, depending on growing site- hard to tell beforehand.

Spruce can be difficult to split. "Encouragement" with chainsaw helps ("noodling" partway.) This is typical of conifers, where branching is radial from the center- very difficult to split through a branch- go around it.

Might seem like a lot of obstacles there, but just stuff to avoid. Split ASAP and get 'em drying. Leave the brush, obviously. Kinda hard to tell moisture content without a meter.


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## roddy (Feb 2, 2012)

take it if you got the the time and the place,i mix spuce in with my hard maple and beech,works just great at maintaining temps for me


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## Ironwood (Feb 2, 2012)

I burn a lot of Spruce in the shop stove. Keeps the place warm and no problems with creosote. Make sure you season it well. I like smaller splits, seems to give more heat.


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## Backwoods Savage (Feb 2, 2012)

Prepare to do a bit of limbing on those things but the remaining wood will be okay.


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## ScotO (Feb 3, 2012)

Just split up a third-cord the other day.  It's hard to split by hand, so I got the old Swisher 22 ton hydraulic after it.......made quick work of it, the branches inside the billets go "pop" like butter with the hydraulic.  It can be a royal PITA to do it by hand......


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## shawng111 (Feb 3, 2012)

Yeah, tried splitting spruce by hand not to much fun at all, time to make some noodles


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## Woody Stover (Feb 3, 2012)

Some neighbors just took down a Norway Spruce. He burned some of the branches and said the fire was incredibly hot. He's also burned a bunch of Red Pine branches recently so he's got something to compare it to. I'm guessing it would toss some decent heat in a stove.
I'm kind of leery of putting a lot of pitch through my combustor but there may be nothing to be concerned about...maybe the softwood burners can shed some light.


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## billb3 (Aug 1, 2016)

pitch is supposedly fuel and it seasons along with the wood.
I used to cut pine into rounds and let them sit until Winter to split it as the pitch would be gone, dried up by then .A little less messy to handle. In rounds you get bark beetles though. Branches in a pile are safe to handle when the needles have turned brown and fallen off. They usually start to snap and break easily into kindling then also. No sawing necessary, just stomp on 'em. Great fire starting kindling.


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## CincyBurner (Aug 1, 2016)

I wouldn't go out of my way for spruce with branch wood.
I needed to remove a dying blue spruce (16" diameter x 45' tall) in my backyard a couple years ago.
It seasons quickly, and burns quickly (not much coaling).
I concur with others that noted difficulty of splitting spruce because of all the branch wood.  I tried to buck between the nodes, but it didn't make much difference, so ended up noodlin almost all of it.  Lots of excelsior produced !
And yes the branches make great kindling.  Ran all branches, in two cycles, through my homemade saw buck made from pallets (search this site for examples).


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