Longleaf pine firewood: BTU, weight and seasoning

Heat per cord

Longleaf pine is a softwood. At 20% moisture, a full cord holds about 24.4 million BTU of heat (25.7 gigajoules). Wetter wood gives less, because part of the heat goes into boiling off the water.

That ranks longleaf pine 311th of the 558 species in our tables, from the hottest down.

Weight and density

A full cord of seasoned longleaf pine (20% moisture) weighs about 3,860 lb (1,750 kg). Freshly cut, the same cord weighs about 4,630 lb (2,100 kg): the difference is water you don't want to burn.

Its specific gravity, a measure of density, is 0.65. Denser wood packs more heat into each cord.

Seasoning time

Split and stacked off the ground, longleaf pine needs at least 10 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: low
• Coals: high
• Burn time: long

We rate longleaf pine 5 out of 10 as firewood: a good choice.

Similar firewood

Other species to compare with longleaf pine:

• Austrian pine: 17.8 million BTU per cord
• 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

Where it grows

Southeastern United States, though also widely grown on plantations

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