How much to haul/tow

[fields_mj]

I'm curious how much weight some of you guys tow on a regular basis. Here's why.

I heat with firewood. 4 years ago the woods that I hunt in and cut firewood in was logged (select log, not clear cut). Over 1100 trees were taken out (mostly oak) and it didn't make much of a dent. Most of the tops that were left behind started out at 24" in diameter. Some were noticeably bigger. So I cut firewood like it was going out of style for a year and a half. After that, the tops were starting to rot too much for me to use them for firewood. I had accumulated enough to last me for a few years. I still have enough to make it through this winter with some left over, but what ever is left won't be in very good shape for the following winter. Since the logging, the farm I cut on hasn't hand much in terms of blow downs, so as a source for firewood it has temporarily dried up.

Kick in Plan B. My folks live about an hour north of me, and I still have access to the farm up there that dad and I have hunted for the last 30 years. Lots of good hickory, but its an hour away. They did a little logging last year, so dad and I went out last weekend and cut/stacked about 15,000 lbs worth of hickory (about 3 cords). I can haul a full cord with my bed rails on, but I don't like to haul that much weight in the bed for that far. I don't mind doing it for 5 or 10 miles locally, but I don't care to haul it 50 miles that way. So, I'm thinking about trying to find a trailer to rent. Problem is that I have no idea what a realistic limit is when it comes to how much I can, or should tow for any distance. The truck is NA, has a ZF5, 3.55 gears, SRW, and I run the stock 32"~33" E rated tires on it. I did have a D60 put in last fall. The bed has a ball installed for a goose neck, possibly from the factory, but I don't know what its rated for either. It has a 2 1/2" rear hitch that I have sleeved down to 2". I have a 10,000 lb rear hitch that I used to pull our travel trailer (5K empty). I'd like to find a trailer that I can borrow or rent for a day to haul the wood down to my place. The firewood will weight between 5K and 6K per cord, and ideally I'd like to be able to transport 2~3 cord per trip. Using the rear hitch, I would want a trailer that could haul 2 cord (10K minimum) and another half cord in the bed. If its a goose neck, I would want to get at least 2.5 cord in the trailer (preferably 3). The problem with all of these ideas is that I have no idea if my truck should be capable of hauling something like this. It hauls the 5K travel trailer (IE brick nosed wind brake), with very little problem, but there's a big difference between that and 15K worth of firewood. I would love to get some input from you guys on what I should reasonably expect my truck to be able to handle.

Thanks,
Mark

 

[Clb]

Check the towing section

 

[Black dawg]

bumper pull with a 3/4 ton, probably 10-12k trailer total. Your firewood is heavy, I can pull 5 cord with my suburban @2k ish a cord.

 

[laserjock]

^^^ What he said. Another piece of advice I have is that it makes a HUGE weight difference on how green the wood is as to the weight per cord. A cord of dry wood is much lighter than a cord of green wood. Might be worth taking the time to go up there and cut and split it to let it season out a little before going to pick it up it would reduce your mass quite a bit I would guess. That is if you can do that.

 

[fields_mj]

Didn't know we had a towing section. I'll check it out.

Hickory weights a little over 4K/cord dry. I've not weighed a cord of on my own, but I have red oak. The red oak weighed 5K. The tables put it around 3,600 lbs per cord dry if I remember correctly. I'm not sure what you're cutting that only weighs 2K, but it's got to be pretty soft unless you're talking about a face cord for which there is no defined volume. A cord is 4'x4'x8' = 128 cu ft.

Here's a link to the densities of various species green and dry as listed on the engineering tool box web site.

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/weigt-wood-d_821.html

I've seen other lists, and they all vary to some extent, but they are all in the same ball park.

 

[madpogue]

^^^^^ Wow, good info. Now someone needs to combine this with a BTUHr / cord chart by species, and mash it up into one.

And +1 splitting / seasoning the wood at the source location, if possible. Reduces the challenge by 25% in this case.

