FIREWOOD COST......??? How do they sell it (True CORD) or some goofy amount....???

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Sourdough

"Eleutheromaniac"
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In a cabin, on a mountain, in "Wilderness" Alaska.
Where you live how much does firewood cost...?? And how do they sell it. Pick-up truck load, true cord, so-called "face Cord"....???
 
Here in Oz it's sold in either 25kg bags, or by the cubic meter or by the trailer load depending on who's selling.
You find the 25kg bags at petrol stations, feed stores in town and landscape supply yards and hardware stores at the beginning of winter.
Those who sell the firewood by the meter or the trailer load tend to deliver if you can actually get them to accept an order and not flake out on you.
Prices are generally -
$21 to $25 for the split 25kg bags.
$180 per cubic meter or trailer load delivered.

You can find the bagged firewood ( if you know where to look) at the beginning of winter and throughout but all bets are off trying to get a cubic meter/ trailer load from the usual suppliers around that time of the year.
I learned that the hard way.
 
We had to stop using firewood a few years ago due to allergies, so we use the wood bricks (Bio bricks/Canawicks). Our allergies are so much better over the winter with those. But it costs a little more, this year we'll pay like $340 per ton and it usually takes around four tons to get through the winter, depending on how cold it gets. A cord of firewood here costs around $300 and we would probably need 3-4 cords.
 
I have logged a lot of firewood, and I just can't see how anyone in America can produce cord of split firewood for $300.00

Plainflatlander said:
Average price 300 per true cord 4x4x8. Delivered. Seasoned to whatever a seller feels it is. Most I see is still fairly green. Probably going up come fall with the incoming oil price increases.
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We moved in two years ago Nov. We tried but couldn't find anyone to cut and deliver wood. Most people here do it themselves.

Where my son lives nine hours away, he can get a truck and a pup (logging truck) of birch logs for $1200. They dump and you cut your own.

Where I live, they aren't allowed to deliver logs unless they pay stumpage fees which makes it too expensive.

One day, a youngish dude stopped by and asked if we would be willing to pay cash for firewood cut and delivered. He needed money to fix his truck. We asked how he was going to deliver the wood and he said the shop would release the truck if we paid them for the wood. I guess they all knew each other.

We paid for each load as it was delivered and got 50 full cords at $275.00 a cord. It took the guy two months to get it all here in the most beat up truck ever.

He is no longer cutting wood as he got a job on a LNG pipeline and since delivery is no longer an option paying for 50 cords when it was available was a good move on our part. Sure didn't feel like it when I was stacking it though.

It was fortunate that the farm sale and cheap buying price for the school gave us leeway to stock up.
 
Pearl said:
We use A LOT of firewood!! Have an endless supply. Lots of cutting and splitting!!
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I cut my share of firewood back in the day, truckloads thru 1990. I don't have to do that anymore. :)
My workhorse:
https://www.homesteadingforum.org/threads/random-pictures.5315/post-158423
I can offer one tip though. If you have an interstate running thru nearby with widely divided medians, talk to the DOT.
Downed trees interfere with them from mowing the ROW and they love, love, love for you to make them vanish!😍 Saves them money.
Anything laying on the ground is yours!:woo hoo:
 
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I haven't seen anyone around here sell by the cord in a long time. I did know a guy who logged out abandoned farmsteads and farm groves. He sold the wood by the truckload, i.e. the amount of split wood that would fill the bed of his S-10 pickup to the top of the bed rails. He sold that much for $70, but that was a few years back. Not sure what that would be now.
 
My uncle figures it by truck bed size. 65$ for short bed, 75$ for long bed.
Best deal in the area!
Sometimes he has special woods like pecan, apple, red oak and persimmon for the BBQ people, its a buck a stick cut any way you like it.
 
We just bought four facecords of seasoned, split hardwood at $125/facecord. It was $80 last year, and around $70 the year before. The more you buy, the lower the cost. Having just one facecord delivered would cost $190!

They're delivered in a dump truck...just dumped in the driveway. It's already split. I just need to stack it. I've got a lot of hardwood on my property. At this cost, getting a couple good chainsaws, blades and oil makes more sense.

We have more than two full cords from last year we didn't use, so we should be good this winter with what we just bought.
 
