How many cord of wood in a tree
Firewood Calculator - How Much Firewood Is In A Tree?
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Calculate How Much Firewood Is in A Tree?
Before you start cutting down trees, it would be nice to know how much firewood you would get. It’s surprising how little firewood can be harvested from seemingly large trees, especially if you are looking at a tree in full leaf during the summer. Without its leaf canopy, all that remains is typically a main trunk and a few useable branches (most branches are too small for firewood but may be used for kindling used to start fires in the fireplace).
Small trees produce the least firewood. A 5-inch round (max diameter without splitting) 50-foot-tall tree would produce just 32 pcs of firewood and a couple of wheelbarrows of kindling (cut branches in 15-inch lengths). A large tree however with a trunk diameter of 24 inches and a height of 120 feet would produce at least 600 pcs; a half bush cord or 3 face cords of firewood, so tree size before you cut is an important consideration before you fire up the chainsaw.
Firewood Calculator
Firewood Calculator
Bush Cords And Face Cords
Firewood is sold by a truckload as a bush cord, full cord, half cord or face cord (sometimes called a rack). You can also find pre-packaged carry bundles of plastic wrapped firewood at supermarkets, convivence stores and gas stations in season, which are exorbitantly priced when you consider how much would you are actually getting. It takes approximately 72 of these $3 bundles to make up a face cord of firewood, which you can buy for about $50 delivered – much better than paying $216.
A full bush cord averages 8 feet long x 8 feet wide x 4 feet tall and contains approximately 1,200 pcs of split firewood. Unsplit or rounds average between 3 and 5 inches and can be included in the stack. A cord (half a bush cord) is 8 feet long x 4 feet wide x 4 feet tall and contains about 600 pcs of firewood.
A face cord measured 15 inches wide (the length of each individual piece of firewood) x 8 feet long and 4 feet tall comprising 200 pcs of firewood. A store-bought bundle has between 4 and 7 pcs of firewood and is the most expensive.
Big split firewood is used for curing and smoking meat. Wood pieces range from 20 to 40 inches long depending on whether they burn in a pit or are cradled inside a cooker. The longest of big split firewood is used to make maple syrup. Hickory, maple and any fruitwood are best for curing meat. Alder, cedar and big leaf maple are perfect for those living out west on or near the coast.
Hardwoods vs Softwoods
Hardwoods burn hotter and longer than softwoods. This is due to the tighter grain and higher wood density of a hardwood. How much heat a particular type of tree throws can be determined by a British Thermal Unit Chart (BTU), which ranks each high to low.
One of the highest-ranking hardwoods, Apple, can last in the fireplace for 24 hours or more, even longer in an efficient wood burner like a Quebec heater.
Softwood will burn on average three times as fast as hardwood. It also expels more soot that coats chimney and flue linings with creosote, which would require frequent sweeping and cleaning. Softwood also throws quite a bit of spark so screening an open fireplace is recommended.
A nice touch over the holidays is to throw a few pinecones on the fire – they tend to burn colorfully and create a nice festive spirit.
Wood Splitter
For those that need to handle medium to large volumes of log splitting, several mechanical wood splitters are available including electrical and gas powered wood splitters.
Electrical log splitters are ideal for home use and quite capable of providing a face cord or two of firewood. An electrical motor is typically mounted under a feeder rail, which holds the log in place for the hydraulic plunger that splits the log into firewood.
They are lightweight compared to their gas cousins and many have wheels so they can easily be moved around the yard.
Gas powered log splitters are designed to split large volumes of logs. A gas powered wood splitter is typically outfitted with a rotary ball assembly so it can be towed by an ATV or truck on or off the road. Operators have the option of selecting from a wide range of ram tonnage to split logs. Ram tonnage, or pressure needed to effectively split wood) depends on the species of tree log. To split a straight grained ash log for example, requires much less force (about 20 ton ram force) than is required to split an elm log (about 80 pounds of ram force).
Another Way To Use That Tree You Don’t Cut For Firewood
There’s another way to use living trees that you don’t cut up for firewood; donate the value of that tree. Tree Plantation has created an Environmental Tree Credit program that uses trees wherever they grow on private land to combat climate change and help us plant more trees.
We have partnered with growingtogive.org, a 501c3 nonprofit, that will issue you a tax-deductible donation for your tree. You can donate $10, $20 or $30 or if you have more than 1 tree growing on an acre or more you can use the donation calculator below to increase your tax credit by donating a little more.
Donation Calculator
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How Much Firewood per Tree
Old timers had rules of thumb, that is, experienced-based guides, about how many cords of firewood a tree would yield.
