Firewood & the law

A cord is not one number, and the law says so.

The model regulation most states adopt defines a cord as 128 cubic feet of wood ranked and well stowed, and prohibits the words “face cord”, “rack”, “pile” and “truckload” in a sale. But the statutes of individual states do not all say that. Minnesota puts a cord of sawed and split wood thrown loose into a truck at 175 cubic feet; Maine puts a loose cord at 180 or 195 depending on the piece length, and defines the face cord that Massachusetts and Rhode Island forbid. What you are owed depends on which of those texts applies to you.

This page is the regulatory side of firewood: what the rule says, how seven states we have read actually differ, and what to do when a load looks short. To put a number on the pile in your driveway, use the Firewood Cord Calculator — it measures a stack against the 128-cubic-foot definition.

What exactly does the law count as a cord?

The reference is NIST Handbook 130, the Uniform Regulation for the Method of Sale of Commodities, section 2.4, which many states adopt as their own method of sale. It defines a cord as the wood contained in a space of 128 cubic feet when the wood is “ranked and well stowed”, and it defines that phrase too: pieces placed in a line or row, individual pieces touching and parallel to each other, stacked compactly. California writes the same idea into its own regulation and adds the reason out loud: stacked so as to minimise the spaces between pieces.

That definition does real work. A pile tipped off a truck is not a cord, and neither is a crisscross or log-cabin stack — Washington’s weights and measures office states plainly that such a stack does not meet the legal definition and will usually hold less wood than a parallel stack of the same outside dimensions. Maine goes one step further and makes the deduction explicit: any void in the stack that would accommodate a stick of average size must be subtracted from the measured volume.

• Loose firewood: sold by the cord or a fraction of a cord, or by the cubic metre.
• Packaged wood under 16 cubic feet (0.45 m³, one eighth of a cord): declared in cubic feet or cubic metres, fractions included — the bundles sold at a filling station, for example. California draws its line at four cubic feet for what still counts as bulk.
• Species: if the seller declares a species group, the declaration must be accurate within 10 percent (for example “50 percent hickory, 50 percent miscellaneous softwood”).

Is a cord always 128 cubic feet?

No — and this is the part no price comparison survives. 128 cubic feet is the ranked cord. Two states we read put explicit, larger numbers on wood that arrives loose, because loose wood contains more air. Minnesota legislates a whole table of them:

Read the two extremes together: a Minnesota seller who ranks sawed wood owes 110 cubic feet of stacked space for a cord, and one who tips the same cord loose owes 160. If you measure a loose delivery against 128 and conclude you were shortchanged, you may be measuring against the wrong number. Measure against the number that matches how the wood arrived.

Minnesota also settles the argument about weight, which is where cord pricing usually collapses: a cord sold by weight is based on 79 cubic feet of solid wood, the weight per cord may vary by species, and if the parties never agreed in writing, the weight most recently established by the commissioner of natural resources prevails.

Which words may a seller not use?

Section 2.4.4 of the model regulation prohibits “face cord”, “rack”, “pile”, “truckload” and terms of similar import in advertising, offering for sale, or selling wood for fuel. California names two more — “rick” and “tier” — and then closes the list with any other term describing a unit of measure that the article does not specify. New Mexico adds “load” and “loose cord”.

The reason is arithmetic, not linguistics: those words describe the face of a stack — its height and its length — and leave the third dimension, the length of the pieces, unstated. Two “face cords” cut to 12 and to 24 inches differ by a factor of two for the same money.

Maine is the instructive exception, and it proves the point rather than breaking it. Maine defines a face cord: a face 4 feet high and 8 feet long, 32 square feet, with the length of the sticks agreed upon by both parties. The unit only becomes lawful once the missing dimension is written down. Everywhere else, the answer to “how much is a face cord?” is that the question is not answerable until you know the piece length — the Face Cord Calculator takes it from there.

What a seller can legally write almost anywhere is a quantity and a piece length: “one third of a cord, cut to 16 inches” is compliant, unambiguous, and describes exactly the delivery that “a face cord” leaves vague. If an advertisement you are reading uses one of the prohibited terms, that is already information about the seller, before you have measured anything.

What must be on the delivery ticket?

For any non-packaged firewood, the seller must present a delivery ticket or sales invoice. Under the uniform regulation it carries at least:

• the name and address of the seller;
• the name and address of the buyer;
• the date delivered;
• the quantity delivered, and the quantity the price is based on if the two differ;
• the price of the amount delivered;
• the identity of the wood in the most descriptive terms commercially practicable, including any quality claim made during the sale.