Magus said:
My uncle figures it by truck bed size. 65$ for short bed, 75$ for long bed.
Best deal in the area!
Sometimes he has special woods like pecan, apple, red oak and persimmon for the BBQ people, its a buck a stick cut any way you like it.
Click to expand...
Here, it's mulberry for the smoker people. But you generally don't have to pay for it. Mulberry trees are given the same respect as a case of herpes around here - everybody wishes they'd just go away, but you know they never will. So if you know a farmer or landowner, look at his fencelines or around his buildings and chances are that he's got mulberries growing there. The damn birds crap out the seeds from the edges of the roofs and from the fence wires. Then the trees grow fast and break stuff. So, if you want the wood, you can offer to log the Mulberry out. A lot of the farmers will be glad to have you do it.

It's fantastic wood in the smoker...
 
We buy from a family run business that makes fence posts and log fences out of lodgepole pine in our area. They run the reject logs thru a cutter that makes firewood sized pieces and then sell it by the pound or by the eight cord dump trailer. After hauling a few loose stacked loads over bed high in my full sized 3/4 ton pickup that cost $75 I signed up for their delivered truck load.
In our dry area the tight grained wood burns well and since most of the logs are not too big of diameter there is hardly any splitting required.
I bought 16 cords this summer and stacked it on used pallets and tarped it. We might be heating mostly with wood and if not this wood is a better investment than money in the bank.
Prices for fir firewood are around $250 or more delivered and split, we had a pine beetle infestation a few years ago so pine can be had for the hauling sometimes.
When I factor in chainsaws and truck use and the possibility of injury I will buy wood for now.
I do have a couple of good Stihls, gas, oil and all the safety gear for the younger people to use after the apocalypse. Younger please apply now while there are positions available ;-)
 
We bought a log splitter. Some of the chunks that guy dropped off were almost 2' across. I do not know how he even got them in his truck.
Most of it was green so it was really heavy.

Getting firewood out of dense forest and then loading it up is back breaking work. Our guy earned every penny he got and then some.

Too much splitting is not good when using an outdoor boiler. Split wood burns too fast. We want blocks as big as we can manage to lift and stuff.
 
Around here, the price is $1000-$1200 for 10 pole cord on the log truck. There used to be a price break for large orders, but that's no longer the case. It's $100 per cord with a 10 cord minimum. About 50 miles away from us, they are getting $120 per cord, again with a 10 cord minimum. A 10 pole cord load will yeild about 25 face cord if it's cut to 16 inches. Of coarse, that price is green wood. IF you can find dry wood it's at least an extra $20 per cord.

There's not many who do the cut and split stuff around here. If you can find it, I think it's around $450 for a small dump truck load (about 5 face cord) cut and split, depending upon the distance of the haul.

We typically cut our own off our property. It's hard work, but it's free and it's a good workout. I don't mind doing it, but we don't burn a whole lot either.

Along with everything else these days, firewood around here is getting very hard to find. A lot of people burn wood, but the mills are paying more for it so that's where the loggers (who are still in business) are taking it. That doesn't leave much to sell to residential customers. I have a friend who sells firewood by the log truck load and he's not taking any more orders. He said he has very little dry wood (which he should get a premium for this winter) and he can't even find enough green wood to fill all his orders. He's got about 50 people on a wait list and can't get the wood. A couple of months ago, he had 74 orders and could only fill 3 of them that week due to the shortage of wood available.

Just like pretty much everything else, if you haven't got your winter wood by now, you're likely going to be in for some troubles.
 
Spikedriver said:
Here, it's mulberry for the smoker people. But you generally don't have to pay for it. Mulberry trees are given the same respect as a case of herpes around here - everybody wishes they'd just go away, but you know they never will. So if you know a farmer or landowner, look at his fencelines or around his buildings and chances are that he's got mulberries growing there. The damn birds crap out the seeds from the edges of the roofs and from the fence wires. Then the trees grow fast and break stuff. So, if you want the wood, you can offer to log the Mulberry out. A lot of the farmers will be glad to have you do it.

It's fantastic wood in the smoker...
Click to expand...
We do a lot of pecan and chestnut oak with apple coming in at times, the BBQ joints here pay a premium for apple (X2$!) I wish we had mulberry trees here, I love the fruit. damn birds wreck our figs every year!
 
I found this chart researching BTU's per cord of different tree species. It gives the BTU number in millions.

Here in the south firewood is most often oak and hickory, good burning wood, lots of btu's.

------------------------------------------------------

What is the BTU content of firewood?

A full cord of wood is a stacked wood pile that is four feet wide by four feet tall by 8 feet long - 4'x4'x8'. It is therefore 128 cubic feet but because of air space between pieces, the actual amount of solid wood may be only 70-90 cubic feet. This depends on the size and shape of the pieces and how tightly they are stacked. Because of this variable consider the firewood BTU values and weight in these charts to be approximate.

