Firewood stack calculator
This page reports what the official source says. It is not legal advice: ask the office named here. Type a stack's length, height and depth to see the space it fills in cords and cubic metres, using the cord defined in NIST Handbook 130. NIST, which publishes the handbook, is the office named here.
Checked against the sources at the bottom of this page on October 8, 2026. Published tables are revised: the source has the last word.
Work it out
How the answer is worked out
Cubic feet = length times height times depth, with each side changed to feet. Cords = cubic feet divided by 128. Cubic metres = cubic feet times 0.028316846592, since 1 foot is exactly 0.3048 metres.
What the sources say
The National Council on Weights and Measures adopts the Uniform Regulation for the Method of Sale of Commodities, which NIST prints in Handbook 130, 2026 edition. Its section 2.4.1.2 defines a cord as the amount of wood contained in a space of 128 cubic feet when the wood is "ranked and well stowed", which it explains as pieces placed in a line or row, touching and parallel, stacked compactly.
The same regulation says fireplace and stove wood is advertised, offered and sold by measure using the term cord, fractions of a cord, or the cubic metre. It also says the terms face cord, rack, pile and truckload, or terms of similar import, are not to be used when advertising, offering for sale or selling wood for use as fuel. The handbook has a table of adoption status; this page does not say whether any state has adopted the regulation.
The calculator measures the space of a stack. Whether the wood in it is ranked and well stowed is not measured, and nor is whether the wood is split or not.
NIST lists the cord as 128 cubic feet and 3.624556 cubic metres in its Appendix B.8 factors.
Arithmetic only. The answer is only as good as the numbers entered. It is not a plan or a safe working load for any job.
Sources
- NIST, Handbook 130, 2026 edition, Section IV.B Uniform Regulation for the Method of Sale of Commodities, read October 8, 2026
- NIST, Guide for the Use of the International System of Units (SP 811), Appendix B.8 factors for units listed alphabetically, read October 8, 2026
- NIST, Guide for the Use of the International System of Units (SP 811), Appendix B.9 factors for units listed by kind of quantity, read October 8, 2026