Never heard that. Interesting. When I was in the wood business, the weights and measures people explained it to me as I reported above. You could really get cheated if the wood isn’t cut and split uniformly using the Nebraska definition. Large irregular pieces could have 2 or more inches of space between each piece.
When I talked with weights and measures, they told me that if they were called out on a firewood call, they would re- stack the wood themselves. They would put every little piece in the stack and measure it. If the wood had lots of space or was short, the dealer would have to make it good or pick the wood up and refund the money.
Our wood stove can take 24" long, but works best with 20" long. It has a big door, so you need a couple inches to not allow a little smoke to escape when you open the door. Most people around here cut their firwood at 16" but I prefer 20". It means less trips to the woodshed and stack seems to last longer also.
At the end of the day, regardless how you measure or what you call it. A nice stack of seasoned firewood is a blessing. There’s nothing quite like real heat from a woodstove.
So, your selling 1.5’ face cord for $60? Well, maybe $90. This thread is having me thinking that I sold my stack that measured 10’x4’ that was about 16" at a high price at $200. Of course I’m not complaining.
I do split my wood real thin though. Splitter won’t split anything longer than about 20". Broken down right now unfortunately.
Y’all making me feel bad for the more than 10 chords (at least) that I pushed into the woods when I cleared my 3 acre food plot. Mostly stuff. Like hackberry though.
Oak, Hickory, and Sourwood would all be towards the upper end of the BTU spectrum. Therefore I’d expect the dried weight of those to be similar, for the same volume of wood.
Poplar or Pine or similar though, the same volume would likely weigh considerably less.
We have an outdoor wood stove that gets filled every 12 hours or so. I guess how much to load it up with based on the predicted temperature. The colder the weatherman says it’s gonna be, the more I toss in. I’ve wondered before if I might be able to more closely estimate that via weight of the wood as opposed to volume. Hasn’t really been an issue, but have just been curious… I just know that if it’s all Poplar I’m filling the stove with, and it’s supposed to be rather cold that night, I better use a lot… Being a bit more scientific about it could help avoid the (rare but still happens) occasions where I misjudge and don’t add enough.
We have 20 totes full of firewood, much more than we can use in one season. We discovered powder post beetles in three of them this past summer, so those got dumped in the swamp. I believe there are two sizes for the tote cages, the ones we have hold .8 of a face cord. We’ve used 3.5 totes so far this year and we heat with a Jotul Castine F400, a non-catalytic stove.
That should be enough wood to keep you warm in the frozen tundra for sure!
A few weeks herd ago, I asked my cousin who has always burned wood how much wood he averages burning in a winter. He replied 1&1/2 cords. At the time I thought I he was talking about face cords but now I realize that he was speaking of full cords. I’ll probably burn about the same amount this winter although it has been somewhat mild here.