THE TOOLBOX
Choose your next calculation
Start with what is on your bench. Every answer shows the method behind it.
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Delivered pile
Firewood Cord Calculator
Whether a delivery is really a cord, what it cost per cord, and how much heat is in it. Uses the legal 128-cubic-foot definition, flags terms a seller may not use, and shows the solid-wood assumption every published table hides.
Check a delivery -
Season ahead
Firewood Consumption Calculator
How many cords a winter takes, read off your propane, oil, gas or electricity bill — or estimated from your floor area and your state’s real heating degree days, with every species compared and the saving against the fuel it replaces.
Plan a winter -
Before you haul
Cord of Wood Weight Calculator
How much a cord or face cord weighs for 146 species, green or seasoned, how much of a green load is water, and how many trips your truck needs at the capacity on its door-pillar label.
Weigh a cord -
Before you buy
Face Cord Calculator
How much of a real cord a face cord is for your piece length, what its price comes to per full cord, and which of two offers gives more heat per dollar once species is counted.
Price a face cord -
Before you burn
Firewood BTU Chart
Heat per cord for 146 species, softwoods included: the heat in the wood and the heat your stove delivers, why BTU charts disagree by half, and the minimum heat lost burning green wood.
Compare species -
Before you buy
Cord of Wood Price Calculator
What a cord costs in the one official price survey we found, how that price has moved since 2022, and whether a quote beats oil, propane or a heat pump once your stove is counted.
Price a cord -
Known board
Board Foot Calculator
Volume of finished lumber from thickness, width and length — one board or a whole cut list. Fractions, actual or nominal sizes, a live dimensioned diagram and a cubic-metre equivalent.
Measure lumber -
Round log
Log Board Foot Calculator
Estimated yield of a log from its small-end diameter and length, with the Doyle, Scribner (approximation) and International 1/4-inch rules shown side by side rather than averaged.
Estimate a log -
Cabinet layout
Shelf Spacing Calculator
Space fixed shelves evenly inside a cabinet opening, including shelf thickness and a measured mark for each shelf.
Lay out shelves -
Sheet cutting
Plywood Panel Calculator
Estimate equal-size rectangular panels per sheet with blade kerf, both orientations and an honest grid-layout limit.
Plan panels
For firewood, check a delivery against the legal cord or plan a season. For finished lumber, measure exact board-foot volume. For a round log, compare estimated yields. For a cabinet or sheet, lay out shelves or estimate identical panels. These are different questions, so each has its own calculator.
A CLEAR START
What are you working with?
Firewood
Check the cord you received, estimate what to order for the winter, or read what the law says a seller owes you.
Check a deliveryPlan a seasonCompare speciesPrice a cordFirewood sale lawLumber & logs
Measure a finished board exactly, or estimate what a round log may yield.
Finished boardsRound logsCabinets & panels
Lay out evenly spaced shelves or estimate identical panels from a sheet.
Shelf spacingPlywood panelsWhat can you measure here?
Wood is bought and sold in units that do not agree with each other. Sawn lumber goes by the board foot. A standing log is estimated with a log rule, and the three common rules disagree on the same log. Firewood is sold by the cord, a unit defined in law that almost nobody measures correctly.
Each unit answers a different question and carries its own conventions. That is where the confusion sits — and, when money changes hands, where it costs something. Every calculator here handles one of those units properly, states the convention it follows, and names the published source behind it.
How accurate are the results?
Each page states the formula it uses and its sources, and labels an estimate as an estimate. Some of these calculations are plain arithmetic on the numbers you enter, and are exact for those numbers. Others are predictions: a log rule says what a log should yield, and real recovery varies with defects, taper, sawing method and kerf. Where a figure rests on an assumption, that assumption is written down and you can change it. Nothing here is presented as a guarantee.
What do these calculators have in common?
- Everything runs in your browser — no sign-up, and nothing you type is sent anywhere.
- US and metric where applicable — the measuring and layout tools accept both. The climate-based Firewood Consumption tool is US-only.
- The method is on the page — formulas, rounding, assumptions and sources, not just a number.
- Built one tool at a time — each is tested against its published source before it ships.
Ten calculators are available today; the list above shows every tool that exists.