Wood Weight Calculator for lumber and logs. Enter species, moisture content and actual sizes or board feet to see the total weight, weight per cubic foot and trips at your payload.
Enter the actual size, not the nominal name. A 2x4 is 1.5 by 3.5 in once dried and planed.
Units, Sizing and Payload
Payload is the most your truck or trailer can carry. It is printed on the door sticker, and it counts passengers too.
Weight at Other Moisture Levels
The same wood as it dries or takes on water. Your moisture is highlighted, and green rows use this species' Wood Handbook green moisture.
| Moisture | Density | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| 0% ovendry | 31.9 lb/ft³ | 105 lb |
| 6% | 32.9 lb/ft³ | 111 lb |
| 8% | 33.2 lb/ft³ | 113 lb |
| 12% | 33.9 lb/ft³ | 117 lb |
| 15% | 34.4 lb/ft³ | 120 lb |
| 19% | 35.0 lb/ft³ | 124 lb |
| 25% | 35.8 lb/ft³ | 131 lb |
| 30% | 36.5 lb/ft³ | 136 lb |
| 37% green heart | 38.5 lb/ft³ | 143 lb |
| 115% green sap | 60.4 lb/ft³ | 225 lb |
Same Size in Other Species
Same pieces and moisture, lightest first. Basic specific gravity comes from Wood Handbook Tables 5-3 and 5-5.
| Species | Basic SG | Density | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cedar, western red | 0.31 | 23.2 lb/ft³ | 81.2 lb |
| Fir, balsam | 0.33 | 24.8 lb/ft³ | 86.7 lb |
| Spruce, Engelmann | 0.33 | 24.8 lb/ft³ | 86.7 lb |
| Pine, eastern white | 0.34 | 25.6 lb/ft³ | 89.5 lb |
| Pine, sugar | 0.34 | 25.6 lb/ft³ | 89.5 lb |
| Redwood, young growth | 0.34 | 25.6 lb/ft³ | 89.5 lb |
| Fir, white | 0.37 | 27.9 lb/ft³ | 97.8 lb |
| Spruce, Sitka | 0.37 | 27.9 lb/ft³ | 97.8 lb |
| Hemlock, eastern | 0.38 | 28.7 lb/ft³ | 101 lb |
| Pine, lodgepole | 0.38 | 28.7 lb/ft³ | 101 lb |
| Pine, ponderosa | 0.38 | 28.7 lb/ft³ | 101 lb |
| Redwood, old growth | 0.38 | 28.7 lb/ft³ | 101 lb |
| Spruce, black | 0.38 | 28.7 lb/ft³ | 101 lb |
| Baldcypress | 0.42 | 31.9 lb/ft³ | 112 lb |
| Cedar, Alaska yellow | 0.42 | 31.9 lb/ft³ | 112 lb |
| Hemlock, western | 0.42 | 31.9 lb/ft³ | 112 lb |
| Cedar, eastern red | 0.44 | 33.5 lb/ft³ | 117 lb |
| Douglas-fir, coast | 0.45 | 34.4 lb/ft³ | 120 lb |
| Pine, loblolly | 0.47 | 36.0 lb/ft³ | 126 lb |
| Pine, shortleaf | 0.47 | 36.0 lb/ft³ | 126 lb |
| Larch, western | 0.48 | 36.8 lb/ft³ | 129 lb |
| Pine, longleaf | 0.54 | 41.8 lb/ft³ | 146 lb |
| Pine, slash | 0.54 | 41.8 lb/ft³ | 146 lb |
Load List
Add each size or species to total a mixed order. The list keeps this page's entries until you reload.
| Nothing added yet |
Wood Weight Calculator for Lumber, Timbers and Logs
A green Douglas-fir board full of sapwood can weigh nearly twice what the same board weighs once it has dried indoors. The Wood Weight Calculator works out weight from the species and the moisture content, not from one fixed density. It is built for loading a truck or trailer, pricing freight, lifting beams and moving logs.
On the Lumber and Timbers tab, enter the species, the moisture content and the actual size, or a total in board feet. Use real measured sizes, not nominal names, so a 2x4 is 1.5 by 3.5 inches. The Round Logs tab takes both end diameters inside the bark, the length and the number of logs.
Why Moisture Changes the Weight
Most wood weight calculators use one air-dry density per species, usually at 12% moisture. This tool starts from each species' basic specific gravity, oven-dry weight over green volume, which the tool takes from Wood Handbook Tables 5-3 and 5-5. It then adjusts for moisture with two Wood Handbook equations.
Gb is basic specific gravity, x is moisture content in percent, and ρ is density in pounds per cubic foot. The first equation corrects for the wood shrinking as it dries, and the second adds the water back. The same relationship appears in the Forest Products Laboratory report FPL-GTR-76 and in the University of Washington conversion notes by David Briggs.
