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Selling firewood in Washington: cords, delivery tickets and labels

What the Washington State Department of Agriculture, chapter 19.94 of the Revised Code of Washington and WAC 16-662-105 say about the cord, banned unit words, the receipt and the civil penalty for short quantity.

Checked against the sources at the bottom of this page on October 9, 2026. Rules, fees and pay change: the source has the last word.

This page reports what the official source says. It is not legal advice: ask the office named here. It follows the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) firewood page, the state weights and measures chapter of the Revised Code of Washington and the rule in which WSDA adopts the NIST handbooks.

What WSDA says

On firewood, the WSDA firewood page says state law requires wood sellers to provide a receipt, and lists what it holds.

  • The seller's name and address, and the buyer's name and address.
  • The date of purchase and the price.
  • The quantity delivered, and the quantity the price is based on.
  • The type and quality of the wood.

The page says the legal measure for firewood in Washington is the cord or a fraction of a cord, and that a cord is 128 cubic feet. It says terms such as truckload, face cord, rack or pile have no legal definition and cannot be used as a measure of the amount sold. It says only packaged wood, such as kindling or a very small bundle, may be sold by the cubic foot or a fraction of one. It describes a stack that meets the definition as one with pieces in a line or row, touching and parallel, and says wood stacked crisscross or log-cabin style does not meet the legal definition. It gives 4 feet by 8 feet by 4 feet as the picture of a cord.

The page also says that, because of limited resources, WSDA can only investigate chronic and repeat violators. Its buyer advice, such as writing down the seller's phone number and the delivery vehicle's license plate, is addressed to buyers.

The cord in the statute

In the Revised Code of Washington, chapter 19.94 is the weights and measures chapter. Section 19.94.010 defines a cord as the measurement of wood intended for fuel or pulp purposes contained in a space of 128 cubic feet when the wood is ranked and well stowed.

Section 19.94.450 covers solid fuels. It says solid fuels such as coal, coke, charcoal, broiler chips, pressed fuels and briquets are sold by weight, while hogged fuel, sawdust and similar industrial fuels may be sold by cubic measure, and it sets out a delivery ticket for fuel sold by weight. The section does not name firewood, so this page does not report it as the firewood receipt rule.

Section 19.94.510 lists unlawful acts. Two of them are selling or offering for sale less than the quantity represented of any commodity, and taking more than the quantity represented when the buyer furnishes the weight or measure. It sets a civil penalty of no more than US$5,000 per violation per occurrence for the acts in its list.

The adopted handbook

In the state rules, WAC 16-662-105 has WSDA adopt national standards. For packaging and labeling and for the method of sale of commodities, the table names the uniform regulations in NIST Handbook 130, 2016 edition, as adopted by the National Conference on Weights and Measures. The WSDA firewood page quotes section 2.4 of that handbook. The points below follow the 2026 text in NIST Handbook 130, in our own words.

  • Fireplace and stove wood is advertised, offered and sold only by measure, using the cord and fractions of a cord or the cubic meter.
  • Natural wood in packages under one eighth of a cord (16 cubic feet) shows its quantity in set units. The WSDA page quotes cubic meters or cubic feet for this, while the 2026 text names liters and allows cubic feet as an addition.
  • The terms face cord, rack, pile and truckload, or similar terms, are not used.
  • A species claim is accurate within 10 percent.
  • Non-packaged wood comes with a delivery ticket or sales invoice naming the vendor and purchaser, the date, the quantity, the price and the identity of the wood.

The WAC table names the 2016 edition, not the 2026 edition read for this page, so the points above are the model text as it reads in 2026, not a statement of which edition WSDA applies on a given day.

For the model rule and other places, see the firewood sale rules overview. Washington movement rules for wood are on the Washington moving firewood page.

Sources