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How much is a cord, and how much can my truck hold?

Firewood 101 - A Crash Course

How Do You Charge Me For My Firewood?

Do not believe it when people tell you that the back of your pickup truck is a half a cord of wood.  We have determined from our time in this business that there is NO standard truck box, and therefore we measure each unit that comes into our place individually.  We find that a short box truck can usually hold anywhere from .3 - .48 of a cord.  This would place a short box load of poplar firewood between $60.00-$96.00.  That's quite a difference in price from just blindly paying the $100.00 that a half a cord would cost you. 
The cord is the standard unit of measurement for firewood.  A cord measures 4x4x8 feet.  Measurement Canada recommends that the use of the cord as a unit of measurement be discontinued, as it is largely misunderstood and often misused by people selling firewood.  For example, some sellers use illegal terms such as 'face cord', 'stove cord', 'apartment cord', 'furnace cord' and 'bush cord' to refer to any quantity smaller than 128 cubic feet.  Such terms frequently lead to confusion about the actual quantity of firewood being sold. 
We still choose to use the term 'cord' for pricing, and base our prices on a full cord.  However many people are simply not interested in purchasing a full cord of wood for their trip to the lake, for their family campout & bonfire, or they simply do not have the room to store a full cord.  To this end we have determined that we will sell firewood by the cubic inch.  48"x48"x96" (the number of inches in a cord) = 221,184 cubic inches.  If you drive into our wood yard with a trailer measuring 64"x72"x21", then you have 96,768 cubic inches capacity in your trailer.  96,768/221,184 = .44 of a cord.  We will charge you for .44 of a cord.  Should you have an obstacle in your vehicle such as a fuel tank, we'll subtract that.  For wheel wells, we deduct 6700 cubic inches, or close to 4 cubic feet.  This is not rocket science, but is a good general standard that has served us well over the years.  Should you decide to toss your wood into your unit, then we will multiply your load by .8 to give you 20% air space.
Dodge, Ford, and recently Chev have all come out with a long box pickup that can hold half a cord, (and actually even more - up to .58 !!)  and one old style Ford had the capability to hold this large quantity, but don't get burned on your purchase, and know that a short box will not likely hold a half a cord unless you stack your wood over the height of the box.







If I recall this customer correctly, his load was short of a full box length, &  his load was  approximately 3 inches low on height on average.   We adjusted his final purchase measurements from his recorded measurements, and charged him accordingly.  This long box load of pine holding aprox .36 of a cord worked out to less than 80 dollars.  With pine @ 220 a cord (2016), he felt this was a fair price.  He posted his review and this photo to our Facebook page with his take on how our pricing works.  
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  • Be Size Wise - Know How Much Wood You're Getting
  • You Wanted To Know . . .
  • About Us