Firewood prices and concerns... (Ellsworth: 2014, live in, yard)

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Species is important. A cord of oak or rock maple will weigh bout twice that of cedar or poplar when dried. Total heat output is based primarily on dry weight, not cords.

[AngelBy]

Thanks Northern, I just curious about stacking after splitting a cord of firewood log, because my friends and I discussed about this and we still don't get the right answer ...

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by Northern Maine Land Man

Species is important. A cord of oak or rock maple will weigh bout twice that of cedar or poplar when dried. Total heat output is based primarily on dry weight, not cords.

Yesterday on 'Hot and Cold' Professor Dick Hill was explaining that all biomass has nearly the same BTU content per ton [dry leaves, drywood chips, processed pellets, hard woods, soft woods, etc].

[AustinB]

Originally Posted by AngelBy

I meant a cord of the same kind of firewood, i.e if you buy a cord of log firewood, after you split it and stack it, will it be more or less 4x4x8 pile ...

That's what I also meant... A cord is a cord. If they sell you 4 cord, tree length, It is four cord of firewood.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

OK, a little basic geometry; Picture an 8 foot long surface with a wall on each end. Put 8 one foot diameter logs on the bottom row. Split some 12 inch logs into quarters. Most of the quarters will slide in between the round logs to fill that air space. Put some more quarter logs with the v-side down between the tops of the bottom row. You can see that a lot of the space between round logs is getting filled up. At the same time the total size of the cord is getting smaller. At this point, people who are not good at geometry call the Forest Service to complain that they were cheated. The fact is that cords are based on round logs, not split logs.

Logs vary in diameter and straightness. In addition, they taper. Most commercial wood is sold in truckloads in Maine based on weight.

[Nor'Eastah]

Originally Posted by Northern Maine Land Man

Most commercial wood is sold in truckloads in Maine based on weight.

That makes sense. Hopefully, I won't have to worry about this stuff anymore. I have one parcel that's just a woodlot, and have another one in mind to use similarly. Plus, there's a good bit of our home lot that is wooded, but I wouldn't want to clear all of that off. Trying to figure out if I'd been 'cheated' by a wood cutter seems pretty pointless. With our own woodlot, we don't bother to weigh OR measure...just stack it up.

[maineborzoi]

Jumping into the conversation.
When we lived in Virginia, we burned alot of maple or oak. Here- we have found the joys of Ash.
So far this winter, not a single drop of oil have we burned.. Heat has been entirely the two woodstoves. We have one in the living room and one in the kitchen. Granted- that week we had single temps and wind chill -11, I stayed up later to keep the stoves running but in general- we are running about 72 degrees in the house with a low temp in early morning of 66 degrees. ( then again- we have a cast iron kettel on each stove for humidity so it feels warmer with the water )
First load of wood was a barter system and second load we just got of 3 cords was 250 dollars for seriously well seasoned wood bucks. ( we wanted it that way as we have a log splitter ).

That being said- we have found alot of 'storm down trees' by the side of the road. If you ask the landowner, and have a way to haul it, so far we have had the 3 times we stopped and asked- able to take the tree. We do the work, and the land owner gets an eye sore off his land.
We also harvested two dead trees off our land which actually was the first burn wood. Old dead standing trees can be ' widow makers" and best to come down.

[Cambium]

Originally Posted by AngelBy

I meant a cord of the same kind of firewood, i.e if you buy a cord of log firewood, after you split it and stack it, will it be more or less 4x4x8 pile ...

When you say "log" firewood. Are you talking about the logs themselves?? If so there is no way of knowing except for estimating how many cords there are in a given log pile.

You have to split and stack, bottom line..

Then there's a correct way to stack 4x4x8 with proper spacing.

But there's a way to measure without the usual stack. ie: what if the stack was 15 feet high, 10 feet wide, 5 feet deep?

Simple. 15x10x5 = 750 cu ft.

Correct stack method 4x4x8 = 128 cu ft.

So divide that big stacked pile by 128. (750 divided by 128) = 5.8 cords.

[AngelBy]

Thanks Cambium, it makes sense.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Picture a dump truck with a bed 8 feet square and 4 feet deep. It can hold 2 cords of wood. If the truck body is filled "thrown wood" it lands at random and there is a lot of air space in the pile. If stacked there is a whole lot more wood in that dump body. Some firewood dealers will sell "two cords thrown". That is less than two standard cords.