One of those is that a tree that is 18 inches in diameter at the base and four times the height of a man will yield a half-cord of firewood.
Different varieties of trees, and even trees of the same species, that meet the 18 inch base diameter and roughly 24 feet tall criteria will actually yield somewhat different quantities of split firewood. Nevertheless, this How Much Firewood per Tree guideline has been a useful piece of folk-knowledge that has withstood the test of time.
Over the years, people, especially landowners who wanted to grow their own firewood or grow firewood for sale, wanted more precise ways to calculate the How Much Firewood Per Tree in Cords information. Thus the rule of thumb was replaced by the following table from which one can determine with some accuracy how much firewood per tree, as measured in cords, is available.
How Much Firewood per Tree Chart as Measured in Cords
To use the table, you will need two measurements per tree: height and diameter at chest-height, that is, 4.
5 feet up from ground level. Note that this diameter measurement is different from the diameter at base of the tree that is used in the rule of thumb.
The purple squares indicate less than a half cord of firewood.
The yellow squares indicate a yield of from half a cord up to just less than one cord.
The blue squares yield equal to or greater than one full cord, but less than 1.5 cords.
The green squares indicate a yield of from 1.5 cords up to just less than 2 cords of firewood.
The orange squares indicate 2 cords or more of firewood yield.
Two Ways to Measure the Height of a Tree
To use the How Much Firewood per Tree chart above, you have to have the height of the tree or at least a good estimate. To measure the height of a tree, we offer two techniques. One is the time-honored “guesstimate” that requires no special equipment. The other is the modern version, using your smartphone or tablet.
How to Measure the Height of a Tree using Folk Knowledge:
1. Select a tree to measure for height.
2. Close one eye. Point your opposite hand at the tree, keeping your elbow rigid. Now make a fist and point your thumb upward and your little finger toward the ground. Spread your thumb and little finger as far apart as possible.
3. Line up your open eye with the top of your extended arm.
4. Holding this arm and eye in this position, walk either toward the tree or away from the tree until the top of your thumb lines up with the top of the tree and the bottom of your little finger lines up with the base of the tree. Mark the spot you are standing.
5. Measure from the spot you were standing to the base of the tree. (If you know the length of your stride, you can count your steps to the tree. Then just multiply the number of steps times the length of your stride to get the distance to the tree.)
6. Divide the measured distance by 3 for a good estimate of the tree’s height.
Why it works: The span from your thumb to your little finger is 1/3 of the length of your arm.
How to Measure the Height of a Tree using a Smartphone:
We like the free EasyMeasure app. It is available for Android or IOS. EasyMeasure uses the camera feature of your smartphone or tablet to measure height of a tree using the height of the camera from the ground and the tilt of the phone. Before using, you have to set the app so it knows the height from the ground at which you typically hold the smartphone when taking photos (generally, eye-level is your height minus 4 inches.) Read more about the EasyMeasure app.
Storing Those Cords of Firewood
If you store 14 inch long pieces of firewood on a log rack 4 feet tall, you will need the following space to store your cords of firewood:
So, to determine how many trees of what size you will need, first know how much firewood you will need.
Then you will want to know how to stack it correctly.
Resource for How Much Firewood per Tree As Measured in Cords Chart: https://pubs.ext.vt.edu/420/420-560/420-560.html
Last updated by Tom at .
About Tom
Tom has been writing for the FireplaceMall.com blog since 2011 and has loved sitting in front of the fireplace since he was an itty-bitty boy.
| A little bit about firewood... Where to buy, what cord is, how to store it, how much it costs and what is better.
If you have a wood-burning fireplace or stove, then you simply cannot do without firewood. The first question for a good firewood seller is whether you are buying firewood for heating or just for fun and atmosphere. It depends on what type of tree and what type of firewood you should use. More importantly, the firewood must be dry. Not in the sense that the rain does not soak, but dried properly in the air, so that all the moisture comes out of them, and they can burn in the stove, and not smoke. This is the start of wood science in Canada. Some of the best firewood is oak. They are a little more difficult to kindle, but then they burn for a long time and also give off a lot of heat. The principle is simple - the harder the wood species, the more efficient it will be in dissipating heat during combustion. Residents of the northern regions do not have oak firewood, but there is a lot of an ordinary Christmas tree. Spruce is considered a soft wood. But spruce firewood can also perfectly heat your home and create an amazing atmosphere in it. The second question of the firewood seller will be, how much firewood do you want to buy? The unit of measure for firewood in Canada is the cord. I don’t know any analogues in Russian, except to call the cord simply a log or maybe a “bundle of firewood”. The CMHC website has a very good explanation of line sizes. It turns out that firewood sellers do not have any exact definition of the size of the cord. What we are offered on the CMHC website as the concept of "full cord" does not exist in nature at all. I really like the calls of sellers: “We offer you a real cord, not like others!” You start to figure it out, and you get even more confused about what kind of real cord this is. You can, of course, set yourself a goal and find out the dimensions of this mythical cord from each seller. I, like all normal people, like a more meaningful approach to everything, so over time I found myself an advanced supplier who can skillfully explain what is what and what you need.
