Hope I can get some opions on this. I have 5 acres - most of it wooded. It is predominantly oak with some pine and spruce thrown in and a few (not enough) sugar maples. We burn 4 - 6 cords of wood a year. Most of that I scrounge up, some I buy and some I harvest from my 5 acres.
When I cut from my land I pick dead or dying mature trees. These are usually the oaks. I haven't cut any of the evergreens. I typically take down only 4 - 6 trees a year. I am thinking that if I keep cutting the oak I will eventually be over run with the evergreens. Though the oak seems really good at colonizing and monopolizing the area.
So I was considering starting to burn the pine or spruces. I only hear bad things about burning pine due to the pitch. One of my stoves is airtight and the other is not. I don't know if that matters.
Any input or advice would be much appreciated.
Phil
My guess is that you'll be able to get the evergreens to burn, but only if the wood is really dried and you'll need to clean your chimney more often. Pretty sure that they won't throw nearly the heat that oak will either. If it were me, I'd just cut them down and chip them up if you want to get rid of them. Maybe plant some more faster growing hardwoods to replace them. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
The evergreens will burn with no problems. I have burned quite a bit in Alberta [ no oak there ] with no problems. No problems with chimney build ups either.
Just rember there are many parts of the country that have only evergreens or poplar available as wood and that's what they burn. # for # all wood has essential the same heating value.
Egon
>>all wood has essential the same heating value.
I would have to disagree with you on that one. While I agree, that softwoods can be burned, and will produce heat, a cord of pine probably weighs a fraction of a cord of oak or other hardwoods. Hardwoods will produce more heat on a cord for cord comparison. A cord of oak will produce about 21Million BTU's a cord of wood, whereas a cord of pine will only produce about 13Million BTUs.
The chimney buildup can mostly be avoided if you burn your softwoods hot enough (i.e. no smoldering fires).
Here are some interesting stattistics on BTU/cord of wood:
Dried spruce makes excellent kindling - it burns fast and hot. After the hunting is over, focus at our hunting camp turns to collecting wood for the next year. Every 2nd or 3rd year we knock down a spruce. We leave it in rounds for the first year and chop it into 2" thick pieces the following year.
It's also great to throw a couple of pieces on in the morning for a quick-and-dirty blast of heat.
PhilNH5 - "I only hear bad things about burning pine due to the pitch."
What do you mean by "the pitch"?
What I've been told about burning pine is that you have to avoid letting it smolder or you'll get a creosote buildup in your chimney, which could cause a dangerous chimney fire. However, it appears from the articles below (I did a google search on "creosote burning pine") that pine is no worse than any other types of wood. The key is to not burn the wood at low temperatures:
EJB - I just want to point out that Egon stated "# for # all wood has essential the same heating value", not just "all wood has essential the same heating value". So, you're really both right! Egon is saying that a pound of pine produces essentially the same heat as a pound of hardwood. You're comparing by volume, but a cord of hardwood weighs more than a cord of pine.
You may be right...I was wondering what those #'s were for.... [img]/forums/images/icons/confused.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
(To be completely honest, I thought he was trying to put in some html formatting/emphasis around the world all, i.e. bold face it or italicize...I missed the obvious explanation [img]/forums/images/icons/ooo.gif[/img] )
Sorry fellows.
We up here also use Lb. for describing pounds although we are all metric now and it's grams, kilograms or Tonnes.
The # symbol is a pretty standard symbol for denoting Pounds.
On the keyboard I beleive it's also refered to as the Pound Symbol.
Reply With Quote
