Wood shrinks as it dries. If you build a stack of green split wood of a known volume, say, a face cord (rick), and years later, once it dries, sell that as a face cord or do you add to it so it's a full face cord again because the wood shrunk? Does anyone know... I dunno how much wood shrinks... 5-10%? Does it shrink the same all over, including the length or just the diameter? If the length shrinks 10%, 16" splits become 14.4"! Am kinda doubting the length shrinks much, if at all but you guys probably know!
I can't answer any of your questions about shrinkage. What I do is sell by the IBC tote. Depending on size, either 1/4 or 1/3 cord. I stack a little high as I split so it generally comes out to the right amount when it's seasoned and ready for sale.
Around my area, they wood for sale is recently split, including huge operations, and sadly folks burn it green. The concept of how good seasoned firewood can be is an unknown here.
I sell stacked both ways. Most is stacked as green, but when i get dead/down wood it'll get stacked alone or mixed in. I notice shrinkage in stacked wood usually behind my house where i stack under a part of the house. Concrete slab where oil tank is and it jogs out about three feet. 2-3 inches on a 5' tall stack. Other areas i havent paid much attention. If you sell from a green stack and are concerned, throw in some extra splits. Have customers challenged you on this Bill? If i dont sell a measured half cord, ill do a split count. 375+/- pieces is a half, 16" splits.
How tightly one person stacks compared to another has a greater impact on how firewood measures out than how much it shrinks while seasoning. This is why I make sure customers get a little more than what they order. I don’t want to get the call that they stacked it and it was short 6 pieces of firewood! They’ll never call cause you gave them too much
Well I know the length of lumber shrinks very little if at all. It’s tangential and radial that shrink. While I sell very little right now I agree with Haftacut. You’ll never get the call you brought too much. I measure a half cord on my dump trailer as tossed in. Not the most accurate way of loading but the easiest. I’d rather give away ten extra splits than stack it all by hand in my trailer.
Brad... I have not had anyone challenge me but I've gotten several customers who are happy with my volume because they report that another local guy ripped them off. The first question when someone rings my doorbell is, "How much does a cord cost?" Without being a smart alec, I say, "A cord is a lot of wood, is that how much you want?" You would be surprised by the percentage of people who do NOT really know how much a cord is. Like yesterday, the above scenario happened and by time all was said and done, after I showed the guy a 1-cord stack, he admitted that he didn't want that much, a half cord would do... and that based on what I just showed him, he has been getting ripped off. So, it was just another instance of me always wanting to give the customer what they think they are buying. And I went and measured some stacks that have been there a year... and they have shrunk some. So, I will add to it. Although, they are not getting this treatment from any other seller, because most sellers here sell green wood. So, if they buy a measured cord from such a seller, in a year, if they don't burn it, it will shrink. I was just curious what you other sellers do. Because it DOES shrink. It will all work out anyway because I am gravitating towards NOT stacking anything if I can help it. Other than a few show stacks to draw customers who see it from the highway (make pretty stacks!), and also to have some stacks that I can point to and say, "That's a face cord in that stack" or whatever, I actually plan on creating a huge pile of, say, 10 cords, maybe more and sell from that. Because I don't like stacking and it just eats profit. And if my piles are a year or more old, they are getting drier wood from me than they are from these other sellers. There is a guy here (who has shorted some people) who has NEVER stacked firewood, he always sold year-old wood from a pile. And he sold plenty, nobody cared. I am doing this very thing this year... selling year-old wood from logs that have been sitting a year. So, they are 'somewhat' seasoned. Doing this because of a huge scrounge I had last year and I just had to quit doing last spring due to it got too hot to work. Waited for now and cooler temps! Often, I simply measure their truck or trailer and calculate how much volume it is and then I stack into their trailer. If I could get away with satisfying them with a formula-based tossed load, I'd do that! But I dunno if that would go over well. Stacking in a trailer doesn't take too long, it's not that bad. Much easier than stacking a free-standing stack on runners.
I stack all my wood in half cords on pallets. Sits for around a year top covered then I sell it. Do the same every year. The wood definitely shrinks but I've never measured it. Maybe this year. I usually ad a top layer of something premium (oak, madrona, apple) about half way through the season. Customers seem to like it. You can add later in the season because the top layer dries out fast and it finishes off the shrinkage.
That's pretty much how my brother and his friend sold cords when they were selling cords. They tossed a measured cord into the truck. Once. Painted on some measured markers and just tossed in to those marks from then on. Most people had been so shorted in the past they were shocked at the "generous" sized cord they got. It was just an honest (enough) cord, nothing more.
Nobody in these parts sells seasoned or shrunk wood that I know of and nobody understands what dry wood is anyway. And if they could be bothered to have it explained to them it would go in one ear and out the other. I doubt that anyone would want to pay the increased price of dry "shrunk" wood. Most firewood purchasing is a buyer beware transaction. Ricks, racks, face cords, long bed truck loads, short bed truck loads,ranger truck loads, a bucket scoop from the bobcat, no real defined unit of volume or measure. Even if you were to buy a "truckload" its thrown in and level with the top of the bed, which is about 1/3 of a cord, if stacked I can fit a half cord. If I tried I could short a buyer worse trying to maximize the volume taken up in the bed while throwing splits. I have seen large operations sell HEAP firewood ( heating energy assistance program) freshly cut sell over a scale. The operation gets heating vouchers from the state. They require 2 cord or 2.5 tons of wood. The wood seller is getting better money for a product that is inferior. The margins they get are much better on wet wood than dry because... It is freshly split and is heavy, its water weight, not wood weight. Imagine going to the trouble of splitting and stacking and drying and all the labor involved doing it the right way. When the guy down the street is making better margins doing it the wrong way. And the poor souls who cannot afford to heat their homes are stuck with a smaller volume of wood and its almost useless because its wet. If you can demand a premium for dry wood and measure it out as a fraction of a cord you have more integrity than most.
If someone is buying wood and your selling wood you are selling a volume today at the transaction...not the volume 6mobths, 1 or two years ago, anything else is fraud. There is a lot of fraud that goes on in the wood selling business so I am sure some folks are doing just that. That's why if you buy wood know what your buying and have it stacked so both parties can see what it is
I have sold 24 face cords of Oak so far in 2022. I keep it simple. I DO NOT DELIVER. sorry about the yelling I split all the wood I want to sell by hand and leave it stacked in my woods. I split it large just so it starts to dry somewhat. After it sits for two years in the woods, I haul it to my shed and final split it with my DR electric splitter. I made a jig so when I stack it off the splitter I don’t need a tape measure. When one row is full I just slide the jig out and start another row. My customers then come to my shed and see with their own eyes what they are buying. KISS method keep it simple. Here is the jig hanging on the wall on some bike hooks around the window? Inside dimension of the jig is 8 feet long and 49 inches tall. I cut everything 16 inches. Here are ten rows ready to sell and all under 18% on my MM Here is a load I am splitting tomorrow for my 2023/2024 personal supply So I voted in the poll my wood is for the most part pre shrunk before it hits my jig.
Same where im at! Only person that was interested in my black locust 50 dollar racks on FBM was a man that works for a tree company, lot of people think ash is the superior wood out here