Here it is - a cord of firewood! Quote from the lumberjack vendor's website: A cord of wood is 4' high by 8' long and 16' deep. More and more suppliers offer a cord of 32 cubic feet. You than get only 3/4 of a cord since a real cord is 42 cubic feet. On his website there are many useful tips and a table of the energy intensity of firewood by wood species. Some of the pictures are from there. A warm, almost friendly relationship has been established with the lumberjack supplier. The first year I found him, he brought us firewood so dirty and on such a cold wet day that we then dried it in the garage with the heating turned on. In the second year, relations became even stronger, and instead of the ordered oak, they brought us spruce firewood. We ordered firewood from him, as in the past year, in the form of cubes. These are trimmings from woodworking enterprises. They burn just as well, if not better, and are cheaper. But an oak is an oak, and a tree is a tree. I did not warn the lumberjack that I have experience in the production of furniture, and where the oak is, and where the tree is, I see right away. I think that the majority, even without any experience, will be able to recognize the most common types of wood. In cubes, they are not so clearly different, but still. Oak is much harder to eat.
On the right - spruce cubes instead of oak, on the left - a little bit of oak trimmings. There is also some softwood split wood to make the fire easier and faster in the fireplace In the end, he also compensated us with oak, but did not take the spruce cubes. Here is such a good advanced firewood supplier.
So, the science of firewood in Canada rests on three pillars: - Firewood must be dry. They are also semi-dry and fresh. You don’t need to take semi-dry and fresh ones, unless you have a place on the site where you put them to dry for a year. - You need to figure out what kind of cord you are offered. This will be the most difficult when buying firewood. - What kind of firewood will you buy and for how much. On average, focus on 100 dollars per cord. Plus or minus. If you want to store dry firewood in the garage, then in no case put the log close to the wall. Do not store firewood inside the dwelling. Insects live in the tree, you do not need them in the house. About humidity and consequences - above. Calmly place a piece of wood in your area. Rain will soak the tree only from above, and the wind will dry everything at once. Snow on the log is not a problem either. Firewood stays dry and immediately ready for use. How long we have left to enjoy the flame and warmth of a burning tree is unknown. In Montreal, wood-burning fireplaces are already banned in some municipalities. And it is right. The main problem is environmental pollution from incompletely burned wood, in other words, from smoke. And this is a very serious environmental problem.
A new type of firewood. They burn longer, give more heat, burn cleaner and are cheaper
For those who live in the suburbs, it is still possible to use wood heating. Yes, and stores specializing in the installation of fireplaces and stoves seem to be not going to close yet. If a modern fireplace or a stove of the so-called slow combustion is installed in the house, then its efficiency, of course, is incomparable with the old devices released back in the last century. Finally, use the wood heating user manual. The French version of this 82-page treatise is available on the CMHC website. But for all the volume of the treatise, the information in it is really very useful and correct in an accessible and completely boring form. Anatoly Igolkin Tweet |
Wood heating can be very effective if your fireplace or stove is modern. Old systems of fireplaces and stoves simply burn wood, giving off heat to a minimum. But even this minimum can thoroughly warm up your house, not to mention the amazing feeling of warmth and comfort created by burning crackling logs. 
But something doesn’t seem right to me, how a local firewood seller, or, in our opinion, a woodcutter, will be able to more or less clearly answer about the size of the cord. The cord is the cord - is it really not clear? 
If you live on the South Shore, then I recommend it to you. He also has a very sensible website, where he explains what size his cord is, gives a table of the energy intensity of different types of wood and generally gives good advice. 
Even dry firewood has a certain percentage of moisture, and as a result, mold and rot will appear on the wall at the points of contact. I don’t think that in your garage in winter it is warmer than 10 degrees. 
Also, probably, the price for the "cord". Service Northern Arrows -
The trimmer has become one of the closest and most indispensable tools for owners of country cottages and garden plots, replacing the traditional manual scythe "Lithuanian".
