That is the volume side. The weight side is where most people get into trouble, and we will get there. First, the unit everybody argues about.
What a Cord Actually Is, and Why It Matters for Your Truck
A cord is a volume measurement, not a weight. It is 128 cubic feet of stacked wood, most commonly described as a stack four feet high, four feet deep, and eight feet long. That four foot depth is the part that trips people up, because almost nobody burns four foot logs. The stack is four feet deep because it is three or four rows of split pieces lined up front to back.
Once you have 128 cubic feet in your head, the truck math gets easy. Your bed is also just a box with a volume. Divide one by the other and you have your answer.
Full cord vs face cord vs rick
A face cord, also called a rick, is a stack four feet high and eight feet long but only one row deep. That means its volume depends entirely on how long the pieces were cut. A face cord of 16 inch splits is roughly a third of a full cord, because three rows of 16 inch wood come out to about four feet deep. A face cord of 24 inch splits is half a cord. Same label, very different pile.
This is the single biggest source of confusion when people compare hauling their own wood against having it delivered. A seller quoting by the rick and a seller quoting by the cord are not quoting the same thing, and the rick price looks like a bargain until you stack it. Always ask what unit the number refers to and how long the pieces are cut. If the seller cannot answer that, that tells you something.
Why loose thrown wood measures differently
Wood tossed into a bed in a hurry takes up noticeably more space than the same wood stacked neatly. Pieces land crossways, air pockets form under them, and the pile crowns above the rails in the middle. A bed that looks absolutely full of firewood can shrink by a meaningful fraction once you stack it in rows at the house. People discover this when they get home, build the stack they planned, and find it comes up short of the wall they measured for.
Key takeaway: every truck bed number in this article assumes wood stacked neatly and level with the bed rails. Loose thrown wood will be less than the number shown, and anything heaped above the rails is a separate conversation about straps and safety.
The Math: Turn Your Bed Dimensions Into Cords
You do not need a chart for your specific truck. You need a tape measure and one division problem.
- Measure the bed floor length in feet, tailgate closed.
- Measure the width in feet across the floor between the wheel wells, not the wider measurement at the top of the rails.
- Measure the usable height in feet from the floor to the top of the bed rails.
- Multiply all three to get cubic feet.
- Divide by 128 to get cords.
Measuring between the wheel wells is the honest version of this calculation. Wheel wells eat into the lower portion of nearly every pickup bed, and that is exactly where the heaviest, most densely packed wood sits. You can stack a bit wider above the wells, which is why real world loads usually beat the between the wells number slightly, but if you measure rail to rail at the top you will consistently overestimate what fits.
Use the bed rail height for the height figure. Not the cab roof, not where you imagine the pile might peak. Anything above the rails requires sideboards or a rack and changes both the stability of the load and your responsibility for securing it.
Here is the walkthrough. Take a full size pickup with an eight foot bed, call it five feet wide between the wheel wells, with about 20 inches from floor to rail. Twenty inches is 1.67 feet. So 8 times 5 times 1.67 gives you about 67 cubic feet. Divide by 128 and you get a little over half a cord. That is the number. The most capable bed on a normal consumer pickup, loaded level and loaded right, is about half a cord.
One more thing the formula will not tell you. Dropping the tailgate adds length, and plenty of people load wood onto the open gate. It adds no secure, stackable volume. The gate is a ramp, not a floor, and wood stacked on it is wood that wants to slide out at the first hard stop. Do not count it in your math and do not count on it on the road.
Bed by Bed: What Actually Fits
These figures assume stacked level, dry to moderately seasoned wood, and a bed with typical wheel well intrusion.
Short bed, roughly 5.5 feet
A short bed on a full size half ton is commonly cited at around a third of a cord stacked level, sometimes a bit less depending on how wide the floor is and how much the wheel wells cut in. It is a perfectly fine size for a weekend of burning or topping off a rack by the back door. It is not a cord hauler. Three or four trips to move a full cord, and that is before you think about weight.
Standard bed, roughly 6.5 feet
The six and a half foot bed, the most common configuration on crew cab half tons, lands roughly in the third to half cord range. The spread is wide because width varies a lot between trucks and because stacking skill genuinely matters at this size. Neat rows with the pieces running across the bed will beat a casual pile by a noticeable margin.
Long bed, 8 feet
Half a cord, stacked level. This is the single most useful number in this article. If you remember nothing else, remember that the biggest bed on a normal pickup carries about half of what a cord is, which means a cord is a minimum of two full trips in the best case truck. And as the weight section below explains, loading an eight foot bed to the rails with green hardwood is not something a half ton should be asked to do.
