Author Topic: how many cords per truck load? (Read 4192 times)

redneck · « **on:** January 11, 2009, 08:36:39 pm »

My friend is buying a few tractor trailor loads of firewood tree length. He asked me how many cords per truck load. i told him that it is hard to measure exactly untill cut up and pilled
up in rows 4 feet high. however i would guess that a tractor trailer with three axles could handle about 12 cord and a tandem load about 8 cords does that seem right?? maybe he should pay by the ton and weigh the loads?

SwampDonkey · « **Reply #1 on:** January 11, 2009, 08:42:21 pm »

Your guestimate is same as here. I've never been cheated on 12 cord per TT load here, often a 1/4 a cord over. We hauled aspen one winter and it seems to average 8 cord on a tandem Chevy 13 speed.

fuzzybear · « **Reply #2 on:** January 12, 2009, 12:42:07 am »

Estimates depend on species, amount of moisture,ect. I load standing dead spruce onto a 45' tractor trailer. The most I can put on in tree length is 20 cords. If I cut 8' length I can squeeze on 25. But that is A LOT of weight, and alot of chaining.

SwampDonkey · « **Reply #3 on:** January 12, 2009, 05:51:49 am »

redneck, call the marketing board, see what they say. I know some guys can get on 16 cord, but it's over weight and not legal and no loader mounted on the truck. The average seems to be around 32 tonnes with self loaders, seen some over weight at 40 tonnes (no loader). 2.5 tonnes per cord green hardwood (maple, beech, yellow birch).

Clark · « **Reply #4 on:** January 12, 2009, 01:24:00 pm »

My experience as a pulp scaler is that if you average ~12 cords per truck, that is about right. Now, weight restrictions can come into play also. I was scaling in WI and 12 cords was pretty average, had I been in MN it would have been closer to 10 because of weight restrictions (so the truckers told me...) This was all 100" hardwood pulp.

I could be wrong but I would expect the average to be slightly lower with tree-length , unless the tops are dragging on the ground!

Clark

Gary_C · « **Reply #5 on:** January 12, 2009, 02:21:01 pm »

Minnesota and Wisconsin are about the same for truck weights with some exceptions and there are a bunch of those.

For general numbers my tractor trailer weighs about 32,000 empty, no loader, and normally I can haul 80,000 max with a five percent allowance or 84,000. So that is about 52,000 payload or 26 tons. In the winter under frozen road conditions, that goes up by 10 percent or to 92,400 lbs, 30 tons. The difference between states can be because it is nearly impossible to get across the line without going interstates and the feds do not allow the tolerances and the 10 percent increase only with a permit.

Loaders on the trailer can add 6-10,000 lbs to a trailer depending on the size and age of the loader.

In Mn you now can use three axle trailers and with a permit you weight up to 90,000 gross plus five in the summer and another plus ten in the winter. But not on the interstates at all, even with a permit.

So then the number of cords depends on the species with aspen at 2.25 tons per cord and maple/oak at 2.4 tons per cord. Basswood as another example is 1.9 tons per cord and pine is scaled at 2.2 I think.

SwampDonkey · « **Reply #6 on:** January 12, 2009, 04:45:38 pm »

Redneck is in my neck of the woods, so he's in line with my experience for here. He's not loading aspen and basswood for firewood.

But, Gary your mills are pretty much in line with the weights we use here and in Eastern Maine.

SwampDonkey · « **Reply #7 on:** January 12, 2009, 07:34:10 pm »

Hmm, let me refrain, yours are short ton, mine metric tonne. So, there is a difference of 500 lbs on the hardwood, and 450 lbs on the aspen or are your mills weighting in metric? Maine uses short tons, I assume the same out your way. Boils down to our discussions on converting a weight to a volume that is not solid wood. But, anyway as I said earlier, I've never been cheated on the conversions we use.

SwampDonkey · « **Reply #8 on:** January 12, 2009, 07:45:17 pm »

Season is also a factor in weight, one of the mills here also had seasonal adjustments for weight. And further still, freshness of the wood being hauled.

Seems like nickle and diming, but anyway to steal a buck. Heck next they'll want to deduct lignin content.

Gary_C · « **Reply #9 on:** January 12, 2009, 07:48:39 pm »

Did you ask something or are you just ruminating?

