Buying and receiving logs: measurement, weight and lot identity

Every payment for logs rests on a measurement rule, and a rule is only as good as its version, its place and its instruments. This lesson covers what to fix in the purchase contract and how to check what arrives, using the rules the portal documents for Germany, Sweden, Austria, Poland and North America.

Systematic error is a price change

Under the Huber-type formula of the German framework agreement, volume is proportional to the square of the mid-diameter. For a 30 cm log, a caliper that reads 1 cm high changes the volume by (31 squared minus 30 squared) / 30 squared = 6.8% (own calculation). That is why billing rules fix rounding and require calibrated instruments.

Germany: the RVR

The Rahmenvereinbarung für den Rohholzhandel (RVR) is a voluntary agreement, signed 11 December 2014, in force from 1 January 2015, 5th edition 1 December 2023. It applies only if buyer and seller include it in the contract. It measures the mid-diameter without bark (one reading up to 19 cm, two perpendicular readings from 20 cm), rounded down to whole centimetres. Volume is V = (pi/4) x d squared x L x 10 to the power of minus 4 (d in cm, L in m), in cubic metres solid without bark (Fm o.R.).

Worked example. A log with a 34.8 cm mid-diameter and a length of 4.00 m is billed at d = 34 cm: 0.7854 x 0.34 squared x 4 = 0.363 m3. Using 35 cm would give 0.385 m3, about 6% more. Rounding down is a rule, not an error.

The length allowance is 1% of order length, rounded up to whole centimetres, minimum 10 cm, and is excluded from volume. For stacked wood the RVR gives factors from stacked cubic metre with bark (Rm m.R.) to Fm o.R. of 0.70 for 1 m, 0.65 for 2 m and 0.60 for 3 m. Own calculation: 200 Rm of 2 m wood is about 130 Fm o.R. The brochure says these are averages for internal and statistical use and must not be used as a sales measure.

Sweden: the stack is measured, not assumed

The Swedish stack regulation (version of 1 January 2026) builds volume from the stack's external dimensions times a wood-volume percentage. The document's example is 6.00 x 3.01 x 1.08 = 19.505 m3t, which at 55% gives 10.73 m3sub. Base percentages are 70% (spruce), 68% (pine), 66% (aspen), 65% (alder, oak) and 64% (birch, beech, ash), adjusted for bark, stacking, crookedness, snow and ice, waste, wood length and stack height. Stack height at storage sites must be 100 to 300 cm with at least 1 m between stacks. Contrast this with the flat German factors: the Swedish figure responds to the real stack.

Austria: where are the logs measured?

According to the Tyrol forest administration, Austrian round timber measurement follows Ö-NORM L1021 and the Holzhandelsusancen. If the sales letter says "Werksübernahme", the seller accepts electronic mill measurement and may attend the takeover; with "Waldabmaß" the seller bears the takeover costs. The page gives about 25 Fm per trip for a truck with trailer carrying spruce or fir, a plausibility check for delivery slips, not a legal payload.

Scaling rules in North America

Board-foot rules estimate sawn recovery from the small-end diameter. For 16-foot logs of 16 in., the USDA handbook NA-FR-15 prints International 1/4 in. 180 board feet and Doyle 144; own calculation: Doyle gives 20% less. A price per thousand board feet therefore cannot be compared with a price per Fm o.R. without a size-dependent conversion agreed in writing.

Weight: a conversion you must sample yourself

The RVR defines the oven-dry tonne (t atro) for industrial and energy wood, with averages: 1 t atro with bark equals 2.2 Fm o.R. for spruce and fir, 2.1 for pine and Douglas fir, 1.8 for larch, 1.5 for beech and 1.4 for oak (own calculation: 30 t atro of spruce is about 66 Fm o.R.). The portal could not open the Wood Handbook green-density tables, so no general tonne-to-cubic-metre factor is quoted. A mill contracting by weight should sample its own relationship by species and season.

Lot identity on arrival

The FVA warns that sales lots can be mixed during transport, so lot marking and delivery slips are the basis of traceability. At receiving, link each lot number to the delivery slip, supplier or felling area, felling date, species and measured volume, and carry it through the sorting line. For stored logs, add the sprinkling start date, because it defines the use-by date (Lesson 4).

Key points

• Fix the measurement rule, its version, the place of measurement and the cost split in the contract.
• A bias in diameter is squared: 1 cm on a 30 cm log is 6.8% of volume.
• Rounding rules (RVR: down to whole centimetres) are part of the price.
• Stack and stack-factor conversions are not interchangeable; flat German factors are statistical averages, not sales measures.
• Sample your own tonne-to-cubic-metre relationship; do not borrow one.
• Keep lot number, felling date and slip together from the gate to the output batch.