SUVs, vans, and flatbeds
A compact pickup like a midsize with a five or six foot bed sits close to a third of a cord, which is about one face cord of 16 inch splits. That is a useful equivalence to carry in your head when a seller quotes you a rick.
An SUV with the seats folded holds far less than any of the above, and the volume is the least of the problems. You are putting wet, dirty, bark shedding wood inside a carpeted cabin with no drainage. There is no good way to clean out the bark and bugs afterward, and a sudden stop sends loose splits forward into the seat backs. Treat an SUV as a way to move a few armloads, not as a hauling plan.
A flatbed or dump bed with high sides is a different category entirely and can carry multiple cords. That is commercial equipment with the frame, suspension, and brakes to match. It is not a useful comparison for the family truck in the driveway.
Piece length matters more than people expect at the small end. Sixteen inch splits stack tight and square across a short bed with very little wasted space. Twenty or 24 inch pieces have to lie at an angle or run lengthwise, and either way you lose packing efficiency and end up with a rougher, less stable load. If you are cutting your own and you own a short bed, cutting to 16 inches is worth doing.
Weight Is the Real Limit, Not Volume
Here is the part the volume charts tend to skip. Your truck will usually run out of weight capacity before it runs out of room.
A cord of firewood commonly weighs somewhere in the range of 3,000 to 5,200 pounds depending on species and moisture content. Green, freshly split wood sits at the heavy end because it is carrying a lot of water. Seasoned hardwood is lighter but still substantial, and a dense hardwood weighs considerably more per cubic foot than a softer wood at the same dryness.
Payload is everything in the bed plus everyone in the cab
Half ton pickups typically carry payload somewhere in the range of 1,500 to 2,000 pounds. Do the arithmetic against the cord weights above. A half cord can meet or exceed that ceiling all by itself, particularly if the wood is green.
Which means a half ton truck frequently hits its weight limit before the bed looks full. Empty space above the wood is not permission to add more. It is just empty space.
Payload also is not only the firewood. It is passengers, the toolbox bolted behind the cab, the chainsaw and fuel cans, the bed liner, and whatever has been rolling around back there since spring. For your specific truck, the number is on the sticker in the driver door jamb, usually phrased as the combined weight of occupants and cargo. That sticker beats any generic figure, including the ranges above, because payload varies enormously between trims and configurations of the same model.
Signs you have overloaded
You will feel it before you see it. Watch for these.
- The rear end visibly squatting while the front sits high.
- Headlights aimed up into the trees instead of down the road.
- Steering that feels light and vague because weight has come off the front axle.
- Braking distances that stretch out noticeably, especially downhill.
- Rear tires that are hot to the touch at the end of the drive.
Any of those means you took too much. The fix is to unload some at the source, not to drive slower and hope. Green and recently split wood is wet and heavy, and wood that has been drying under cover for a season is lighter per cubic foot. That is why two loads that look identical in the bed can behave completely differently on the highway.
Sideboards, Racks, and Trailers
Sideboards can roughly double the volume a bed holds. That sounds like the whole problem solved until you remember the weight ceiling did not move an inch. Adding sideboards to a half ton usually means filling them partway and leaving the top third empty, which is a strange thing to build but a sensible thing to do.
If you do build them, build them properly. Braced, fastened into the stake pockets or bolted to the bed, and strong enough to resist outward pressure. Firewood shifts hard on turns and pushes against the sides with real force. Plywood tacked on with a staple gun is not a sideboard, it is a surprise waiting at the first roundabout.
Everything stacked above the rail line needs to be strapped. Ratchet straps running over the top of the load and anchored to the bed, not bungee cords. A loose split bouncing out at highway speed is somebody else's windshield.
Trailers move the weight off the truck's rear suspension, which solves one problem and creates a few others. You now have tongue weight on the hitch, which counts against the truck's payload, and you have the trailer's own rating to respect. A small single axle utility trailer is not a cord hauler. The box might hold the volume and the axle will not thank you for it. A tandem axle trailer with proper sides can carry considerably more, but you still need the tow vehicle, the right hitch class, and brakes rated for the combined load.
Towing also changes how the trip home goes. Longer stopping distance, a wider turning radius, and a load that pushes you forward on downgrades. Think about that before you lay in the last row.
Why One Delivery Usually Beats Three Trips
Put the trip count plainly. A full cord is generally two to four pickup loads. Two if you have an eight foot bed and you are loading to the rails with dry wood. Three or four if you have a shorter bed, or if you are respecting the payload sticker rather than the bed rails, which you should be.
