The rules, in public
The Standard
What a seller commits to, how the moisture method works, how reviews are moderated, and what ends a listing. Published because a standard nobody can read isn't a standard, it's a sticker.
Just buying firewood? You want the directory or what a cord should cost. Selling it? Getting listed is free and takes two minutes.
One
Two ways to be
on the list
Listed is your name, town, number and what you carry. Guaranteed adds a moisture number you publish yourself and a promise to make a bad load right. Both are free.
| On your row | Listed | Guaranteed |
|---|---|---|
| Business name, town, phone | Yes | Yes |
| What you advertise, in your own words | Yes | Yes |
| A count of how many people tapped your phone number | Yes | Yes |
| Corrections made as soon as you tell us | Yes | Yes |
| A moisture number, published with the date yours, taken your way, signed by you | — | Yes |
| The Guarantee mark on your row shown on this site only — nothing to print, nothing to display | — | Yes |
| A price on your row, dated, that you tell us when it changes optional either way — the rule | — | Yes |
| Reviews from buyers, and a public right of reply | — | Yes |
| What it costs | Free | Free |
| What it costs later | No charge planned | Not decided. Published here 60 days before anyone pays it — the commitment |
Two
The South Jersey
Firewood Guarantee
Six points, and that's the whole thing. A seller should be able to read it to a customer over the phone, and a customer should be able to hold a seller to it without a lawyer. Send anyone straight here: sjfirewood.com/standards.html#guarantee
A seller carrying this mark has told us, in writing:
- The moisture standard they sell to — under 20%, under 25%, or green and labeled green — and that they'll say which before you buy, not after.
- They meter their own stacks the published way: at least six pieces from different depths, split open, meter on the fresh inside face, highest reading is the number. Sent to us with the date, published under their name.
- Every delivered load comes with the delivery ticket New Jersey requires — their name and address and yours, the date, the quantity, the price, and any quality claim they made, including the word seasoned.
- Loose wood is sold by the cord or a fraction of one. No face cords, racks or truckloads — the rule prohibits those terms in the advertisement as much as at the sale. Packaged bundles under an eighth of a cord are exempt and sell by the bundle, which is why roadside stands price the way they do.
- If a load reads wetter than the standard they published, they make it right within seven days. Top it up, swap it, or refund it — their choice which, not their choice whether.
- Reviews stand. They can reply to any review in public under their own name. They cannot have one taken down, and leaning on a customer about one ends the listing that day.
When a seller doesn't
We publish it. The Guarantee comes off their row with the date and one plain sentence about what happened, and it stays visible for a year.
That is the whole enforcement mechanism. We can't fine anyone and we can't make anyone refund you. What we can do is make it publicly expensive to break a promise you put in writing — which, in a trade that runs on word of mouth, is not nothing.
Three
The rest of the terms
The six points above are the promise. These are the three administrative parts that go with it.
Keep your readings current
If you're publishing a moisture number, send a fresh one when you put up a new lot. A reading with an old date on it is worth less than no reading, and a row that stops updating eventually stops carrying the mark.
No talking about prices
There is no group chat and no sellers' room, and there won't be. Two competitors comparing prices in a room is a federal problem, and we're not the ones creating the room.
No ranking, no queue
Nobody already signed up has any say over who else gets in. The criteria are published here and they're the same for everyone, first week or fifth season.
How we'd know an order happened
Mostly we wouldn't. We don't take orders or broker them — a buyer calls a seller and the sale is between the two of them. No code, no account, no tracking link, because there's no transaction of ours to track.
What we do have is a count of how many people tapped a number on this site. It is not a count of sales and we won't dress it up as one — taps aren't calls and calls aren't cords. It's the one honest signal a page like this can produce.
Any seller can ask us for theirs, free, signed up or not. It's a number about their own business and withholding it to force a signature would be a shabby way to run this.
Things we deliberately don't do
- Put a tracking number in front of a seller's real one
- Follow anyone around the internet with a pixel to prove a sale
- Make a buyer go through us to reach a seller
- Chase a buyer for a review after a delivery. Reviews come to us, not the other way round
Buyers owe us nothing. The list is free to read and the sellers' own numbers are on it.
Four
How to meter firewood
One method, published in full, used by every seller who signs and every buyer who wants to check them. No mystery, no proprietary process, no lab.
