Maple Firewood Cost Calculator

Before accepting a maple firewood delivery, ask your supplier to confirm whether it's sugar/hard maple or red/soft maple. Red maple at 21.3 million BTU delivers about 15% less heat per cord than sugar maple at 24.5 million BTU. If you're paying $300+/cord for "maple," you're entitled to know which one.

Request a written invoice noting the species. If the supplier won't confirm it in writing, assume red maple and price the deal accordingly.

Ask a firewood seller what species they're delivering and the answer is almost always just "maple." That's a problem, because sugar maple and red maple are meaningfully different fuels.

According to USDA Forest Products Laboratory Table 5-1, sugar (hard) maple produces heat worth 24.5 million BTU per cord. Red (soft) maple comes in at 21.3 million BTU per cord. For \$300 per cord, 3 cords of red maple delivers the same heat as roughly 2.6 cords of sugar maple.

You're buying 0.4 fewer effective cords for the same money.

Switch the species input above to see the BTU difference in your order, sugar maple delivers about 15% more heat per cord than red maple. If a supplier can't confirm the species, price the order as red maple and negotiate accordingly.

White oak delivers about 26.3 MMBTU/cord, roughly 7% more heat than sugar maple at ~24.5 MMBTU/cord. In most markets, oak is the better $/MMBTU buy. In maple-rich regions, that math inverts.

In Vermont, Michigan, or upstate New York, sugar maple is the local default hardwood. It's abundant, the mills have it, and it moves cheaper than oak trucked in from out of range. A cord of sugar maple at $260 in Burlington beats oak at $340 on every calculation.

Everywhere else, the opposite is usually true.

The firewood BTU calculator lets you run maple against oak at your local prices, enter what each species costs per cord and it shows you which delivers more heat for the dollar. If you're outside New England and the Great Lakes, oak usually wins unless you can source maple cheaply from a local sawmill or tree service.

Maple is one of the most commonly removed residential trees in the Northeast and Great Lakes. Tree service companies remove it constantly and often sell or give away the wood at $80–$150 per cord, versus $280–$350 from a dealer.

The catch: that wood was cut last week. Green maple runs 40–50% moisture content and won't burn properly until it drops below 20%. That takes 12–18 months of proper stacking.

Two scenarios: buy tree service maple in April, stack it split-side-down in a ventilated row, and burn it the following November. That works. Buy it in September planning to burn it this winter.

That doesn't work. If you're considering tree service maple, check the date cut before accepting delivery. A moisture meter ($20–$30) tells you where it actually sits.

If you're buying green maple cheaply, set the cord price input to reflect the actual cost, then factor in that it won't be burnable for 12–18 months and you're still ahead compared to fall dealer pricing.

Maple is a mid-speed seasoner. It's not as slow as oak (which can take 18–24 months in humid climates), but it's not fast. A spring-cut cord stacked correctly in April can be ready by October or November, on the short end of that range.

The problem is tree service wood, which is always freshly cut. Green maple burning in your stove hisses and steams instead of combusting cleanly. Incomplete combustion at high moisture builds creosote in your flue faster than any other mistake you can make with a wood stove.

What properly stacked maple looks like drying: splits show visible cracks at the end grain, the wood feels noticeably lighter than when delivered, and bark lifts away without pulling chunks of wood with it. Confirm with a moisture meter before burning. Target under 20%.

Kiln-dried maple, available in some Northeast markets at a $40–$80 per cord premium, eliminates the wait entirely.

A full cord is 128 cubic feet of stacked wood, typically 4 feet wide by 4 feet tall by 8 feet long. A face cord is roughly 42 cubic feet, one-third that volume. For \$300 per cord, getting a face cord misrepresented as a full cord costs you $200.

Maple's density makes this fraud harder to spot by eye. A face cord of dense sugar maple looks substantial. Always ask for a written delivery ticket showing the volume, and stack it and measure before the truck leaves. Most sellers are straight; the ones who aren't count on buyers not measuring.

The Connecticut state consumer protection agencies specify exactly what constitutes a legal cord, sellers in regulated states must provide a receipt with the quantity, type, and price per unit. Ask for the receipt regardless of your state.

Sugar maple splits cleanly along the grain. You can work through a rick of sugar maple rounds with a splitting maul in an afternoon without much frustration. Red maple can be stringy, particularly when freshly cut, and fights back.

Pre-split wood runs $15–$35 per cord more from most suppliers. For red maple, especially tree service wood that was cut this season, that premium is usually worth paying. For seasoned sugar maple from a dealer, rounds are a reasonable buy if you have the equipment.

Kiln-dried pre-split maple eliminates both the moisture problem and the splitting problem, at a combined premium of $60–$100 per cord over air-dried rounds. In markets where kiln-dried is available, it's worth pricing before committing to green or unsplit wood.

The quoted cord price is rarely the final number. A 3-cord maple order at $300 per cord works out like this: $900 for the wood, $50–$150 for delivery (standard flat fee within 20 miles), and $20–$60 per cord for stacking if you want the crew to stack it. That's $1,010–$1,230 for the same order that quoted at $900.

Stacking is worth considering for full-cord orders. Maple is heavy, and a 3-cord delivery is a substantial load. Some suppliers charge weight-based delivery fees for dense hardwoods rather than flat rates, ask before you schedule.

See the firewood delivery cost calculator to break out what your delivery zone actually adds to the total.

The firewood vs propane comparison depends almost entirely on where you live. In Massachusetts, EIA data shows propane running close to three times the national average. Locally sourced maple at $260 per cord in a maple-rich region competes well against any alternative fuel.

In Ohio, propane runs near the national low, and the math tightens considerably.

Run your state's numbers in the firewood vs propane heating cost calculator, it pulls live EIA propane rates by state so you're comparing current fuel prices, not last year's quotes. Maple's answer changes by state more than most buyers expect.

Many sellers use "maple" the way a restaurant menu uses "fish", it covers whatever they have. When your supplier can't confirm sugar vs red maple, you have three options.

First: ask for a sample split and hold it in both hands. Sugar maple is noticeably heavier than red maple at the same size. Second: look at the bark still attached to splits.

Sugar maple bark is distinctively plated and blocky, almost like puzzle pieces. Red maple bark is smoother and grayer, closer to beech. Third: if neither works, assume red maple and price accordingly.

If they're quoting sugar maple prices without being able to confirm the species, negotiate down 10–15% to reflect the uncertainty.

A written invoice confirming "sugar maple" or "hard maple" is the only protection at delivery. If a supplier won't put it in writing, that's your answer about what you're getting.

When you have a chainsaw, access to a log splitter, and somewhere to stack wood for a year, tree service maple is a legitimate path to $150 per cord all-in vs $300 from a dealer.

The math: tree service maple at $100 per cord delivered, plus roughly $50 in processing costs (chainsaw fuel, bar oil, splitting time), equals $150 per cord. That's half the dealer price, and the wood is identical once seasoned.

What you need: a contact at a local tree service who calls you when they remove maple (not oak, not elm, be specific), a location that can handle 3–4 cords at once (deliveries come in log-length rounds, not splits), and the discipline to buy in April and not touch it until the following fall. university extension services Extension estimates DIY cordwood at roughly $50 per cord when you do your own processing.

For buyers who need wood this fall: buy from a dealer. This path only works when you're planning 12–18 months ahead. If you're staring down November and need heat, tree service maple is useless to you right now.