Pallets of Firewood 101 (Dimensions, Weight, & More)


While most people are buying wood by the chord, bundle, or truckload, not many are buying it by the pallet. I wanted to put together this article answering every question that comes up related to firewood on pallets.

For example, how much does it weigh? That’s a great question for anything looking to haul it with their truck. How much firewood is on a pallet? How is it stacked? All of these questions and more are answered here.

I took the time to stack my own pallet of wood for some first-hand experience. Take a look:

How much firewood is on a pallet?

The industry standard to a pallet of firewood is firewood stacked four feet tall. Expect your firewood to be stacked that tall, but the length and width of the pallet will be the difference between a little and a lot of firewood.

I stacked my firewood the industry standard, four feet tall, on a 40 by 48″ pallet. This is the industry standard, but some pallets are larger than others.

With less than bundle grade firewood at around 1 feet in length, this added up to 275 pieces. Keep in mind that this number depends on the size of your firewood and how carefully you stacked it.

Not accounting for air space, a pallet of firewood will be 4x4x3.33 feet of wood. This is just over 53 cubic feet, which is 41% of a chord of wood. When you buy a pallet of firewood, you’re buying just under one half chord of wood.

My pallet, for example, was 4 feet in length and 3 feet 6 inches in width. The whole idea of selling firewood by the pallet is that it’s nearly 4x4x4 feet of firewood, which is the same as half a chord. The problem is how it’s stacked which takes away from this amount.

How is a pallet of firewood stacked?

Stacking a pallet has a bit of technique. You can’t lay all the wood the same way, or it wouldn’t stack up to four feet tall. It’ll just fall over.

The trick is to stack each corner like Jenga blocks. This is laying three or four logs one direction, then the same amount the opposite direction. Think of it like the corner of a log cabin. Repeat this pattern until you have four feet towers on each corner, and fill in the gaps with firewood.

This is a tedious process, but leads to a lot of firewood on one pallet! I managed to fit more firewood on a pallet than I did in the back of my pickup truck! If you’re curious at how much, or how much can fit in your truck, read my article: See How Much Firewood Your Truck can Haul (Calculator).

Speaking of trucks, if you’re hauling a pallet of wood to your house, you’ll need to know how much it weighs.

How much does a pallet of firewood weigh?

In my previous experiment, I weighed 186 pieces of dried firewood and found the average weight to be 5.7 pounds per piece of wood. This was a mix of mostly hardwoods and dried to the color you see in the pictures above, which is about 5 or 6 months.

Using this average, the 275 pieces I managed to stack on this pallet weighs 1,567.5 pounds. I’m fairly confident in this figure, since I’m using the same wood I stacked in my truck for this pallet experiment. Keep in mind that this number will be different for you depending on how wet your firewood is, the type of wood, and size.

Assuming you fit the standard 53 cubic feet of firewood on your pallet and it’s seasoned, it will weigh about 1,500 pounds. If it’s still wet wood, it will weigh 75 to 100% more. This can push the weight to nearly 3,000 pounds. When hauling firewood, check your vehicle’s recommended payload.

Taylor Whiteman

Taylor has been splitting firewood for years now. He is an employee for Michael Whiteman & Sons, his family's construction company. Among other things, it specializes in tree removal and firewood sales. Over the years, Taylor has split and sold many chords of firewood. On Extrafirewood.com, he shares what he's learned.

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