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· 5 min read
Top 3 Firewood BTU Charts Compared
Heshan Fernando
Co-founder & COO
Someone is selling you a cord of silver maple for a little less than a cord of white oak. Whether that is a bargain depends on a number neither of you has said out loud: how much heat is actually in each one.
Looking it up is more irritating than it should be. Firewood BTU tables are everywhere, they mostly agree, and they mostly present forty species in one long ranked list — so answering “is this species worth the price difference against that one” means scrolling to two rows and doing subtraction. Meanwhile the biggest variable, moisture content, is usually mentioned in a footnote after the table.
How to judge a firewood BTU reference
Where do the numbers come from? The credible tables trace back to USDA Forest Products Laboratory data or to university extension research, not to a blog’s estimate.
Does it state the moisture assumption? BTU per cord figures assume seasoned wood. Green wood at 50% moisture delivers far less usable heat because you are boiling water first.
Does it cover species you can actually buy? Osage orange tops every chart and is unavailable in most of the world.
Can you compare two directly? A ranked list of forty is a reference. A two-way comparison is an answer.
The comparison
| Tool | Best for | Free tier | Watch out |
|---|---|---|---|
| University of Kentucky firewood properties table | Extension-sourced heat content plus burning properties | Free public page | A plain academic table with no comparison feature |
| Firewood for Life BTU chart | A practical chart with context for wood burners | Free reference page | Presented as an article rather than a query tool |
| Midwest Hearth: Choosing Firewood by BTU | Species selection framed around stoves and fireplaces | Free reference page | Published by a retailer of hearth products |
Facts checked August 2026; plans can change.
University of Kentucky firewood properties table
This is the most citable of the three. A university extension forestry page listing heat content per cord alongside other properties that matter in practice — ease of splitting, smoke, sparking — which are the things that make a high-BTU species unpleasant to actually burn.
It is a table on an academic page. There is no interactivity, no filtering, and no help narrowing forty species to the two in front of you.
Firewood for Life BTU chart
Firewood for Life is written by and for people who actually heat with wood, and the surrounding context reflects that: which species are worth splitting, which season quickly, what a figure means at the stove rather than in a lab.
It is an article. For a considered read before buying a season’s supply it is excellent; for a thirty-second check while standing next to a truck it is more than you need.
Midwest Hearth: Choosing Firewood by BTU
Midwest Hearth frames the BTU question around stoves and fireplaces, which is the right frame — the number that matters is heat delivered into a room by a particular appliance, not heat theoretically present in the log.
It is published by a company that sells hearth products. The BTU figures are the standard ones, but read the recommendations with that in mind.
Firewood BTU Comparator
Ours answers the two-species question directly. Pick two wood species and it compares their estimated BTU output per cord, so you get the difference as a number instead of two rows to subtract. It runs entirely in your browser.
Two limitations. It compares two species at a time, so it is not a browsing reference — if you want to survey the whole ranking, the tables above are better. And, like every BTU chart, it works from seasoned-wood figures: it cannot know the moisture content of the specific pile you are looking at, which routinely matters more than the species does.
Which one to pick
- If you need a citable source, use the University of Kentucky table.
- If you want practical burning context alongside the numbers, read Firewood for Life.
- If your question is about a specific stove or fireplace, Midwest Hearth’s framing fits.
- If you are choosing between two species right now, use ours.
How to do it with Firewood BTU Comparator
- Open the Firewood BTU Comparator.
- Pick the two species you are choosing between.
- Compare the BTU difference against the price difference — and discount both heavily if either pile is not properly seasoned. More conversion tools are in the tools directory.
You might also need
- Firewood Moisture Content Converter — for the variable that outweighs species choice.
- Campfire Wood Calculator — when the fire is recreational rather than for heat.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free firewood BTU chart that doesn’t need an account?
Yes — all three references are free public pages with no signup. Ours needs no account either, because the site has no signup at all.
Does moisture content matter more than species?
Often, yes. Burning wet wood spends energy evaporating water instead of heating the room, so a well-seasoned medium-density species can outperform a dense one that is still green. Season wood before you compare charts.
How much is a cord, exactly?
A standard cord is a stacked pile measuring 128 cubic feet — commonly 4 by 4 by 8 feet. “Face cord” and “rick” are not standardised and usually mean considerably less, which is where firewood pricing disputes come from. The USDA Forest Products Laboratory’s wood handbook is the underlying source for most of the species figures in circulation.
Final thought
Compare BTU per dollar, not BTU per cord — and only after you have checked that both piles are dry.