SwampDonkey · « **Reply #10 on:** January 12, 2009, 07:50:55 pm »

Where's the oats.

barbender · « **Reply #11 on:** January 13, 2009, 02:55:52 am »

At UPM Blandin, if I am in the #100,000 range, they scale it about 14 cords on aspen, truck is around 38,000 depending on how much fuel I have on. Hey, that makes 2.2 tons, close to what Gary said. I think he's off on the Pine though, I think that is 2.4 per cord, Red Pine anyhow. That stuff is deceptively heavy, very easy to get overloaded, especially with saw bolts.

SwampDonkey · « **Reply #12 on:** January 13, 2009, 06:25:10 am »

We use 2.25 ton or 2 metric tonne for spruce. Red pine and balsam fir are heavier, red pine a touch more so. Red pine is almost as heavy as hard maple, so your on track I'd say. For some reason the pulp mills think our hardwood has more water. But as I indicated, some mills will find a way to skim the cream, just like contracting potatoes to a processor. That's why some are now bankrupt for skimming too much from locals and increasing their procurement costs from further afair.

redneck · « **Reply #13 on:** January 13, 2009, 08:00:02 am »

we looked at some of the loads, and talked to another person who has cut and split a load and ended up with about 12 cords. so i think my friend is happy with paying for 12 cords per load
thanks for the help
Redneck

barbender · « **Reply #14 on:** January 13, 2009, 07:21:49 pm »

Yep SwampDonkey, the first time I hauled Red Pine I couldn't believe how heavy it was. I didn't realize how much of a difference it made with the wood being green

I mean, everyone knows Red Oak and Hard Maple are way heavier than pine, right? Well, yeah, when it's dry they are way heavier, but not green. I don't know the moisture content of that Red Pine as a percentage, but it's way up there. I know my outdoor boiler burns green wood of all species no problem, except for Red Pine, that just makes huge clouds of steam

dsgsr · « **Reply #15 on:** January 14, 2009, 06:46:40 pm »

Speaking of weights of wood, What does Aspen/Poplar weigh. I tried the calculator on this forum and it reads 3900 lbs. per cord. If SwampDonkey is saying Spruce is 2.25 tons, Isn't Aspen/Poplar heavier than Spruce? Or am I missing something?

David

Gary_C · « **Reply #16 on:** January 14, 2009, 07:40:10 pm »

All the mills around here use 2.25 tons or 4500 lbs per cord for aspen. I don't know if that is right or not but that is what they use.

Most loggers feel they get screwed by that conversion and you do need to get that wood right in to the mill after cutting or you will lose moisture and money. It may well be bad for the logger, but weight conversions are a more uniform way of screwing the logger than stick scaling.

SwampDonkey · « **Reply #17 on:** January 15, 2009, 05:44:27 am »

Mills here use 2.5 short tons or 2.27 metric tonne for aspen. The only reason we convert here is the loggers are mostly old school, and metric tonnes and m³ are meaningless to them. This with being metric since 1978. One of the troubles, well not really, but for lack of a phrase, is these border towns are so use to the US market and the logger pays his cutter based on a cord and the home owner wants a cord of stove wood. So........

I can see Gary's conversion used in winter because of seasonal moisture adjustment.

rocksnstumps · « **Reply #18 on:** January 17, 2009, 09:32:10 pm »

Looking at the load slips from a recent cutting on my land, the mills in central Wisconsin use a conversion of 2.4 for both hardwood and red pine pulp also. This is for what I guess you call a short ton, not metric anyway.

thompsontimber · « **Reply #19 on:** January 18, 2009, 12:06:53 am »

Quote from: Gary_C on January 14, 2009, 07:40:10 pm

Most loggers feel they get screwed by that conversion and you do need to get that wood right in to the mill after cutting or you will lose moisture and money. It may well be bad for the logger, but weight conversions are a more uniform way of screwing the logger than stick scaling.

Certainly many loggers do feel that way. You are right, at least it adds uniformity and everyone gets screwed equally. Most mills buying by weight are simply pricing by the ton, but the real issues come about when stumpage is purchased on a cord basis and sold on a ton basis, only to have the timber buyer determine his own weight conversion. I've heard stories of such things happening. That's why each region has a standard conversion that is the legal conversion that must be followed in that area, and any other conversion could constitute timber theft. In my area, the conversion is 2.675 tons or 5350 lbs per cord of pine and 2.9 tons or 5800 lbs per cord of hardwood (mixed, not broken down by species). Is that conversion right? well of course not, its gonna vary by species, age, size, moisture content, etc etc....but you gotta use those numbers, its standard.

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Author Topic: how many cords per truck load? (Read 4192 times)