That is rather typical in my experience as well. Guys here on this and other forums are wed to the idea of face cords, rick and racks, but never mind that rot. Here by law you can only sell firewood by the cord or fraction thereof. However, the math of a 4x4x8 stack is still is way beyind many in these parts. Maybe it has to do with the 30%+ dropout rate in the high schools around here? The last cord I bought here was from a retired forester, and he has a stakeside trailer that holds 1 to 2 cords, so you can see that the wood is indeed what he sells it as being, right when he arrives. He tight stacks as well, so it is no debate as to the amount of wood.
That is the great exception in my experience. My ex bought a cord of oak from some goons shen I was moving out of her place, and it was more like a collection of small cut up wet branches and mud. The stuff I would leave and burn as slash. I challanged them as the the amount of wood, and it barely came to a half cord, by any measurement they made. They seemed to think for some reason that if you measure the length first the number comes out bigger? So they finally agreed and returned the next day with another batch of muddy wood. So I asked the ex what the ^%$# she was doing, when I had left her at least 5 cords racked by the house and another 10 cords of cut and stacked wood salvaged from the last 5 acres of firs that we had logged off of her property. Well, she hemmed and hawed, and I said 'never mind' and left it at that. She has since built a 15x30 woodshed that will hold about 12 cords of wood plus the 5 cords that the racks by the house hold. She wants enough to get her through 2 winters at any given time. Which I guess is OK, but why would you buy firewood when you live on 100+ acres of timber land? OK, never mind, complete lack of any common sense is a big reason I left...
I have a similar debate with the truck drivers that sell trash trees on the side for firewood around here. They claim that a truckload is 10 cords. My claim is that its a lot less than that, especially oak and maple that are usually twisted logs with large gaps. If they were tightly stacked straight doug fir logs, that would be on average 4.5 MBF gross per turckload. At 2 cords per MBF, that is 9 cords for tight stacked logs. Also they are green logs... when they dry there is shrinkage, so you will wind up with about 10% less wood in the end. But they sell green wood, and hence use green measurements... I burn dry wood, so I use dry measurements. Anyway, I figure 8+ burnable cords of dry wood in the end, they want to sell it as 10 cords of firewood. They are an average of $1,200 a truckload here for oak or maple. To me that is $150 a cord... to them its $120 a cord. The conversion factors from MBF per cord are rough order here, and the amount of wood on a truck varies as to the species and how heavy the logs are. In many cases you will only get 4 MBF of logs loaded on a truck. From what I see in the resulting stacks of my neighbors that buy and buck logs, I think they get more like 7-8 cords per load.
The memories & fellowship are priceless treasures.
! This is oak. This might not turn out well if you need the wood this year. If you don't need it for 2-3 years then okay.
Now my friend who burns an old smoke dragon in his hangout and won't take my advise is on his own. At least it's not his primary residence.
$300 per cord