Above 30% moisture the wood no longer changes size, so only water weight is added. With the defaults, 12 coast Douglas-fir 2x4s, 8 feet long at 15% moisture, weigh 120 pounds. That is 10.0 pounds a board, 1.25 pounds per linear foot and 34.4 pounds per cubic foot.
The Weight at Other Moisture Levels table shows the same load from oven dry to fully green. Oven-dry Douglas-fir is 31.9 pounds per cubic foot. Its sapwood can hold 115% moisture when green, per the green moisture table in the FPL guide Air Drying of Lumber, which takes it to 60.4 pounds per cubic foot.
The hero line allows 10% either side of the result. Chapter 4 of the 2021 Wood Handbook says a coefficient of variation of about 10% suits the spread of oven-dry density within common domestic species. Table 5-6 in the handbook's mechanical properties chapter lists 10% for specific gravity as well.
That makes the band an allowance for normal board-to-board variation, not a promise that every load lands inside it. Compression wood from the lower side of leaning softwood trees is the main exception, since the Wood Handbook puts its specific gravity commonly 30% to 40% above normal wood.
Pressure-Treated Lumber Weighs More Than Its Stamp Suggests
Kiln-dried framing is capped at 19% moisture. The Southern Forest Products Association says Southern Pine specified as KD, KD19 or dry has a 19% maximum, and the SPIB glossary defines KD19 the same way.
Treated lumber often carries that KD19 stamp and still arrives wet. Gene Wengert, then a wood processing specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explained in JLC that the grade stamp shows the wood's condition before treatment. After treatment with CCA, he wrote, moisture content will be 75% or higher.
For softwoods the moisture presets include 75% for treated wood that has not been redried. At that moisture, an 8-foot loblolly pine 2x4 weighs about 15.0 pounds against 10.7 at 19%. A 16-foot 2x6 goes from about 33.5 to 47.1 pounds. His figure is for CCA, so weigh a board of today's treated stock if the exact number matters.
Weight per Cubic Foot, Board Foot and CFT
The density card gives the weight of one cubic foot, the CFT many timber traders quote, in pounds and kilograms. Douglas-fir at 12% moisture weighs 33.9 pounds, or 15.4 kg, per cubic foot. Teak at the same moisture comes to about 42.1 pounds, or 19.1 kg.
For lumber sold by the board foot, the first card gives weight per 1,000 board feet. Douglas-fir at 15% comes to 2,863 pounds per thousand. Northern red oak at 8% comes to about 3,531 pounds.
Board feet here use the actual size you enter, 144 cubic inches each. Switch Size Input to Total Volume to weigh a stack from its tally. For board feet billed on nominal sizes, the Board Foot Calculator converts the tally first.
Hauling Logs, Timbers and Mixed Loads
The log tab finds volume with Smalian's formula, the average of the two end areas times the length. The default green Douglas-fir log, 16 and 18 inches across and 12 feet long, holds about 19 cubic feet and weighs about 940 pounds at 76% moisture. That moisture is the average of the species' green heartwood and sapwood figures, and bark adds more on top.
The fourth card checks the load against your truck or trailer payload, which is printed on the door sticker and includes passengers. It gives the share of one load, the most pieces per trip, and the number of trips when one load is not enough.
For an order of mixed sizes or species, the Load List adds each entry and totals the weight and trips. For the cubic volume of the same stack in other units, see the Timber Volume Calculator.
Wood Weight Questions
How heavy is a 6x6 piece of wood?
A 6x6 dressed to 5.5 by 5.5 inches holds about 1.68 cubic feet per 8 feet of length. In coast Douglas-fir at 19% moisture, the most dry lumber is allowed, it weighs about 59 pounds. A 12-foot post at the same moisture is about 88 pounds.
Timbers this size are often sold green, and that changes the answer a lot. Green Douglas-fir heartwood at 37% moisture takes the 8-foot post to about 65 pounds. Sapwood-heavy green stock can reach about 100 pounds.
What is 144 or 2304 in wood calculation?
Both are divisors for finding cubic feet from inches. With the length in feet and the width and thickness in inches, dividing their product by 144 gives cubic feet of sawn timber.
2304 is used for round logs measured by girth. The Hoppus rule squares a quarter of the girth, and dividing girth squared times length by 2304 gives the same Hoppus cubic feet as the quarter-girth method.
Which wood is the heaviest?
Of the species in the tool, ipe is the heaviest, at about 75 pounds per cubic foot at 12% moisture. Live oak follows at about 64 pounds. Balsa is the lightest, at about 11.5 pounds.
Among common US lumber, the Same Size in Other Species table ranks the choices from lightest to heaviest. At the default size and moisture, western redcedar is lightest among softwoods and longleaf and slash pine are heaviest.