For electric or gasoline trimmers, the name itself contains a direct indication of the most important part of their design, their working body, the direct element for mowing - the trimmer cord. In common parlance, it is also often referred to as a trim line. It is the contact of the rapidly rotating trimmer cord with grass thickets that ensures their effective mowing. Therefore, the material and technologies on the basis of which this or that trim cord is made are of paramount importance in that:
- How clean will your trimmer be equipped with this line
- how long will his work be
Modern types of trimmer line are able to significantly facilitate the work of the trimmer with them and unload its engine, which prolongs its effective service life.
At first glance, on the counter of a tool store, all trimming cords look the same - they are of bright contrasting colors so as not to be lost from view among the green grass, and seem to differ only in their footage and the type of packaging associated with it: multi-meter - in reels , small - in convenient coils for trimmer heads.
There are also quite economical packages of trimmer cord - already in working lengths for fixing at the mouth of the trimmer head. However, the difference in length is not the main thing for your choice, and for the formation of the price of a trimmer cord in stores. It is clear, of course, that it is economically more profitable to always buy at once the amount of trimmer line that you use on average for the summer season than to go several times over the summer to bribe it in small quantities - this will cost more in terms of transport costs and loss of time ... However, by thinking about how much trimmer cord your garden plot will require per season to always look well-groomed, with fresh, evenly cut plantings and lawns, we will come close to what distinguishes one trimmer cord from another.
In order to calculate the consumption of a trimmer line for the gardening season, we will have to understand: what determines its durability and efficiency in work, which affects how often it will cut off when mowing .
.. Of course, at first this does not seem like a secret for the family seals even to a person who is absolutely not familiar with the production technology of modern trimmer line! It is clear that a rapidly rotating trim cord must, due to the speed of this rotation, cut through all the blades of grass and stems it encounters, and when it encounters an insurmountable obstacle like a stone, a piece of wire sticking out of the ground or a wooden fragment (say, the formwork of a bed in your strawberries), which cannot cut, it will break about them itself. It turns out - remove stones, rubbish or former construction debris from the path of the trimmer and, thereby, dramatically reduce the unproductive consumption of the trimmer cord when working with it. This is where the thought comes - what can be considered a "productive expense" for a cord? What can cause it to break when mowing grass alone?
Experience will tell you that the trimmer line is naturally wasted by accidental breaks at the point of exit from the mouth (eye) of the trimmer head.
After some time of work with the trimmer (especially under difficult mowing conditions), the mowing head can heat up, and this often leads, among other things, to sintering of the trimmer line - in this case, it loses its working properties, becomes brittle, ceases to be flexible so that it also goes to waste, as if it were just about something crossed.
A lot of fishing line is cut on the sharp edges of the stems of some weeds when you work on dry vegetation or process raspberries - its stems are so strong, as if you had launched a trimmer into a quiver of arrows ...
The first thought that comes to mind to think about how to overcome such a "productive consumption" of a trimmer line is usually simple: you need to choose a fishing line of a larger section for your work! Trying to implement this simple solution, you begin to understand that a thicker trim line is by no means a panacea. After all, the larger the section of the trimmer cord you have chosen for work, the greater the load on the trimmer engine will turn out to be, the faster its trimmer head will heat up, which will again begin to threaten with sintering of the fishing line, the more difficult it will be for the working segment of the cord to extend through the eye of the trimmer spool and rub harder and break on its edges .
.. Meanwhile, it turns out that there are trimmer cord manufacturers that have been producing their cord samples for a long time, know firsthand about the need to improve its use, extend its service life, and have accumulated a large and successful experience in implementing all these tasks.
The well-known concern OREGON can be attributed to the prominent representatives of such qualified manufacturers of trimmer line. Back in 1987 - a quarter of a century ago - he shipped his first yellow skeins of trimmer line to the retail shelves, and, as it turns out, he used to our advantage all these years that his trimmer line worked side by side with us. Even its entry-level, entry-level turf line (now available in red instead of yellow, hence the Red line) delivers superior performance and durability compared to its mainstream competitors. The fact is that OREGON firmly holds high-quality polypropylene of the PP6 brand, similar to that used by another well-known European manufacturer - the STIHL concern, as the material for its Red Line trimmer line.
Mass-producers of fishing lines from the Asian market, mainly of Chinese origin, supply trimming fishing lines to our sales counters, samples of which are not made from pure PP6 polypropylene at all ..... All kinds of low-quality polyethylene are added to them to reduce the cost in the raw material component.
Because of this, the consumption of an average Chinese trimmer cord (moreover, we mean only its wear and cases of simple destruction during operation, without taking into account sintering in the trimmer head) is 2-4 times more than that of the basic trimmer line of the RED-line series or STIHL.