Each of those is a round trip. Load by hand, drive, unload by hand, drive back empty. The loading and unloading is the part people underestimate every single time, because it is all hand work and it does not get easier on the third round. A cord is a lot of individual pieces picked up twice.
There are real costs that never show up on a receipt. Fuel for the empty return legs. An afternoon or two of your weekend. The wear that repeated heavy loads put on rear springs, shocks, and brake pads. None of that is catastrophic, but it is not nothing either.
Self hauling genuinely makes sense in a few situations. If the wood is already on your own property and you are just moving it from the back lot to the house. If you only need a partial cord to get through a cold snap. If you already own a trailer and a truck rated to pull it loaded.
Having it brought to you makes more sense when you need a full cord or more, when you want it placed near the house rather than dumped at the curb, and when your driveway can take a delivery truck. If you are weighing the trips against a firewood delivery, count the hours honestly and not just the miles.
Whichever way you go, ask the seller two questions. What unit are you selling, cord or face cord or rick. And is the delivered amount stacked or thrown. Those two questions resolve most firewood disputes before they start.
How We Started
We started Mulch Mound because we got tired of the hassle that came with buying landscaping materials. The options were either loading bags into your car at a garden center or calling around to local suppliers, trying to figure out pricing, minimums, and delivery schedules. Neither option felt convenient or transparent.
Three of us – Alec, Mo, and Tyler – decided there had to be a better way. Alec and Tyler got their start back in 2013 running a landscaping business during college, moving mulch and mowing lawns to pay tuition. That experience taught them how frustrating it was to source materials, and years later, that frustration turned into Mulch Mound.
We focus on making it simple to get mulch, stone, and soil delivered directly to your home. Order online, pick your delivery date, and we handle the rest. No loading bags. No calling multiple suppliers. No wondering if you bought enough or paid a fair price.
We work with quality local suppliers in the areas we serve and aim to be straightforward about what we offer and what it costs. Landscaping is hard work. Buying the materials for it shouldn't be.
Frequently asked questions
Will a full cord of wood fit in a pickup bed?
Not stacked level in any standard pickup. The best case, an eight foot bed, is about half. Where people get fooled is loose thrown wood, because a bed heaped with randomly tossed splits genuinely looks like an enormous amount of firewood. The air gaps are doing a lot of the work. The moment of truth comes at the house, when the stack goes up against the wall and stops well short of where the owner measured for it.
If someone tells you they fit a full cord in their pickup, they either had sideboards and a very long bed, or they are counting a face cord as a cord.
How many loads does it take to haul a full cord?
Two to four, depending on bed length and whether you are loading to the payload sticker or to the bed rails. The scheduling side matters more than the raw count. Those trips rarely happen back to back on one afternoon. One gets done Saturday, the next waits for the following weekend, and in between the remaining wood is sitting at the source uncovered, soaking up whatever weather shows up. Partial hauling tends to stretch over weeks in practice.
Do I need to season wood before I burn it?
Yes. Freshly cut wood holds a great deal of water, which means it burns poorly, throws less heat, and builds creosote in the flue much faster. Seasoning is just controlled drying, and the stack does most of the work for you if you set it up right.
Get the bottom row off the ground on pallets or scrap lumber so it is not wicking moisture out of the soil. Cover the top to shed rain and snow. Leave the sides wide open so air moves through the rows. A tarp wrapped around the whole pile traps moisture and does the opposite of what you want.
Does species change how much I can haul?
By weight, absolutely. Dense hardwoods weigh substantially more per cubic foot than softer woods, which is why the cord weight range is so wide. A bed filled level with a heavy hardwood and the same bed filled level with a lighter species are two very different loads on your rear axle.
Moisture stacks on top of that. Green dense hardwood is the heaviest thing you can put in a pickup bed short of gravel. If the splits feel cold and damp and the cut ends look bright rather than gray and checked, assume you are at the heavy end of the range and load less than you think you can.
How should I unload without wrecking my back?
Lay a tarp in the bed before you load. When you get home you can drag a good portion of it out in one motion instead of reaching deep over the rail for every last piece. The pieces at the front of the bed are the ones that hurt people, because that is where you end up bending and twisting at full extension.
Then run a wheelbarrow relay rather than carrying armloads. Load the barrow at the tailgate, wheel it to the rack, and stack directly from the barrow into the row. Dumping into a pile and restacking later means you handle every piece twice, which is where a one hour job turns into three.
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