Firewood Cord Calculator

What a cord actually is

128 cubic feet of stacked wood. Conventionally four feet high, four deep and eight long — but it is the volume that is defined, not the arrangement, and in most US states that definition is written into law.

A face cord, or rick, is four feet high and eight feet long, one log-length deep. Which means it is only a full cord if the logs are four feet long, and almost nobody sells four-foot logs.

In practice

A stack eight feet long, four high, with sixteen-inch logs is 8 × 4 × 1.333 = 42.67 cubic feet. That is exactly one third of a cord.

Twenty-four inch logs give half a cord. Twelve-inch logs give a quarter. The face is identical in every case — what changes is the depth, and therefore the wood.

So at $300 a cord, a sixteen-inch face cord is worth $100 and a twenty-four inch face cord $150. Same-looking stack, fifty percent more wood.

That gap is the commonest firewood dispute there is: the seller quotes a face cord and the buyer hears a cord.

Where the figure deceives

It measures stacked volume. Loose-thrown wood occupies far more space, so a truck bed that looks full can be well under a cord once it is stacked — which is why the stack, not the load, is what to measure.

Stacking tightness varies too. Neatly stacked straight splits pack denser than crooked rounds, and a cord of one is genuinely more wood than a cord of the other despite both being 128 cubic feet.

And volume says nothing about heat. Dense hardwoods carry far more energy per cord than softwoods, and unseasoned wood carries water you will pay to boil off.

Acting on it

Ask for the log length before comparing any two prices — without it, a face cord price means nothing.

Stack and measure on delivery. It takes twenty minutes and it is the only way to check what arrived.

Compare on cost per cord of seasoned hardwood rather than on the headline price of a load.