Thanksgiving Towing: 1,700 lb of Firewood in a 1,690 lb Payload

A long bed stacked 16 inches deep with seasoned oak holds about 56 cubic feet of wood. At 30 lb per cubic foot that is 1,700 lb, sitting in a 2022 Ram 1500 crew cab whose payload sticker reads 1,690 and whose ball already carries 800 lb of trailer tongue.

Nobody weighs firewood. It arrives as “throw some in the back for the fire,” it gets stacked until the pile looks right, and it leaves the driveway on the same sticker as the trailer, the family and the cooler.

The Short Answer

Firewood is the densest thing most people ever put in a truck bed: about 30 lb per cubic foot seasoned, closer to 39 when it is still green. A bed loaded to 16 inches is roughly 1,700 lb in a long bed and 1,170 in a short one, which is more than a half-ton payload before the tongue, the hitch or a single passenger is counted. On this truck, 800 lb of tongue and 95 lb of hitch hardware leave 795 lb for every person and every bag. Twelve bundles of kiln-dried wood bought ten miles from the fire pit weigh 240 lb and cover the same four evenings.

A Truck Bed Holds More Than a Ton of Oak

The number that matters is density, and firewood is unusual because you can compute it exactly. A full cord is 128 cubic feet of stacked wood including the air gaps, and a cord of seasoned oak runs about 3,800 lb. Divide one by the other and you get 29.7 lb per cubic foot. Round it to 30 and every bed load becomes arithmetic instead of a guess.

An 8 ft bed is 8.0 ft long and about 5.3 ft wide, so 42.4 square feet of floor. Stack 16 inches deep, which is below the rails and looks conservative, and you have 56.5 cubic feet. That is 1,700 lb of oak. The same stack in a 5.5 ft bed is 38.9 cubic feet and 1,170 lb.

Bed and stack depth	Volume	Seasoned oak	Green oak
5.5 ft bed, 16 in deep	38.9 cu ft	1,170 lb	1,520 lb
8 ft bed, 16 in deep	56.5 cu ft	1,700 lb	2,210 lb
8 ft bed, level with the rails	70.7 cu ft	2,120 lb	2,760 lb

Assumes 29.7 lb per cubic foot for seasoned oak at 3,800 lb per cord, and 30 percent more for green wood at roughly 4,900 lb per cord. Bed floor measured at 8.0 by 5.3 ft and 5.5 by 5.3 ft, stacked flat, wheel wells ignored.

The green column is the one that surprises people. Oak cut this fall and split last month is still carrying 60 to 80 percent of its dry weight in water, and water does not burn. You are hauling it up a mountain pass at 10 mpg and then waiting two seasons for it to be worth burning. A pin meter pushed into a freshly split face reads over 25 percent on wood that will not light cleanly, and under 20 on wood that will.

The Bed and the Ball Spend the Same Payload

Payload is one number on one sticker, and both loads come out of it. Tongue weight gets there first because it is attached to the trailer, and the trailer is what makes the trip a towing trip. Whatever survives that is the bed budget.

Take the Ram: GVWR 7,100 lb, rear GAWR 4,100 lb, 153.5 in wheelbase, and 1,690 lb of payload on the door jamb. The trailer is a 24 ft bunkhouse, 6,400 lb loaded, hanging 800 lb on the ball at 12.5 percent.

Line item	Weight	Running total	Left of 1,690 lb
Tongue weight, 6,400 lb trailer at 12.5%	800 lb	800 lb	890 lb
Weight distribution head, shank, spring bars	95 lb	895 lb	795 lb
Four people, 185 / 165 / 95 / 75 lb	520 lb	1,415 lb	275 lb
Cooler, six chairs, folding table	95 lb	1,510 lb	180 lb
Six bundles, kiln dried, two evenings	120 lb	1,630 lb	60 lb

Payload sticker 1,690 lb, GVWR 7,100 lb, rear GAWR 4,100 lb, front GAWR 3,700 lb, 153.5 in wheelbase on a 2022 Ram 1500 crew cab 4x4. Trailer loaded weight 6,400 lb against a 7,600 lb GVWR. Hitch weight is a 95 lb head, shank and bar set, not a 45 lb ball mount.

Sixty pounds left is the whole margin, and it is one kid's duffel or one more cooler lid. This is a working trip, not a comfortable one. It is also the version where nobody has to choose between the fire and the chairs, which is not true of the version most people actually drive.