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| Oregon star trim cord |
OREGON's "traditional" yellow trim line color is now a special quality color - the color of the Yellow line series, whose trim lines are designed specifically for heavy duty and professional use. To be fully qualified for this application, OREGON's YELLOW-line yellow series cords are made from a caking resistant special copolymer/copolyamide fiber specially procured from an experienced Japanese manufacturer.
In order to further reduce the load on the trimmer motor when working with such a trimmer cord, it is also produced not only with a "traditional" round section, but also with a section in the form of a 5-point sprocket: such a section additionally gives the cord five effective cutting edges and at the same time - five additional stiffeners. This strong, efficient trimmer line enhances the grass cutting system by cutting the grass instead of cutting it off. Cleanly cut blades of grass no longer represent an "open gate" for pathogens of various grass diseases that make the lawn from fresh and green - brown and dry, brittle like stubble. The lawn treated with cord-yellow asterisk produced by OREGON will be able to keep its bright green color, its freshness and grass health for the whole season.
Oregon also solved the problem of cord breaks in the area where the mowing trimmer head exits the eye. Concern OREGON is now releasing a copolyamide trimmer line with an asterisk in section - the Nylium StarLine series - to prevent such cases.
To increase strength and wear resistance, such a Nilium StarLine trimmer cord contains aluminum particles and has sharp cutting edges, its high efficiency in cutting grass can significantly unload the trimmer engine while working with just such a cord. Especially for difficult cutting conditions - in the bush and for working with dry hard vegetation, with raspberries - OREGON has a version of this fishing line with a square section. The effective working surface of such a trim cord increases by more than a quarter - by as much as 27% compared to a round line of the same section.
| Oregon DuoLine Trimmer Line |
OREGON's 2.4mm and 3mm thick trimmer line durability problems were radically solved by the release of the Duoline trimmer line. Its unusually high resistance to tearing, abrasion and fracture is provided by a high-strength core in a strong braid. This trimmer line easily withstands high tensile loads and transverse impacts due to a special carbon insert in the center of the line, and its special coating effectively prevents line sintering.
This type of fishing line is also available in a version with a special cross-sectional profile - in the form of four rounded protrusions. In addition to being used as additional stiffening ribs, these protrusions also make this type of trimmer cord quiet - if you have to mow the lawn, for example, during the afternoon nap of your own or neighbor's children, then you cannot do without such a specialized cord! Compared to the operation of a round trimmer line, OREGON's PLUS Low Noise line produces only 90 decibels of noise, outperforming round line by as much as 15% extra silence. This low-noise line also has excellent aerodynamic properties, which significantly improve the performance of the trimmer engine working with it.
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| Oregon FlexiBlade Trimmer Line |
Now the OREGON concern also has a trimmer cord that can replace the mowing knives of lawn mowers, capable of cutting shrub branches up to 12mm in cross section.
Moreover, this - similar to a cutting knife - cord of the Flexiblade series ("Flexibleblade") is also low-noise, and due to the use of high-quality polymer grade PA6 / 66 for its production, such cord "flexiblade" is also maximally resistant to sintering. It begins to melt only when it reaches a very high temperature - over 255 degrees Celsius. It is also square in cross section, and cutting micro-teeth applied to it on both sides in a horizontal plane have a reinforced reinforced coating along its entire length. For mowing such a surprisingly efficient cutting, similar to a mowing knife, a trimmer line has also been created with a special mowing head - the Jet Fit series.
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| Oregon Techni 280 Trimmer Line |
When working with this trimmer head, a special type of trimmer line can also be used, which, due to cooling with water, can cut tree and shrub growth and even small trees about one and a half centimeters in diameter, and covered with real bark.
Such a cutting series of trimmer line from the OREGON concern is designated as Techni-Blade and is also made from a special polymer grade 6/66 with a temperature of the beginning of fusion only over 255 degrees Celsius. To maintain in working order, such a cord line is stored in a tube specially supplied with it on a special sponge with 25 milliliters of water. Thought out are the conveniences for users, the small amount of trimmer engine power in which will not allow working with large diameters of the red and yellow fishing line of the Techni-Blade series. For them, there is a special "green" version of such a fishing line, capable of operating on engines with a small displacement.
And quite recently, already in 2011, a special non-sintering line for nylon trimmer heads appeared in the OREGON assortment, which remains effective up to the onset of a fantastically high temperature of 280 degrees Celsius, such a trimmer line is called the Techni 280 series It is so resistant to cuts made during work, to wear and aging that it surpasses traditional mowing lines in this respect by almost a third - by as much as 30%.
