A rick carries no legal definition; a cord does. Enter your quote to see what it is really worth in cords.
Two sellers, two units, two species. Price per cord is not enough — oak carries nearly twice the heat of white pine. This compares dollars per MMBtu (one million British Thermal Units — a fixed unit of heat, not a brand or a volume).
Going the other way is where buyers lose money. A rick is 42.7 ft³ — you need 3 of them before you have the 128 ft³ a cord requires. A rick and a face cord describe an identical stack; the word simply travels with the region rather than the wood.
In rick country — Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Oklahoma — sellers often do not quote cords at all, so a buyer arriving from a cord-quoting state has no reference point. Converting the rick price to a cord price is the only way to tell whether the local rate is genuinely lower or just differently labelled.
Three ricks at $110 each is $330 for 128 ft³ — 1 cord, so $330 per cord. Quoted against a $300 cord, the rick deal is the worse one.
Common log lengths against a 4 ft × 8 ft face. Your pair is highlighted.
| Sold as | Stack | Cubic feet | Cords | Defined by law |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cord | 4 × 8 × 48″ | 128 | 1.000 | Yes |
| Bush cord | 4 × 8 × 48″ | 128 | 1.000 | Yes |
| Stove cord, 16″ cut | 4 × 8 × 16″ | 42.7 | 0.333 | No |
| Face cord, 16″ cut | 4 × 8 × 16″ | 42.7 | 0.333 | No |
| Rick, 16″ cut | 4 × 8 × 16″ | 42.7 | 0.333 | No |
| Face cord, 12″ cut | 4 × 8 × 12″ | 32 | 0.250 | No |
| Cubic feet (1) | Any | 1 | 0.00781 | n/a |
A rick of wood is a regional name — common in the Midwest and South — for the same stack as a face cord: 4 ft high, 8 ft long, with the depth set by the log length, usually 16 in. It has no legal definition, so always confirm the cut length before comparing a rick price to a cord price.
Per unit, always — a rick is a third the wood. Per cubic foot, frequently not. Ricks are sold in smaller quantities, and smaller quantities usually carry a higher unit price, so run both through the conversion before deciding.
Both states adopt the NIST Handbook 130 definition of the cord, but neither defines the rick. A receipt written only in ricks therefore falls outside what an inspector can test, which is why the cord-equivalent belongs on the paperwork.
It takes 3 ricks to make one cord at the standard 16 in cut, since a rick is 42.7 ft³ against the cord's 128 ft³.
Because that is the unit a price comparison — and a dispute — has to be settled in. The cord is the only firewood measure most states will enforce. NIST Handbook 130, which nearly every state weights-and-measures office adopts, fixes it at 128 cubic feet of ranked and well-stowed wood.