Cord vs board feet

[Justin Turco]

How many board feet of lumber are in a cord of wood? Just trying to guage what I am giving up when I turn a nice tree into firewood. Thanks.

[kirkhedding]

Well, if a cord of wood is 4'x4'x8' and a board foot is 1'x1'x1"thick. Then there should be about 1536 board feet in a cord. That's kind of impossible since it would have to be solid, no gaps. But that gives you kind of the idea.
Kirk

[hookhill]

Cord. A unit of measure of wood that is equivalent to a pile of round wood 4 feet wide, 8 feet long and 4 feet high. Contains 128 cubic feet of wood and space. May contain approximately 80 to 90 cubic feet of solid wood. A common, but fairly meaningless conversion is 500 board feet per cord.

[kirkhedding]

Not to argue, but to learn. A solid stack of wood 4'deep x 5' wide x 4' tall would equal 80cubic ft. if i'm not mistaken. If that's the case, then their would be 20 board ft. per 1" of thickness. At 4' tall or 48" that would equal 960 board ft.
Kirk

[petersp22]

We use the conversion rates of 2.2 cords of softwood per thousand board feet and 2.44 cords of hardwood per thousand board feet.

It's not a direct cubic foot conversion due to voids, taper, sweep, etc.

I hope that helps.

Steve

[Justin Turco]

Well, you've got me thinking. One cubic foot of wood is 12 board feet. But the question that remains is how much airspace in a cord. I'm not saying I'm going to take the time to do this but, I'd like to scale some firewood logs then cut and split them until I had a cord. Actually, I may try that. Hopefully toward the end of the summer, I will have given it a try. I'll use some bigger logs so that I'm getting the most board feet from a log. Not all slabwood. I'll let you know unless someone else is pretty sure they know the answer. (I got to thinking about this because I've got a good amount of Ash that needs to come down in the near future.) Trying to justify not feeling too guilty about just turning it into firewood.



Petersp22: Just saw your post. That's interesting. If thats the case. It's more valuable as firewood then for lumber. And I can burn the limbwood in the tops to boot.

[royalmaple]

It's not apples and apples to convert. Plus you have some variables to consider.


The trucker that hauls my wood typically calls a full load 7-8 cords. The same load of pulp weighs 14-16 tons sometimes higher. And now the kicker if that were saw logs it all depends on how big the logs are. Cause you can fill that truck with 8" poles and be **** lucky to get 3000-3200bf on it. On the other hand if it's all nice stuff with some size then I can get 4500+ feet on the same truck.

I figure on 2 cords per thousand, so if what I am cutting is not worth 400/thousand then I'm losing money selling as logs. Granted there's alot more work involved doing the firewood but just something to consider. So like selling low grade pallet logs for roughly 100 bucks a thousand, is like 50/cord in my eyes and I an sell tree length all day long for that price at the landing.

[3% Solution]

Good morning Justin,

Well let's see, "How much air space in a cord of wood?"

As my dad told me a few times; A cord of wood is 4'x4'x8', it is stacked with air space, those air spaces are large enough for a mouse to get through, but a cat can't.

I know, that doesn't help much!

I believe you are looking for something that is very, very hard to determine.

If it was me, I'd burn junk wood, anything that was good, would go into saw logs for myself or I'd sell them.

Question for you off the subject, did your dad or anyone in your family buy furs in the past?

Just my pennies.

[brookledge]

My thoughts at the present time is that logging is going through a tough time and most species are worth more as cord wood than as lumber.
However most comercial cordwood dealers use wood processors that are only good for straight wood and 12"-18" logs. So if you have a larger log than that it can't go through the processor and it takes too much time to cut and split it by hand. I just talked to a local who was just finishing a lot of mostly pine and then was going to a wood lot that they were going to cut only fire wood and no logs. The mill he works for is onlt milling 2 days a week now since the lumber business is lousy.
Justin I feel your pain. Many of times I say to my self I can't believe I'm cutting this log into cord wood knowing how good it is. But what are you going to do.
Keith

[maple flats]

Going back to reply #4, kirkhedding, your math is good but BF must tak into acct, saw kerf and slab loss. I am not aware of a valid formula. I run my own sawmill and if it is good enough to mill it goes that way, I still get the slap to burn and there is too much that needs to be cut that is no good for milling but makes good firewood. Of course my prospective will be different since I do the milling and then sell the lumber and most of you would be selling the sawlogs and there is a huge difference.

[kirkhedding]

Agree with Maple Flats, We saw our own lumber also. If it's good enough to be sawn into lumber, then that's what we do. There's always more firewood around the corner. At least at my place.
Kirk

[Justin Turco]

Thanks for the great replies. I suspected that my timber was worth more as firewood. Of course I'd rather wait for an upswing in the market or turn it into boards to use for myself. But if I have one here or there that won't supply a sap bucket and is in the way, I'll close my eyes fire up the chainsaw and think about something else. Well maybe not, I'm not that good with the chainsaw, I'd end up dropping it on my truck. heh heh. Thanks for the info.

[3% Solution]

Justin,
Get rid of some of your PM's, I can't send anything to you!!

Dave

[Justin Turco]

Private Messages have been deleted. Try it again.

[Justin Turco]

http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/newtown_square/publications/research_papers/pdfs/scanned/OCR/ne_rp486.pdf

[brookledge]

The publication is a good one. The one thing that I'd like to know is how new evaporator designs that use insulated and forced draft arches have changed this study since it was done in 1981.
Keith