If you are new to buying firewood, you’re probably confused by all the different terms like cord of wood or rick of wood. But don’t worry we’ve all been there. After you will read this article you will know what all of those terms mean, which you should buy, and how much you should expect to pay.
A rick of wood is a measurement unit used to describe a quantity of wood. A rick of wood is usually 4 feet high and 8 feet long. Unlike a cord, a rick of wood is not an exact measurement unit, so how much wood you will get depends on factors like the length of the wood.
So a rick is a measurement unit, but not an exact one. Here is an example on how ricks work.
Table of Contents
How Much Wood Is in a Rick of Wood
Let’s say that you have a stack of logs that is 4 feet high and 8 feet long, and the logs inside are 16 inches long. This stack can be called a rick of wood, and if we were to convert it into cords(which is an exact unit) we would get that this stack is ⅓ of a cord
Here is a calculator that you can use to see how much wood you have in a pile:
Enter Length
Enter Width
Enter Height
Total:
Cubic feet:
Cubic meters:
cords:
If we were to take that same 4 feet high and 8 feet long pile, but instead of 16 inches logs we would replace it with 24 inches longs, using the calculator we would see that this rick of wood is one half of a cord. And if the wood were 48 inches the same rick would be exactly one cord of wood.
A cord of wood, unlike a rick of wood is an exact measurement, one cord of wood will always be 128 cubic feet, no matter how you arrange it.
Now let’s see what you should know when buying a rick of wood.
What You Have to Know When Buying a Rick of Wood
Since a rick of wood is not an exact measurement, buying one can get tricky. Some of the factors that you have to take into consideration are:
Is it a standard size bed or short bed pickup
How tight the wood is stacked
How tall the wood is stacked
Is the wood split or is it still in rounds
All of those things will influence how much wood you are going to get out of your rick. And if this wasn’t enough you should know that there is usually no standard in the industry for a rick of wood, so what you get from one seller can differ a lot from what you get from another.
Overall I would say that buying a rick of wood is too tricky. Unless you go and inspect the rick yourself you will have no idea of what you will be getting. And in most cases buying a rick instead of a cord, or half a cord isn’t cheaper, but if you look enough you might find some great deals.
Speaking of price, let’s see the average price of a rick of wood, and see if there are any situations where buying a rick of wood is cheaper than buying by the cord.
The Average Price of a Rick of Wood
From my personal experience, and after searching the web for 2 hours I would say that I came up with quite an accurate average.
On average a rick of wood will cost between $50 and $80 during the summer, and between $120 and $180 during the winter.
During my research I’ve seen countless ricks of wood, some of them were about one quarter of a cord, some were about half a cord, and some were nearly one cord, from what I could estimate from the pictures.
While there were some websites that say how much wood they have in their rick, not all of them did, so in a lot of cases I had to estimate from the pictures that they had.
Some of those websites I visited a few years ago when I was looking to buy a few ricks for myself, and I’ve noticed that the best prices are during the summer, when you can get a decent rick of wood for about $60, but during the winter the prices will double, even triple in some cases.
So while the prices will vary depending on how much wood is in the rick, one thing is certain, during the summer the prices are a lot cheaper.
Final Thoughts
Defining a rick of wood isn’t easy, but the overall thing that you should remember is this. A rick of wood is a 4 feet high and 8 feet long stack of wood. To find out the amount of wood that’s inside of it you also have to know the length of the logs. When you find out the length of the logs, you can use the calculator at the start of the article and convert that into a cord of wood, this way you will know if you are overpaying or if you are getting a good price.
Now I will go over some of the most common questions that I’ve seen people ask about ricks of wood.
Common Questions
What is a rick? According to the Oxford dictionary the word rick comes from old english and it means stack or pile. As for why it’s still used today, it probably just stuck among lumberjacks and people that work with wood, and it ended up being used by everybody.
How many wood logs are in a rick of wood? While there is no exact number in general you can expect to find between 250 and 300 logs in a rick of wood.
How long does a rick of wood last? How long a rick of wood lasts greatly depends on how and for what you are using it. For a fire pit, you can expect a rick of wood to last you an entire summer, but if you are using the wood to heat your home it will probably last just one month.
How much does a rick of wood weigh? Depending on what type of wood is in the rick, and how much wood is in the rick, the weight can range between 700 pounds to 3,000 pounds.
How many ricks of wood do I need? Again, this greatly depends on what you are using it for. For a fire pit 2 ricks of wood should be enough, But if you are using it to heat your home you might need 5 or 6 for the entire winter.
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