A standard cord of wood is 128 cubic feet of tightly stacked firewood. In practice, that’s most often stacked as a pile 4 feet high, 4 feet deep, and 8 feet long.

What “a cord of wood” means

  • A full cord is a volume measurement: 128 cubic feet of stacked wood, with pieces laid parallel and gaps minimized.
  • The classic way to picture it is a stack 4 ft high × 4 ft deep × 8 ft long.
  • Other dimension combos are fine as long as the total volume is 128 cubic feet (for example, different length pieces and stack shapes).

If it isn’t about 128 cubic feet of tightly stacked wood, it’s not a true full cord.

Related terms you’ll hear

Sellers and forum posts often throw around other “cord” words that can be confusing.

  • Face cord / rick : Typically one row of a cord, often about 4 ft high × 8 ft long, with log length around 16–18 inches, so the volume is smaller than 128 cubic feet.
  • Half cord : About 64 cubic feet (roughly half the size of a full cord stack, such as 4 ft high × 4 ft deep × 8 ft long divided in half).
  • Quarter cord : About 32 cubic feet, essentially a quarter of a full cord.

Some forum discussions get heated because people confuse a face cord (or local “rick”) with a full cord, which leads to arguments over being shorted on wood.

Quick way to check your stack

If you want to know whether your pile is close to a cord:

  1. Measure length, height, and depth of the stack in feet.
  2. Multiply length × height × depth to get total cubic feet.
  3. Compare to 128: if the result is 128, you have about one cord; if it’s less, it’s a fraction of a cord.

For example, a stack 4 ft high × 8 ft long × 2 ft deep = 64 cubic feet, which is roughly a half cord.

TL;DR: A cord of wood is a stack of firewood totaling 128 cubic feet, commonly 4′ × 4′ × 8′ when neatly stacked.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.