Pickup Truck Firewood Question

[Jennifer L.]

How much firewood can you carry in the 8' bed of a pickup truck without doing anything to tie it down? I'm looking at buying wood over the summer whenever I go by a guy who's selling it, so I'd like to take a decent load home but not have to worry about it. Just doing the numbers it seems like 1/2 a cord (full cord) would be simple, but maybe a little more than that? Could you do two face cords (16" cuts)?

Jennifer

[Sand Flat Bob]

Do you just have a standard 8 foot pickup bed. Or do you have sideboards on it. Or is it a flat bed? Makes a lot of difference. If a standard bed, I would not carry over a face cord on it.

Bob

[Truckinguy]

I have a 1/2 ton chevy pickup with a stock 8' box. I used to have a hard cover on the bed and I could get a face cord of firewood in it and shut the cover. Fit perfectly.

[MELOC]

my best guesstimation is that a standard pickup filled level to the top of the siderails is about a 1/2 cord. a load that is heaped up as high as it can be (achieving the angle of repose) is about 3/4 of a cord.

[Macybaby]

Maybe try those neat bungie cord type net straps. But then you need a box with places to hook to. Our new work truck has all sorts of places, but our older truck has nothing to hook to - a real drag.

With our really old truck (1/2 ton) we put up side rails and put in as much as will fit until it starts to squat. But that was our "dump runner" while we worked on the house, and now is only a yard truck (not lisensed or insured). We take it out back and toss in wood until we get tired, then haul it home and split and stack.

I have no idea what amount of wood fits - is a face cord and cord two different measures? Our neighbor is selling his place and has a shed full of wood (and no wood stove). They wanted to sell it by "pickup load" but we would rather take the stock trailer and get as much with one trip as possible. Have no idea how many pickup loads will fit in a stock trailer.

Cathy

Cathy

[indypartridge]

I'd say 1/2 cord as well. When I first moved to the homestead and bought firewood, I always made two trips to get a cord.

[MELOC]

try to estimate the cubic feet of the pile or the stock trailer. a cord is 4' x 4' x 8'. that's 128 cubic feet of firewood.

[Wayne02]

My truck is a short-bed, fleetside, and tightly stacked 15" avg., stacked level with the top rail of the bed is 1/2 cord.

[Jennifer L.]

Thanks, everybody, that's just what I wanted to know.

Cathy, a face cord is 4' x 8' x whatever depth you want, but around here it's pretty much 16". I hate it because most people say "cord" now when they mean "face cord" and it's confusing. A real cord is 4' x 8' x 4'.

I don't need to make big loads as I go by this place every trip to town, so if I could figure on just stopping and doing small loads without having to consider tying anything down it would be fast and relatively no muss no fuss. With prices going up might as well be getting wood for 2009-10 now as long as I am driving by anyway.

Jennifer

[fantasymaker]

LOL when I made a living hauling fire wood I loaded 2 full cords sometimes.
DONT DO THIS AT HOME FOLKS.
We were qualified professionals
For your situation Id recommend 1/3 cord

[big rockpile]

Originally Posted by fantasymaker

LOL when I made a living hauling fire wood I loaded 2 full cords sometimes.
DONT DO THIS AT HOME FOLKS.
We were qualified professionals:clown:
For your situation Id recommend 1/3 cord

Yea I had a 3/4 Ton Truck with 6,000 plates on it.I would load two Cord on it.I stopped by the scales one day just to see what it weighed.Almost 13,000

Full size Pickup,wood throwed on rounded up around 1/2 Cord.

big rockpile

[Denise K.]

First a disclaimer I do not use wood and so do not buy it (electric heat in this house) My experince comes from my father renting trucks and trailers. Do not over load your truck or trailer. Many times in the fall people want to go get their winter firewood. Dad refused to rent if they were going after firewood because so many of them only wanted to make 1 trip (about 90 miles each way) They would overload the vehicles with the wood and damage them. So just use common sense an extra trip made rather then overloading your truck is the best thing to do. Just be cautious about not overloading.

[hac238]

4'x4'x8' = a cord. you get more on when ranked. concern is your weight and condition of the truck and is it capable and how far you must go and where you travel. just watch those springs.I'd load until I could not get any more on or it was not dragging in the back if I did not have to go through a town.

[sulix]

Dont overload. 1/2 cord sounds about right.. Liveing in S/E South Dakota i have hauled many many loads of wood in my old rusted out S-10.4x4. Tires Squatted and drive slow.
Depends how far u need to haul it. drive slow and stay safe

[stranger]

Originally Posted by Jennifer L.

How much firewood can you carry in the 8' bed of a pickup truck without doing anything to tie it down? I'm looking at buying wood over the summer whenever I go by a guy who's selling it, so I'd like to take a decent load home but not have to worry about it. Just doing the numbers it seems like 1/2 a cord (full cord) would be simple, but maybe a little more than that? Could you do two face cords (16" cuts)?

Jennifer

a half cord would be enough without drawing to much attention.
you better look at how much your truck is registerd to carry, My BIL got racked good this past winter, about 1600 pounds over weight,then was told he had to put the laden and unladen weight on the truck.
the trooper asked him how he was getting per cord and instead of saying that it was for his own use, he bragged and said, "i get two hundred a cord",
the trooper said, then you can afford to pay 1000 fine. he had 5 tickets when he was done. including insecure load because some wood was over the sides.
my PU is not registered commercial so I better not have anything in it but the mail or the groceries and going toward home. I could carry a ton in my station wagon if possible and nothing would be said, but if i had a ton in the PU, it's a different story.
a cord of air dried hardwood weighs over two ton. i've carried a full cord many times back in the 60s-70s on a single wheeled PU, today, i'd want a duely and registered to carry the weight, our DOT troopers are even on the back roads now.