Measuring firewood

[Lori]

Can anyone advise how I am supposed to measure a stere of wood?  Perhaps a stupid question, but my neighbor (French) ordered 6 steres of firewood and once it was unloaded (driver left), they stacked it and found they had only 4 steres (they measured it).

Do most people just take what they get or is there some system to determine how much the driver is delivering (i.e. what you ordered and expect to get)?

Thanks.

 

[Alexis]

A stere is a cubic metre.  A corde is three cubic metres.

Go on, correct me if I'm wrong.

When you get the wood delivered, you stack it so that you can measure it, ie one metre wide by one metre high and one metre long.  Then you can tell if you have been done.

[le bouffon]

The difference is a third,that is to much to be an error,get back to the supplier and tell them.

[Lori]

Thanks Alexis - that is most helpful.  Now, do most people ask the driver to unload the wood and stack it - in order to make sure the delivery is the amount ordered?  That doesn't seem to be done here.  Depending upon how the wood is stacked onto the truck, it may be possible to get some sort of idea by sight.

Le Bouffon - yes, my neighbor did already get the money back for the two stairs she paid for, but did not get.  However, it took constant letters (recommende) and a threat to proceed legally before he mailed her a check - no letter, no phone call, no response except to send her the check several months later.  I'd rather not have to go through that.  Hence the question.

[andyh4]

I have seen just recently that a styre is a cubic metre of wood cut to 1metre lengths, if the wood is cut shorter - half metre - then you get less than 1 cubic metre because of the cutting losses, if it is cut to 30cm lengths then you loose again.  However 6 going to 4 sounds too much.

[Owens88]

Your heading reminded me of an old, slightly, jokey story. Copied below.

 => perhaps your delivery man had small hands ?

John

On Jan. 1st, it became an offence to quote anything in non-metric format. The Imperial set of measures is consigned to the bin. The brouhaha has caused mild astonishment in the British builders trade. This last bastion of right-wing reactionaries, adopted metric measurement in 1970. No more confusion with seven thirtysecondths or fifteen sixtyfourths. It was all to be in millimetres: no decimal points to confuse matters either.

Measuring tapes still have both sets of measurements on them and, for convenience, builders still refer to things such as rafters an joists as "four-by-two" and builders' merchants are used to being asked for "six metres of six-by-one" or an "eight-by-four of 9 mill plywood."

Older steel tapes had a black dot every 16 inches: this was for carpenters to space timber joists to support eight by four foot boards. But even before plasterboard (fibro to Aussies) was made in 4 foot widths, timbers were always spaced at 16 inch centres,. because laths (for lath and plaster work) used to be made by splitting commercially produced firewood, which came in 16 inch lengths.

Why was firewood in 16 inch lengths, I hear you cry? Because fireplaces were 18 inches wide and you had to allow room for manoevre. And why were fireplaces 18 inches? Because they were 2 bricks wide: and a brick was 9 inches long because that was twice its width (allowing for the mortar joints): bricks were 4 inches wide because that was the size that the bricklayer could pick up in his left hand!