Amount of wood per cord?

[turnkey4099]

No, not a question of how many cubic feet, that is 128.

Way back when (don't ask) after retiring from the militgary, I bought this place and started burning wood because I liked it and grew up doing it.

I did a lot of reading and recall seeing a statement in a book somewhere that you get more wood per cord if you buy it in the round (unsplit). That a given pile of wood in the round will expand about 10% after splitting.

Anybody ever did an experiment? I haven't, there is enough work piling wood once without doing it, then tearing it down, splitting and restacking.

Harry K

 

[nobull1]

When you say in the round do you mean 8' lengths or 16" lengths?

 

[woodchuckie]

You would have a lot more air space with the same wood split and stacked but I've never tried it to see. Mabe when I retire I will.

 

[beenthere]

It would be easy to check it out when you are splitting sometime. Might just depend - on how big the rounds are to begin with, might'n it. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Take the extreme of 2 logs (big ones) that made the 'cord' space of 4' high by 8' long by 4' deep (2 four ft diam logs each 4' long), and then imagine the space if split. Now if split into splinters, maybe it'd be less 'volume'. Like I suggest, it depends.

 

[nobull1]

When we buy 8' cords of wood we find big wood makes wood and little wood loses wood. You cannot put all the pieces back together after you split a big log to take up the same volume. When you have small wood it piles tighter when split than when in lengths. Now if the wood is 16" lengths it will depend on how small you split. Big split pieces don't pile near as tight as small split pieces. Same as you just said.

 

[Newblue]

I have also found that wood will shrink slightly while it seasons. I have a 4'x8' rack that I measure wood in to sell. I've had wood sit in the rack over the summer and it will shrink between 5 and 10 percent.


Mike

 

[turnkey4099]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( When you say in the round do you mean 8' lengths or 16" lengths? )</font>

Supposedly it doesn't matter "any given pile" covers it.

As to splitting size, I don't think it matters. The smaller you split, the tighter it stacks but also the more small air spaces you have so...

Harry K