I have seen a few btu/cord charts. But I am a little confused by what the actual cord is that is used for the measurement. Is it a traditional cord of 4' logs in a 4x8 stack or 128 cu ft of tightly stacked split wood?
Btu's per cord
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Sounds like a trick question...lol but most chart will say season cord and to get it season it would need to be split. 128 cu ft
Ive seen some charts that figure on the actual wood volume, 70 to 90 cu ft per cord (128 stacked with some "air")
It comes down to, get the best wood ya can, burn it
Here is one chart that explains it a little better, plus btu per pound of wood "dry", which is really what it gets down to
(broken link removed to http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/home/heating_cooling/firewood.html)
It comes down to, get the best wood ya can, burn it
Here is one chart that explains it a little better, plus btu per pound of wood "dry", which is really what it gets down to
(broken link removed to http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/home/heating_cooling/firewood.html)
sgrenier35 said:
Few folks think of the traditional measure of a standard cord when they talk of firewood, but it originally was supposed to be a 4' x 8' stack of 4' long logs, not splits. Fact is, a very carefully stacked cord of perfectly straight logs will contain more mass than the same volume of carefully stacked splits. Geometrically speaking, the volume of an infinite number of perfect cylinders nested as tightly together as possible approaches about 91% of the volume of the space that encloses them. This can easily be shown by taking the difference between the area of a hexagon (hexagons nest perfectly together with no spaces) and that of a circle inscribed within it. Or trust Wiki like I did.
That means that a cord of perfectly stacked, perfectly cylindrical logs contains about 115 cu.ft. of solid matter, and about 13 cu.ft. of air.
That's not what happens when you stack up splits. Most sources quote 128 cu.ft. of stacked wood as only containing about 80-90 cu.ft. of solid matter. Now, I'm not saying a load of logs in real life it going to approach the volume of perfectly nested cylinders. The logs will probably be of different diameters (which can, if properly stacked, give an even higher amount of solid matter), but they will not be perfectly straight, nor will the sides be perfectly parallel. The shorter the logs are, though, the better they will conform to a given space. Stove length rounds stacked on their sides would be close to the ideal.
So, what kind of "cords" were used to compute the tables? We'll never know, since we can't ask all of the many anonymous data sources that may have contributed to the tables. And who cares? A stove is like a growing teenager. You feed it when hungry and live with the cost. Get good dense wood and get it dry. It's like feeding steak to your stove.
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