The BTU in a cord of firewood is usually close to the same per pound between species. One pound of dense hardwood will have about the same amount of energy as one pound of light softwood. The difference in energy content is in the woods density. A cord of the more dense wood will have more energy than a cord of less dense softwood.

Amount of Heat Energy In a Firewood Cord

FIREWOOD BTU OF WESTERN HARDWOOD SPECIES

Species Million BTU's per Cord

Live Oak - 36.6
Eucalyptus - 34.5
Manzanita - 32.0
Pacific Madrone - 30.9
Dogwood - 30.4
Oregon White Oak - 28.0
Tanoak - 27.5
California Black Oak - 27.4
Pepperwood (Myrtle) - 26.1
Chinquapin- 24.7
Bigleaf Maple - 22.7
Red Alder - 19.5
Quaking Aspen - 18.0
Cottonwood - 16.8

FIREWOOD BTU OF WESTERN SOFTWOOD SPECIES

Species Million BTU’s per Cord
Douglas Fir - 26.5
Western Juniper - 26.4
Western Hemlock - 24.4
Port Orford Cedar - 23.4
Lodgepole Pine - 22.3
Ponderosa Pine - 21.7
Jeffery Pine - 21.7
Sitka Spruce - 21.7
White Fir - 21.1
Red Fir - 20.6
Incense Cedar - 20.1
Coast Redwood - 20.1
Grand Fir - 20.1
Sugar Pine - 19.6

FIREWOOD BTU OF EASTERN HARDWOOD SPECIES

Species Million BTU’s per Cord
Osage Orange - 32.9
Shagbark Hickory - 27.7
Eastern Hornbeam - 27.1
Black Birch - 26.8
Black Locust - 26.8
Blue Beech - 26.8
Ironwood - 26.8
Bitternut Hickory - 26.5
Honey Locust - 26.5
Mulberry - 25.7
Beech - 24.0
Northern Red Oak - 24.0
Sugar Maple - 24.0
White Oak - 24.0
White Ash - 23.6
Yellow Birch - 21.8
Red Elm - 21.6
Birch - 20.2
Black Walnut - 20.0
Green Ash - 19.9
Black Cherry - 19.5
American Elm - 19.5
Sycamore - 19.1
Black Ash - 18.7
 
Oregon / Idaho border area is around $300/ cord delivered?

I supplement from a nearby business that's hit and miss for quality and abundance. And it's a bit of crap shoot for who comes out to measure your load since I pile it loose in my hydraulic dump trailer. $200/ cord

Facebook market place and CL often has people looking for tree removal. Sometimes that is desirable firewood trees, but more often is crappy soft wood?

I supplement my wood pile with free wood. A lot of cotton wood around here. But if I mix it as the stacks are made it's easy to mix in the fire box and is positively manageable when mixed in with better quality fuel?

Just finished my pile yesterday! "What a feeling"!
 
Plainflatlander said:
@Chaosdawn, how do those bricks burn? Similar to firewood?
Click to expand...

The bricks burn hotter than the cord wood, we actually cracked the stove slightly before we learned that bit. It's a small hairline crack and once the stove expands you can't see it so no biggie. But there was a learning curve to the bricks. And we don't have to add wood as often with the bricks so for us it's worth it, between that, no stacking and less allergy issues.
 
People sale by the truck load here.
I worked with a guy that cut firewood, gardened & hunted when he was not working or obeying the Queen.
He made a cord of wood, keeping up with how many truck loads that was & price it accordingly.
Everyone else would just sale a truck load for whatever the market would bear.
 
You have to ask the supplier. A full size truck bed, 4' wide by 8' long stacked 4' high would be a cord, however they rarely stack it to those dimensions and usually just fill the bed and stack it in a 4' tall mound. For that I pay $200 and it is usually wildfire killed/burned cedar and pinion prom the prior year so it is seasoned and dry before it is even cut. Then there are full size trucks with a 6' bed, and smaller trucks have a narrower bed that is usually 6' long. You also have to ask about the type of wood, pine, cedar, or hardwood. Each has its benefit and disadvantages and everyone has their own preferences on what they want to burn.
 
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I stole this from What is a cord
I cut firewood all my childhood, the way other boys played sports, because that what our Father taught us to do.
I could not believe that everyone did not have a wood stove.
I learned more about a cord this week, because we worked on a truck load & we never sold wood. everyone we knew had a chainsaw & a wood lot.
 
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