Austrian pine firewood: BTU, weight and seasoning

Heat per cord

Austrian pine is a softwood. At 20% moisture, a full cord holds about 17.8 million BTU of heat (18.8 gigajoules). Wetter wood gives less, because part of the heat goes into boiling off the water.

That ranks Austrian pine 483rd of the 558 species in our tables, from the hottest down.

Weight and density

A full cord of seasoned Austrian pine (20% moisture) weighs about 2,820 lb (1,280 kg). Freshly cut, the same cord weighs about 3,830 lb (1,740 kg): the difference is water you don't want to burn.

Its specific gravity, a measure of density, is 0.48. Denser wood packs more heat into each cord.

Seasoning time

Split and stacked off the ground, Austrian pine needs at least 12 months to dry to about 20% moisture.

Wood dries faster once it is split and stacked with air around it. A moisture meter on a fresh split face tells you when it is ready.

How it burns

• Ash: moderate
• Coals: moderate
• Burn time: moderate

We rate Austrian pine 2 out of 10 as firewood: it burns, but denser species give more heat for the same work.

Similar firewood

Other species to compare with Austrian pine:

• Caribbean pine: 23.4 million BTU per cord
• Eastern white pine: 15.0 million BTU per cord
• Jack pine: 18.8 million BTU per cord
• Jeffrey pine: 16.4 million BTU per cord

Where it grows

Mediterranean regions of Europe and Asia Minor

Where these numbers come from

The heat and weight figures come from our firewood tables, worked out the same way for every species at 20% moisture. See how we calculate them.

Questions