Burning Pine to heat your house?

[grfox92]

Not hunting related but I'm sure some of you westerners can help me.

I'm moving to Wyoming from New York this year. I already purchased land and I will be building my house myself over the next year or so.

I currently and have been for 5 years heating my 1200 sq ft house in NY with a wood stove in the basement. I burn all hardwoods, mainly cherry, oak, hickory, locust, and birch. I burn 24/7 for the entire winter and truly enjoy it.

Now in NW Wyoming all that will be available (as far as I can tell) will be pine. I would like to install a wood furnace and run it through a forced hot air set up just like a conventional oil or gas furnace and blow hot air o to each room.

I have never burned pine and I know it doesn't burn as long as hardwood, but by how much? Aslo from what I understand it does not leave embers in the stove in order to help keep the fire going. Is this true?

Is it possible to heat your home exclusively on soft wood? Or is it a unrealistic expectation?

Thanks

Gary

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

 

[menhaden_man]

I’ve heated my ~2500 SF home mostly on soft wood for the past 12 years (eastern WA).

Tamarack is the best, but hard to find where I am. Douglas fir is the next best I can find, and I’ve also used quite a few cords of lodgepole. Lately I’ve been trying to get into an orchard when they’re thinning trees. Cherry is pretty ashy but much better heat.

I’d recommend calling the local USFS office to ask what is available for cutting locally and go from there. A quick search on Craig’s List for firewood might also help. Output for various woods can be found online (BTUs) if you’re curious about trade offs.

Good luck!

 

[Wapiti1]

For Wyoming, I would try to cut wood in this order, doug fir, ponderosa, lodge pole. Fir and lodge pole will be the easiest to find, and lodge pole is by far the easiest to cut since you aren't limbing it. Ponderosa is denser then lodge pole and less pitchy, but harder to find in the right size and you limb for a half hour on a good tree.

Seasoning it is important to keep creosote build up down. Wet sap will creosote your chimney very quickly. Speaking of that, chimney care is more important with pine since it doesn't burn as hot as hardwood.

Time for burn or BTU output: http://www.offroaders.com/tech/firewood-BTU.htm

Jeremy

 

[Salmonchaser]

Red or Doug fir, larch (tamarack), pine in that order. I burn a lot of pine because I can get it easy. I stuff the fire box at about 2100 at 0500 I rake the coals into a big pile on the side, open the damper, turn on the coffee, grab my rifle, let the dogs out, no alert by the dogs I’ll grab two chunks for the fire, a cup of coffee and fire up Rokslide by 0520.
With pine you’ll want to rake through your ash once a day you’ll find quite a few embers buried there. If you do that you won’t have to clean your firebox very often. The only time I have to use kindling is when I’m gone more than 12 hours or so.

 

[PNWGATOR]

As an aside, make sure you put in a really good stove to get the most efficient heat you can. The Kuma Sequoia comes instantly to mind.

 

[Farmerlentz]

If you have natural gas available to you I wouldn't put in a wood stove as energy is very cheap here in Wyoming. Otherwise softwoods will burn fine. They also don't ash up your stove like hardwood s tend to

 

[Elk97]

If Tamarack is available it's great firewood, heavy, dense and splits like red cedar. Heated with it for 12 years in N Central WA. Pine is better than it sounds but if you can get Doug fir your fire will burn longer. Doug fir can be a bugger to split if it's knotty.

 

[Hart6065]

You'll have to clean your chimney more often. Pine can create a lot more creosote build up than hardwoods.

 

[mt100gr.]

Will you be cutting firewood on your property? If so, I'd absolutely burn whatever is handy! (Nothing rotten, of course) I've heated with wood most of my life and we had woodstove growing up as well. Everything from fir, larch, lodgepole, p-pine, some spruce (if it's too handy to pass up) grand fir (if dead-standing and still has red needles) etc. My stoves have still never spit anything out. My stove/chimney burns plenty clean and the wood all comes from my property. I usually cut and split everything in the winter so it can season thru the summer and fall.

My aside - chimney care and confidence is very important. Since you'll be building, I'd design your roof pitch to accommodate DIY chimney cleaning. I built my house 3 years ago with efficiency in mind and i clean my chimney in september and on new years day for peace of mind.

Personally, I would never build/own a home without a wood stove. We just had a nasty windstorm the day before thanksgiving. Power was out for 2.5 days with temps in the single digits. Our home never got colder than 67 degrees inside. (The storm provided most of next year's firewood, too.)

 

[grfox92]

Red or Doug fir, larch (tamarack), pine in that order. I burn a lot of pine because I can get it easy. I stuff the fire box at about 2100 at 0500 I rake the coals into a big pile on the side, open the damper, turn on the coffee, grab my rifle, let the dogs out, no alert by the dogs I’ll grab two chunks for the fire, a cup of coffee and fire up Rokslide by 0520.
With pine you’ll want to rake through your ash once a day you’ll find quite a few embers buried there. If you do that you won’t have to clean your firebox very often. The only time I have to use kindling is when I’m gone more than 12 hours or so.

