Pine Vs Hardwood Firewood

Although pine has very inefficient firewood properties for use in a stove or fireplace pine and other conifers can be used with some safety precautions.

Pine vs hardwood firewood.

Some people will say pine should never be used as firewood and some will say that it burns fine. Heating with a wood stove. Hardwood is commonly thought of as being better than softwood as firewood. Generally speaking woods high in resin content pine spruce fir are best mixed with a harder woods to prevent build up of deposits of creosote in the chimney.

Softwoods tend to burn faster and leave finer ash compared to hardwoods. Pine is a very a hardy tree that grows fairly quickly and is able to thrive in a wide range of soil conditions. When making the decision between burning hardwood vs softwood the best choice. 1 they also can be messy to handle especially pine spruce and balsam as they cause creosote to build up more quickly in your chimney.

Fir is the best choice but other softwoods include pine balsam spruce cedar tamarack alder and poplar. In regions where wood from conifers is plentiful and hardwood is hard to find you should use it and can often get it for free. Some people believe you should never burn pine wood in the fireplace and others insist on using it and they do it regularly. Before we come into this discussion we suggest you know about features of good firewood.

For outdoor campfires pine or cedar are better because they produce a pleasant fire that doesn t burn too long. Pine is not a hardwood because it is not deciduous. Softwoods grow very fast compared to most hardwoods resulting in a much lighter less dense piece of wood. Pine is among the worst types of firewood for functional uses e g.

The best type of firewood for heating a home with a wood stove is black locust or hickory due to the high heat output and long lasting coals. This lightweight wood is typically very resinous which allows the wood to light easily and burn hot and fast. However pine is good firewood for recreational outdoor campfires because it produces a nice smelling fire that doesn t burn too long. Please click on each item below for more information.

Since pine is so easily accessible in the charlotte nc area it would make sense that people would want to use it as firewood. In my opinion birch is a hardwood better suited to winter burning due to it s long burning and high heat characteristics plus since birch trees are not as plentiful as pine in southern manitoba it is often more expensive. We get requests for birch as well for camping and fire pits throughout the summer. Cedar red pine and fir are all popular species of trees classified as softwoods.