Lumber and firewood converter
Convert timber and firewood between board feet, cords and cubic meters.
That's 19× as much wood as an 8-foot 2×4, while a pickup load of firewood is 7.7× more wood. As solid seasoned softwood, that would weigh about 118 kg.
What it means
How much wood is that?
Board feet are counted from nominal sizes. Cords and steres are stacked measures that include the air between logs. The weight assumes solid seasoned softwood at about 500 kg/m³.
Every unit
Your wood in every unit
Learn
Three things worth knowing
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About 424 board feet to the cubic meter
A board foot is 144 cubic inches, so twelve of them make a cubic foot, and a thousand (one MBF) is 2.36 m³.
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Measured with a cord
Firewood was once measured by wrapping a cord of known length round the stack. The name stayed; the stack was fixed at 128 cubic feet.
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A 2×4 is not 2 by 4
A planed 2×4 is 1½ × 3½ inches, but it is still billed as 2 × 4. A face cord is one row of a cord, and its depth depends on how long the logs were cut.
Shortcuts
Popular amount of wood conversions
Background
About lumber measures
Sawn timber in North America is sold by the board foot: a piece one foot square and one inch thick. Firewood is sold by the cord, a neat stack four feet high, four feet deep and eight feet long.
Elsewhere wood goes by the cubic meter, and firewood by the stere: a cubic meter of stacked logs, air included.