How Much Firewood Do You Need for a Weekend Cabin Stay?

The honest math on how much firewood you need for a one-night stay, a long weekend, or a week at a cabin — plus why gas station bundles are the expensive way to do it.

The most common text we get on a Friday afternoon is some version of: "How much wood do I need for the weekend?" The answer is simpler than people think, and it comes down to two things: how many nights you're staying, and how many hours per night you plan to have a fire going.

Here's the honest math.

The baseline: one bundle per hour

A standard firewood bundle — the kind wrapped in plastic at a gas station or camp store — contains about five to seven split logs. Burned in an outdoor fire pit, that bundle lasts roughly 45 minutes to an hour, depending on the species and how seasoned it is.

So if you're sitting around a fire pit for three hours on a Friday night, you'll burn through about three bundles. Simple.

But nobody buys three individual bundles for a weekend. That's the expensive way. Here's how to think bigger.

The weekend calculator

Most cabin renters in the Hocking Hills want a fire on two or three nights. A typical evening fire burns for about three to four hours — from after dinner until people start heading to bed around 11. Here's the math for common scenarios:

What's a bundle, a face cord, and a full cord?

These terms confuse people, so here's the real-world translation.

A bundle is the shrink-wrapped package you see at gas stations. Usually about 0.75 cubic feet of wood. Costs $6–$9 at a store, which works out to roughly $800–$1,000 per full cord equivalent. It's the most expensive way to buy firewood, by a wide margin.

A face cord (also called a "rick" in some parts of Ohio) is a stack 8 feet long, 4 feet tall, and one log deep — typically 16 inches. That's about one-third of a full cord. A face cord is what most weekend cabin renters actually need. It fits in the bed of a pickup truck.

A full cord is 128 cubic feet — a stack measuring 8 feet long, 4 feet tall, and 4 feet deep. This is a lot of wood. It fills a full-size pickup bed, heaped. Most cabin renters don't need a full cord unless they're staying a week or hosting a large group.

Season matters

In summer, fires are purely for ambiance. You'll burn less wood because you're not trying to stay warm, and people tend to call it a night earlier when it's hot. Budget about 20% less than the calculator suggests.

In winter, everything flips. Fires start earlier, burn hotter, and people huddle closer. An indoor fireplace in January might burn continuously from 4 PM to midnight. Budget 30–50% more than the baseline, and consider ordering a full face cord even for a two-night stay.

Fall and spring are the sweet spot — comfortable enough to sit outside for hours, cool enough that the fire feels necessary. The baseline calculator works perfectly for these seasons.

The real cost comparison

Here's what most people don't realize: buying bundles from a gas station for a weekend costs roughly three to four times more than ordering the same volume from a local firewood supplier.

A typical two-night weekend uses about half a face cord. At bundle prices, that's $40–$60. Delivered from a local supplier? Usually $25–$40 for higher quality, better seasoned wood that burns hotter and longer.

The gas station bundles also tend to be lower-quality species or under-seasoned wood that was kiln-dried too fast. Local wood from the Hocking Hills is a mix of oak, hickory, cherry, and hard maple — the dense hardwoods that grow in these hollows — and it's been seasoning in the open air for months.

The one thing nobody accounts for

Kindling. Most people remember the logs and forget the kindling. Without kindling, you're crumpling newspaper and trying to light a full-size log directly. This is how most cabin fires fail.

Good kindling is small — pencil-thick to thumb-thick pieces of dry wood, ideally softwood like pine or cedar. A bag of fatwood starters from a hardware store also works. We include kindling with every delivery, which is the kind of detail that makes the difference between a good first night and a frustrating one.

If you're buying your own wood, ask the seller if kindling is included. If it's not, grab a small bag separately. It's two dollars and it's the difference between a one-match fire and a twenty-minute struggle.