If your home heating runs on wood, you need to understand how to deal with firewood and buy the right amount at a decent price.
Consider that you need to buy it in advance, at least 6-9 months before winter season. That is important for two main reasons.
Firstly, buying firewood right before the cold season will cost you much more. Secondly, you always need to dry it because you can’t use wet or greenwood.
We recommended you to use dried wood because greenwood can lead to way more smoke than is comfortable.
Table of Contents
Rick or Cord?
The term “rick” comes from an old English word meaning pile or stack. It tends to refer to farm-related stacks such as wood, corn and a variety of other things.
A rick of wood is also referred to as a face cord. Generally speaking, you will find a rick or face cord of wood in 12-, 16-, or 24-inch options.
This means that each of the logs of firewood within that stack are going to be one of the aforementioned lengths and 16-inch is the most common.
A cord of wood measures 4 feet in height, 4 feet in width, and 8 feet in length. A rick is a fraction of the full cord.
A full cord, generally speaking, is around 48 inches wide. Here’s a little bit of a helper to compare ricks to cords.
If you have a 12-inch wide rick, that is equal to a quarter of a cord, while a 24-inch wide rick is equal to a half cord of wood.
Read: Hardwood vs Softwood
How much does a rick of wood weigh?
Wood is an amorphous solid natural material: it means that its weight depends on different intrinsic characteristics.
For example, trees like spruce weigh less and one cord of these is about 2,500 pounds. However, oak and other dense woods weigh more, roughly around 5,500 pounds per cord.
Based on the width measurement, a rick of wood can weigh between 625 pounds (if we’re talking about low-density wood) and 2,750 pounds (for higher-density wood).
If you are considering transporting the firewood by yourself, a rick of wood can fit in a pickup truck, but a cord of wood is way too big.
Read about: Cedar VS Redwood
How many pieces are in a rick of wood?
Generally speaking, there are between 550 and 650 pieces of seasoned wood that need splitting in a single cord of wood.
How much does a rick of wood cost?
Like the weight, the cost depends on different aspects such as the type of wood, if it has been seasoned and how, the specific local market, and so on.
A rick of oak costs somewhere between $150 and $250. If you want to have it delivered, you should be prepared to add the transportation costs to the end price.
Generally speaking, consider a delivery fee of around $1 to $2 for every loaded mile; however there are some suppliers that will charge only after a specific number of miles.
Read to know: Dark Wood Types
How many ricks of wood do I need?
In general, a single rick of wood will not be enough to last you through the entire winter, in which case you might want to get at least 2.
If you do decide to buy 3 ricks of firewood, it might be more convenient price-wise to just buy one face cord.
How long does a rick of wood last?
If firewood is your main source of heating, a rick of wood should last in between 6 and 10 weeks. We suggest you to always be prepared to consume more.
That means you will need to have more firewood stacked so that you can be 100 percent sure you won’t run out of heat until temperatures outside are finally acceptable.
Read to make: How to Make Wood Waterproof
How to store your firewood
Where you stack it is important; you need to be able to get to it conveniently throughout the winter and it’s a good idea to cover it.
If the firewood that you had delivered isn’t split, there’s a lot more work left to do. The first thing to do is split them up.
This is for two reasons: to make it easier to carry and to make burning better in the appliance you are using it for.
Should the firewood be wet or green, you’ll need to find an open airspace so that it can dry as you stack it.
How efficiently and quickly the wood dries all depends on how you choose to pile or stack the wood. And remember: always stack it off of the ground.
Keeping your firewood off the ground comes down to your preference between bricks, logs, and pallets. The most common, popular, and practical method is to go with row stacking.
You can try the circle piling and heap piling methods but the best overall method for a quicker dry is to use single row stacking.
Should you decide to stack more than a single row, make sure that you leave a good amount of space between each of the rows.
This is to provide proper air circulation so that the wood remains dry at all times. When wood is stacked together too tightly, moisture can build in those crevices.
Keep in mind that when you’re stacking, you want to be able to get to the driest wood first and foremost.
Rotating is a good idea, too. Maybe burn some of the oldest pieces that are in the stack to prevent the chance that the wood could rot over time.
You want to be able to get through the entirety of the rick or cord and letting pieces go to waste is not how you do that.
You can keep firewood in your home: it is a good idea to only keep a few days’ worth at one time. Firewood can attract a lot of unwanted pests.
Moreover it can result in dirt as well as debris in the form of bark pieces and the pollen that gets stuck to the wood can be bad for allergies.
If you bring wood that is wet into your home, there’s a chance that the moisture trapped in the wood can lead to higher levels of humidity in your home.
Read to know about: Types of Hardwood
Final Thoughts
There is no doubt that firewood can make you home cozy and comfortable compared to gas. Moreover it’s cheaper and environmentally friendly.
Taking care of your firewood needs some planning and some work to pull off. But those efforts will keep your home nice and toasty during the coldest months.
Leave a Reply