Where the Wood Goes, and Why Nowhere Works

The obvious fix is to put the oak in the trailer instead. Run the number and it does not survive. The trailer is rated 7,600 lb, it weighs 6,400 loaded, and that leaves 1,200 lb of headroom. A bed load of oak is 1,700. It is 500 lb past a limit that already includes four days of gear, and stacking it over the axles does not create capacity, it just stops the tongue from moving while the axle rating does the failing.

There is a second reason to keep it out of the trailer. Firewood is unsecured mass in a box with thin walls and a floor rated per square foot, and 1,700 lb of split oak against the front cabinet of a travel trailer is how cabinet doors end up on the floor at the first railroad crossing. The cargo carrying capacity guide covers what that label actually leaves you.

Where the fire comes from	Added weight	Total payload	Verdict
Load the bed with oak, 16 in deep	1,700 lb	3,210 lb	1,520 lb over
Twelve bundles bought at the destination	240 lb	1,750 lb	60 lb over
Six bundles there, burn the host's stack	120 lb	1,630 lb	60 lb left

Same truck, same trailer, same four people and the same cooler and chairs already aboard at 1,510 lb. The only variable is where the fire comes from. Bundles counted at 0.75 cubic feet and 20 lb each.

Three rows, one truck, one trip. The bottom row is the only one that closes, and it closes with 60 lb to spare, which is the difference between a legal load and an argument with a scale on the way home.

Wood Behind the Tailgate Is Worth 1.3 Times Its Weight

Even at a total that fits, where the wood sits changes which axle carries it. Any load placed behind the rear axle acts on a lever: the front axle loses weight, the rear axle gains more than the load itself, and the ratio is set by the wheelbase and the overhang.

The formula is (wheelbase + overhang) ÷ wheelbase for the gain at the rear axle, and overhang ÷ wheelbase for the loss at the front. On a 153.5 in wheelbase with 47 in of overhang that multiplier is 1.31. Stack 1,700 lb against the tailgate and the rear axle sees 2,220 lb while the front axle gives up 520.

Two things follow. First, a bed load can put you over rear GAWR while the payload total still looks fine, because the total counts the wood once and the axle counts it 1.31 times. Second, the front axle number is the one that changes how the truck steers, and it is the number nobody measures. Push the same stack forward against the cab and the multiplier falls toward 1.0, which is free weight you can reclaim by loading differently. The GAWR explainer has the axle ratings and the scale procedure.

Buying It There Is Cheaper, and Often the Only Legal Move

Twelve bundles of kiln-dried wood bought at a gas station ten miles from the house you are visiting weigh 240 lb and cost somewhere between $60 and $110. The same heat from your own stack costs nothing at the till and close to fifteen hundred pounds of payload, which is a strange trade to make on the busiest travel week of the year.

The legal side is less negotiable. Moving firewood across state lines is restricted or banned in much of the country, because a split log is a delivery vehicle for emerald ash borer larvae, spongy moth egg masses and spotted lanternfly egg cases. Wood that has been heat treated to a 140 °F core for at least an hour and stamped as certified is the usual exception, and the rule differs by state and by pest. Check the destination state’s agriculture department before you load, not after you arrive with a bed full of evidence.

Campgrounds are stricter than states. A private park or a state park in an ash borer quarantine area will turn away outside wood at the gate, and the bundle you were going to buy locally is the only one allowed on the fire ring. That is worth knowing before the bed is loaded, because unloading 1,700 lb of oak in a check-in line is a bad way to start a holiday.

Thanksgiving week adds the last complication. It is dark by 5 pm in most of the country, the interstates run at their annual peak on Wednesday afternoon, and a truck with 1,700 lb against the tailgate and 800 lb on the ball has its front axle light and its headlights pointed at the treetops. That is a combination that shows up in deer-strike statistics every November, and it is entirely avoidable by leaving the wood at home.

Loading the Bed for a Four-Day Visit

Five steps, in this order, and the last one is the only one that tells you the truth.