 

[FORDF250HDXLT]

log trucks first (and still so far lol) day out.i know it doesn't help much,i just like to show it. can't wait to use it again.

 

[Tim4]

I don't like it but I have crossed the scales at 22k pounds a time or two lately.

The crew cab handles it a bit more stable on the highway than the 250 2wd does.

Your ext cab 4x4 with trailer should tare at 11 or 12 k with a 14' low deck dump trailer behind it.

10,000 pound cargo is probably close to your practical limit.

 

[Shadetreemechanic]

My backhoe weighs right at 12,000 pounds, my trailer about 3500. I have taken it on 150 mile round trips with my f250 with 3.55s. It aint fast, but it is respectable. I don't ever shift into 5th gear with that load. Other than that only problem is if you are in a tight spot with a hill can burn some clutch if you dont use your transfer case. In 2 low you can move anything...even with 3.55s.

 

[Black dawg]

I always assumed that lodgepole pine was right at 2k, but it after reading a little looks like 25-2600. that would explain why the 454 felt kinda doggy on that last trip home. 3500lb trailer + 5 cord at 2.5k

 

[fields_mj]

^^^^^ Wow, good info. Now someone needs to combine this with a BTUHr / cord chart by species, and mash it up into one.

And +1 splitting / seasoning the wood at the source location, if possible. Reduces the challenge by 25% in this case.

All firewood has the same number of BTU per pound of wood so there's no need for an additional chart. The more dense the species of wood, the more BTU it can produce. The number of useable BTU in a piece of firewood is based on it's dry weight, and the amount of moisture it contains. The moisture is not only unusable weight, but it must also be boiled off which consumes the BTU that you're trying to recover. A lot of folks ask similar questions about creosote. Creosote is simply one of the by products of the combustion process, so each pound of wood will produce the same amount of creosote. So long as the exhaust gasses remain hot enough, the creosote will remain suspended in them and exit the chimney. When the gasses cool, the creosote drops out and sticks to what ever surface it can find (chimney walls).

The wood is currently cut to length and stacked so that it can start to dry. I won't be hauling it out until after the crops come out, and I may wait until the ground is frozen. The door on my wood furnace is 10"x10", and I don't split anything that I can easily load into it. The furnace will take a 27" log, but I've found it burns best with wood that has been cut to 22"~24". I had several bigger rounds and thought about splitting them now to make them easier to lift up onto of the stack. After bouncing an axe, fiskars, and 8 lb maul off of them, I decided it would be best to put them on the bottom of the stack….. I won't be trying to split them again until it's well below freezing outside. The only thing I ended up "splitting" were the crotches that were going to make the stack unstable, and those were noodled with my 066.

As far as towing/hauling goes, it looks like the answers are all pretty consistent. If I can find a trailer that will take it, I should be able to haul 2 cord in a trailer and 1/2 in the bed. I wont' be setting any land speed records, but it will get the job done and be a LOT faster than taking it down one truck load at a time.

 

[junk]

I haul 7K behind my truck and never know it. Now last summer I was 17.5K with my large enclosed trailer. It pulled fine, but I knew I had a load and hills would slow me down pretty good.

 

[IDIBRONCO]

Wow, hickory would be good to burn. I work in the wood department in a place that builds spiral staircases. Hickory is the heaviest, densest domestic wood I've worked with in my 6 1/2 years there. I say domestic since the densest I've seen comes from Brazil (the country) and is called Ipe. Even though I'm from Kansas, I burn wood too. I usually stay within 20 miles from home when I cut. I usually stack 1 to 2 feet over the bed rails. I don't even hit the highway on the way home because I'm afraid of something falling off and hitting someone's car. I just take my time down the dirt roads. I do have to say that if I had the chance to get some hickory, I'd have no problem taking it down the highway for a long way. Sounds like you have a pretty good plan.

 

[SLC97SR5]

I have had a good amount of weight behind mine and never felt unsafe. I would recommend paying close attention to your tongue weight if you are going to load up the bed.

With 3.55's and NA, I would shoot for no more than 10k of payload.

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