I'm going to be hauling some firewood in a 16' trailer over a distance that includes some major state highways. My trailer is a landscape utility type, but I'm building plywood walls to keep the logs contained. Anyone know if I'd be required to tarp this?

Did some digging and I'm not entirely sure. I'm not sure if firewood qualifies as "loose material" as far as PENNDOT is concerned? Seems like those rules are more focused on materials that will blow out while driving down the road.

Thanks

Are these going to be in logs or cut to length sizes?

I'd be more concerned about the weight capacity of the trailer especially on the highway

Cut to length firewood, ready to stack.

Looked into the weight already. It's a 7000# trailer that weighs about 1740#. Add in the weight of the sides, I figure I have around 5000# max payload. I'd like to keep it a little under that. Based on what I'm reading online as far as weights, I should be ok for about a cord of oak, or close to it.

Just curious, how far are you driving?

About 70 miles.

So you need 1 cord of hardwood. Is it worth it to drive 140 miles total?
Round these parts you can get that delivered for $200 in July.

I'm in SWPA.

Btw, oak weights about 2700 per cord and has about 24 million btu's... Unless you're getting it for free it might not be worth getting.

If that was the only purpose to the trip no. But I'm going anyway.

Have a big oak down behind a camp and we already have more wood than we can use up there, so it's just going to go to waste. I'll be making the trip once, maybe twice in the next month or so. Figured I could bring some of it back while I'm at it.

good plan.

If you are gonna cover it I always use a tarp with a cargo net over it. Really keeps everything from blowing around.

Maybe wet.

And what wood would you rather burn in the coldest part of winter the red (and then white) oak?
There isn't much species of any decent size in Pa that I'd rather have, for putting out the heat in the winter.

I burn cherry, ash (whats left of any good stuff), oak, maple, some locust and sassafras, here and there some crabapple and dogwood.

Depending on where your starting and ending points are you may also want to check out the quarrantine that PA has on for areas effected by the spotted lanternfly.

I am relatively sure that moving wood out of those areas is strictly forbidden due to the current issue with the lanternfly.
https://www.agriculture.pa.gov/Plants_Land_Water/PlantIndustry/Entomology/spotted_lanternfly/program-information/Documents/Lycorma%20Quarantine%20Map.pdf

Just giving him some roundabout figures...

I think what I'm trying to say is if you are burning to offset your heating cost... and you pay $200 for a cord of wood and then you pay 50 bucks in gas to transport it home and your offset is only $200....you're losing money.

For me personally I would never buy wood. First of all I can get as much as I want for free. I have to buck and split. it's all kind of mixed Hardwoods and even some Pine mixed in which is perfectly fine...

But what I have seen is burning for  6 to 10 hours a night doesn't really offset the cost of wood all that much and if I had to buy it I definitely would be losing money.. I can see if I burned 24/7 there would be a big difference.

But as I read the thread I noticed that he was getting it for free so it probably is worth it to him.

You can not transport firewood more than 30 miles in PA unless it has been kiln dried and stamped as such.  I work in a sawmill.

Able to provide a link to that law? I looked into it and never found any such thing.

Not trying to be a smartass, I really want to know.

It appears to be a local State Park restriction around here of bringing firewood into the local state parks from over 25 miles (was 30).  There is a PA Dept Agriculture directive or regulation which carries a fine of $300 per violation up to $20,00.00 for bringing untreated/non-kiln dried/ non certified firewood into the state.

There are signs all over the place in Potter and Tioga counties about NOT transporting firewood more than 30 miles; perhaps they are reading into the regs a bit.  We are very rural and have lots of State land, Parks, Forests, and Gamelands surrounding us.

I know that we have to stamp and then kiln dry pallets, shoring, and dunnage for interstate and overseas commerce.  Shipping green lumber is a thing of the past.