1
Weigh the truck empty, before the wood exists
Front axle on the first platform, drive axle on the second, trailer off the scale. The ticket gives you two numbers you cannot get anywhere else: how much of your payload is already spent on fuel, a toolbox, a bedliner and the hitch, and what the rear axle weighs with nothing in it. On a crew cab 4x4 that number is usually 2,700 to 2,900 lb, which is most of a 4,100 lb rear axle rating gone before you load a stick.
2
Subtract the tongue and the hitch head from the sticker
Do this in writing, not in your head. A 6,400 lb trailer at 12.5 percent is 800 lb, and the head, shank and bars for it are 95 lb. Whatever is left on the door jamb sticker after those two lines is the real budget for people, cooler and cargo.
3
Count passengers at what they weigh, not what they say
Four adults and one child at 185, 165, 165, 95 and 75 comes to 685 lb, and it all lands on the truck before a single bag. Anyone who drives separately takes their weight and their duffel out of your budget, which is a cheaper fix than anything you can buy.
4
Measure the wood by volume, never by eye or by pickup load
A face cord is 8 ft by 4 ft by 16 in, which is 42.7 cubic feet and about a third of a full cord. Load your bed to 16 in and you have roughly one of those, or 1,700 lb of oak, whether it looks like a lot or not. If the wood is going anyway, stack it forward against the cab and strap it, because 1,700 lb of split oak behind an open tailgate becomes a projectile at the first hard stop.
5
Re-weigh loaded and read the rear axle line
Three passes: truck empty, truck with the trailer hitched, then the whole rig with the spring bars engaged. The second pass tells you what the tongue actually does to the rear axle. The third tells you what the hitch is buying back. Compare both to the rear GAWR on the door jamb, not to the payload total.

Run the ledger for your own truck before the holiday, not in the driveway with the engine running. The payload calculator takes the sticker, the tongue weight and the passenger list and returns what is actually left, and the tongue weight calculator tells you the other half of the same subtraction. If the trailer is new to you, weigh the tongue with the cylinders full rather than trusting the listing.

The recommendation is blunt. Buy the wood where you are going to burn it, take a dozen bundles instead of a bed load, and spend the 1,500 lb you just reclaimed on the cooler, the chairs and a passenger who would otherwise be driving alone. The trade-off is real: store-bought bundles are kiln-dried and burn hot and fast, so a four-hour fire takes more wood than it would from a stack that has been seasoning since last fall. You will feed the fire more often. You will not spend the drive home wondering what the front tires are doing.

Run the Load Before You Stack It

Tongue weight and bed cargo spend the same sticker. Put both numbers in and see what is really left for the family.

Payload Calculator Tongue Weight Calculator GVWR Calculator

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a truck bed full of firewood weigh?

Stacked 16 inches deep, an 8 ft bed holds about 56 cubic feet, which is roughly 1,700 lb of seasoned oak at 30 lb per cubic foot. The same depth in a 5.5 ft bed comes to about 39 cubic feet and 1,170 lb. Green oak runs close to 30 percent heavier because the water is still in it, so the same stack can reach 2,200 lb. Level with the bed rails adds another 25 percent on top of that.

Can I haul firewood and tow a trailer at the same time?

Yes, if both loads come out of the same payload number. A 6,400 lb trailer at 12.5 percent puts 800 lb of tongue on the ball, and the hitch head and bars add 95 more. On a 1,690 lb sticker that leaves 795 lb for passengers, gear and wood. Four people and a cooler take 615, which leaves 180. Firewood is the first thing that has to go somewhere else, because there is no version of a bed load of oak that fits in 180 lb.

Is it legal to bring firewood across state lines for Thanksgiving?

Often not. Every state sets its own rule on out-of-state firewood, and many restrict it outright or require wood that has been heat treated to a 140°F core for at least 60 minutes and carries the certification stamp. The restrictions exist because a single log can carry emerald ash borer larvae, spongy moth egg masses or spotted lanternfly egg cases into a forest that has none. Check the destination state's agriculture department before you load, and expect campgrounds to ban outside wood regardless.

Does a weight distribution hitch fix an overloaded truck bed?

No. A weight distribution hitch moves tongue weight between the front axle, the rear axle and the trailer axles. It cannot move anything out of the bed, because the bed is bolted to the frame between the axles. If the bed load alone is over your rear axle rating, the hitch has nothing to redistribute and the extra 1,700 lb stays where you put it. Hitches solve tongue weight problems, not cargo problems.

How much firewood do I need for a four-day Thanksgiving visit?

A fire pit burns roughly 0.5 to 0.75 cubic feet of split hardwood an hour, so a four-hour evening fire is 2 to 3 cubic feet, or 60 to 90 lb. Four evenings comes to 8 to 12 cubic feet, which is 11 to 16 bundles at 0.75 cubic feet each. That is 240 to 360 lb, still a fraction of a bed load, and most of it can be bought within ten miles of where you are going to burn it.

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