What is the rifle and the dogs for? Predators?

 

[grfox92]

I’d recommend calling the local USFS office to ask what is available for cutting locally and go from there. A quick search on Craig’s List for firewood might also help. Output for various woods can be found online (BTUs) if you’re curious about trade offs.

Good luck!

Will you be cutting firewood on your property?

I can obtain a permit to cut 8 cords a year out of the National Forest, and I am building my house more or less in Shoshone National Forest.

 

[grfox92]

If you have natural gas available to you I wouldn't put in a wood stove as energy is very cheap here in Wyoming. Otherwise softwoods will burn fine. They also don't ash up your stove like hardwood s tend to

Are you refering to Nat Gas as a utility? as in off a line in the street? If so that is not available where I am at. It was recommended to me to set up for propane heat as it is the consensus that it is the most cost effective energy outside of wood for the area. I also wouldnt be against burning propane or oil depending on the cost. I heat my house in NY for less then $800 a year, some years has been less then $600. People who burn oil around me spend $3-$5000 a year on oil.
My goal is to keep my expenses at a bare minimum, If I could spend less than $1000 a year on gas or oil I would certainly consider running both sources of heat.

 

[SDHNTR]

Don’t overlook aspen either. We heat our cabin almost exclusively on aspen. Similar properties as pine. It’s soft too, splits easy, lights easy, and burns way cleaner than pine. It just doesn’t burn long so you’ll need a lot of it and a quality wood stove.

 

[bhylton]

just cut some wood and forget about it. get a quality stove designed for your size house and type of wood and you will be fine. its not rocket science.

 

[NW307]

I can't speak to using a wood furnace but I've heated my house with pine, spruce, and fir exclusively in a good woodstove. I've got a forced air natural gas furnace for back up but we rarely use it. Most of the wood you will find around here is beetle kill spruce. There is some pockets of lodgepole, juniper, and doug fir but it's fairly picked over at least in my experience. There's no larch here that I've run into. I'd say the softwoods give out about half the burn time as opposed to the little bit of hardwood I burn. I have a friend in the tree care business and he'll drop of some good ash or elm if he's removed one nearby. You definitely have to add wood more often since the softwood coals don't last nearly as long. I grew up in heavy nw montana timber country similar to the pictures posted above and I'd say it's kinda slim pickens here compared to that.

I'd make sure you chimney is easily accessed like stated before for easy cleaning. I sweep about once a month when burning every day. I'd also take the ever present wind into account, it will definitely effect your draft or knock your chimney over when it really gets whipping. This may not be a concern with a furnace. A good 4x4 truck that you're not afraid to take down rough roads is also a must here if you plan to cut your own. Good luck.

 

[squirrel]

If I was to build from scratch new I would put an exterior burner in with heat transfer system and extra wood burners in opposite ends of the house for good measure right next to an exterior door on a concrete slab (tile it if this is too ugly), if in a corner surrounded by dura-rock type sheeting. (again tile it)

Type of wood is meaningless discussion in much of the west, you burn what grows close, it all sucks compared to what you are used to.

Cut lots, when in doubt cut MORE! In many spots you are not going to get wood in the winter. This really sucks when the forest is closed down for any number of gov't reasons, cut while you can, and did I mention cut LOTS?

 

[Broomd]

Fox, I did what you're planning on doing, built my place in 2007 but in north Idaho.
We heat almost exclusively with wood, we do have elect baseboard heat if needed, but we tend to avoid using it.
As was mentioned, it ain't rocket science. Burn what ya got, just be sure it's seasoned. Red fir and tamarack can be loaded with creosote and downright dangerous if not completely dry.
In order of preference we like red fir, tamarack, white fir, and then the various pine species. They all burn well, but the red fir and tamrack burn hottest with least ash.

We have lots of white fir on our acreage, and although it leaves a bit more ash, it burns excellent and the bark tends to peel easy. The beetles/borers have been hard on those white firs too, so more are standing dead these days.
We installed an EPA cert. stove (Quadrafire) to cut down on emissions, that was a good call, Our stove burns very clean; on calm mornings a dirty stove can really smoke up a valley.

 

[Broomd]

...
I'd make sure you chimney is easily accessed like stated before for easy cleaning. I sweep about once a month when burning every day. ..

We sweep once every three years now. With completely dry wood, and a bit of creosote eliminator tossed into the stove every month or so sweeping is a thing of the past.

With our 25' chimney pipe, it's important to keep it clean.

 

[Salmonchaser]

What is the rifle and the dogs for? Predators?

Exactly, hear the wolves howling occasionally nearby, I’ve cut lion tracks on our daily exercise walks, bears and coyotes frequent the area, though I haven’t seen any bear sign in a while.
neighbors trail cam has all the above walking along our fence line in the last couple of months.

 

[mtnwrunner]

I love pine. We heat our house which is 4300 square feet strictly with lodgepole and I clean the chimney twice a year. Only problem is that I have to go cut it...…..

Randy