States trim or extend that list. California requires the seller’s name and address, the date, the quantity and the price — the buyer’s name is not on its list. Washington adds the type and quality of the wood. New Mexico requires both parties’ names and addresses and the identity of the commodity. Keep the ticket whichever state you are in: it is the document that fixes what was promised and when it arrived, and every complaint procedure we have read starts by asking for it.

Does my state say something different?

Often, yes — and not in small ways. Below is what we have verified by reading each state’s own statute or regulation, or the page its enforcing agency publishes. The “receipt” column reports what the text we read requires; a dash means that text is silent, not that nothing applies.

Seven states, each read on its own statute, regulation or enforcing agency’s page on 13 September 2026. We would rather publish seven states we have actually read than fifty copied from a summary, and we add a row when we have verified one. For a state that is not listed, the reliable route is your own weights and measures office: NIST publishes the directory of state officials, and the firewood page of a state agriculture department is normally the clearest statement of the rule you are under.

What should I do if the load looks short?

The order matters more than the speed, because measuring a pile that has already been moved or burned proves nothing. Massachusetts publishes the most explicit procedure we have found, and Washington gives the same first instruction: do not burn any of it yet.

1. Do not burn or move any of the wood, and do not split the delivery into several stacks.
2. Rank it in a single stack — pieces parallel and touching, as compact as you can make it. That is the stacking the definition assumes. If your state instead sets a loose-cord volume, measure the load as it arrived and use that number.
3. Measure the stack and work out the volume. The Firewood Cord Calculator turns length, height and piece length into cords, and into the price per cord you actually paid.
4. Photograph the stack with a date stamp. Massachusetts asks for photographs taken no more than 72 hours after the delivery date and time shown on the ticket.
5. Contact the seller first, before using the wood, with the measurement and the ticket in hand.
6. If the seller will not correct it, file with the state office. Massachusetts can issue a civil citation for a short delivery, for advertising that breaks the rules, or for failing to provide a proper ticket — but it also states plainly that it cannot force a seller to compensate you. Enforcement and restitution are not the same thing. Washington adds a practical limit of its own: it says it can currently investigate only chronic and repeat violators.

Can firewood be sold by weight or by the ton?

Under the model regulation the measure is volume: the cord and its fractions, or the cubic metre. A ton is not a unit of firewood in that text. Minnesota is the counter-example again — it allows a measurement by weight and tells you how to convert it, at 79 cubic feet of solid wood per cord, with the weight varying by species. Elsewhere, a price per ton cannot be compared with a price per cord without knowing the species and how dry the wood is: the same volume of oak and of pine differs by roughly a factor of two in weight. If a local seller quotes tons, ask for the equivalent in cords in writing, and check what your own state authorises before treating the quote as compliant. To turn a weight into cords for a given species, green or dry, use the Cord of Wood Weight Calculator.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• NIST Handbook 130-2023, Uniform Regulation for the Method of Sale of Commodities, section 2.4 — the cord, the permitted units, the prohibited terms, the species declaration and the delivery ticket.
• California: Wood for Fuel Purposes, 4 CCR §§4530–4532, published by the CDFA Division of Measurement Standards (definitions, method of sale, invoice), under Business and Professions Code §12107.1.
• Maine: 10 M.R.S. §2302 — standard cord with voids deducted, loose cord at 180 and 195 cubic feet, and the statutory definition of a face cord.
• Massachusetts: Division of Standards — Firewood Sales — sale by the cubic foot, the defined lengths, the delivery ticket under M.G.L. c.94 §299, and the complaint procedure including the 72-hour photographs.
• Minnesota: Minn. Stat. §239.33, Standard measurements of wood — the cord volumes by processing, the 79-cubic-foot solid content for sales by weight, the board foot and Scribner decimal C.
• New Mexico: New Mexico Department of Agriculture — Firewood — sale by the cord, the list of illegal quantity terms, and the invoice contents under 21.16.4 NMAC.
• Rhode Island: R.I. Gen. Laws §47-12-3 — sale in cubic feet or cubic metres, the prohibited terms, and the bushel for kindling. (The state’s own server was unreachable when we checked; the text is quoted from a legal publisher’s reproduction of the section.)
• Washington: Washington State Department of Agriculture — Firewood — the adoption of Handbook 130 by chapter 16-662 WAC, the receipt contents, and the point about crisscross stacking.
• NIST — Directory of Weights and Measures Officials: how to reach the office for your own state.