Scots pine firewood: BTU, weight and seasoning

Heat per cord

Scots pine is a softwood. At 20% moisture, a full cord holds about 20.6 million BTU of heat (21.8 gigajoules). Wetter wood gives less, because part of the heat goes into boiling off the water.

That ranks Scots pine 403rd of the 558 species in our tables, from the hottest down.

Weight and density

A full cord of seasoned Scots pine (20% moisture) weighs about 3,260 lb (1,480 kg). Freshly cut, the same cord weighs about 3,920 lb (1,780 kg): the difference is water you don't want to burn.

Its specific gravity, a measure of density, is 0.55. Denser wood packs more heat into each cord.

Seasoning time

Split and stacked off the ground, Scots pine needs at least 8 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: high
• Burn time: long

We rate Scots pine 3 out of 10 as firewood: it burns, but denser species give more heat for the same work.

Similar firewood

Other species to compare with Scots 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

Native to Europe and northern Asia; also planted in New Zealand and Northeastern and Midwestern United States.

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