The method
A pin-type moisture meter, a hatchet, and a notebook. Pull at least six pieces from different depths and corners of the stack — not the six facing the driveway — split each one open, and read the meter on the fresh inside face, right away.
This is where most wrong numbers come from, and they're honest mistakes. The weathered outside of a split and the cut end of a log both read far drier than the wood actually is, so a seller who meters the outside gets a low number and believes it.
The highest reading is the number
Not the average. An average hides the wet piece, and the wet piece is the one that hisses, smolders and lines your chimney. Five pieces at 16% and one at 28% makes that stack a 28.
Whoever took it is printed next to it
A seller meters their own lots and sends the number, dated. We publish it as theirs — and beside it, whatever buyers with meters have reported since. Two numbers, both dated, never averaged together. A seller's number is a claim; a buyer's is the check, and merging them would launder one into the other.
What a row can show
| Field | What it means |
|---|---|
| Committed to | The standard they signed |
| Seller's reading | Their number, their lot, their date. A claim |
| Pieces sampled | How many were split. Six is the floor |
| Buyer-reported | What customers with meters found. The check |
| Agreement | Whether the two line up |
A meter is about $38
Buy one. Check them, check us, check anybody. A customer who can read a meter is a customer nobody in this county can sell wet wood to, and an inspector only ever sees one pile on one day — your meter sees the load that actually turned up. Where to get one →
Five
How reviews work
A review section is worthless when the business being reviewed can delete the bad ones. Here is the policy in full, published now, while there is nothing riding on it.
Reviews come to us, not the other way round
We don't chase customers for reviews. There is no follow-up campaign and nothing lands in your phone after a delivery. If you bought firewood and want to say how it went, there's a form on the directory page and it takes two minutes.
Then you get one text, to check you're a real person. That's the only message we send, it comes from an actual phone, and nothing publishes until you answer it. If you never reply, the review doesn't go up — cheap for a real buyer, expensive for a bot or a competitor.
Nothing is on offer for writing one. No discount, no credit, no entry into anything. The moment a review is worth money to the person writing it, you'd be right to wonder about all of them.
The only reasons one is held back
This is the complete list. If it isn't here, it goes up.
- Nobody answers the verification text, so we can't confirm a person
- It names a private individual or carries personal details
- It's threatening, or abusive past the point of being about the wood
- It duplicates one already up
- The person who wrote it asks us to take it down
The rules, short
- A person reads every one — the same person, every time. Nothing publishes automatically.
- Verified by text first. With a delivery ticket number it publishes as a documented purchase; without one it publishes as what it is. We don't claim to prove a sale we weren't party to.
- Nothing gets deleted — not by the seller, not by us. Anything held back is counted and the totals are published.
- The reply is public. A seller can answer in their own name and we publish it underneath, unedited.
- No paid placement. Nobody can buy a position, a mark, or a better description.
Your details
- Published: first name and town
- Never published: surname, address, phone, email
- Never given to the seller — they get the review and a right of reply, nothing else
- Never sold, never used to market anything
The moderation log
Each season we publish how many reviews came in, how many went up, and why any were held. A moderator who publishes his own reject rate is easier to check than one who doesn't. The first one goes up at the end of the season.
Six
What costs you the mark
Three rules, not a points system. Losing the Guarantee doesn't remove you from the directory — your name and number stay, the mark comes off, and the reason is published beside it.
You won't make a bad load right
The Guarantee is one promise: a load that reads wetter than the standard you published gets fixed within seven days. Refusing is the whole reason the mark exists, so refusing takes it off.
You published a number you never took
A wrong reading honestly taken gets corrected and the method retaught. An invented one is different, because every other figure on this site depends on that line holding.
Anything else, if it keeps happening
Short measure, no ticket, the wrong units on a sign, buyer meters that keep disagreeing with yours. We ask you about it first, in private. It only costs the mark if it carries on after that.
Seven
Who pays us, and how much
Right now, nobody. Being listed is free and signing the Guarantee is free — not a discount, not an introductory rate with a renewal buried in it.
What happens later
We haven't decided, and we're not going to invent a number to look organized. Keeping readings current is real work, and at some point it has to pay for itself or it stops happening — which would be worse for you than never promising it.
What we'll commit to now. Any price gets published here, with the date, 60 days before anybody pays it. It never applies to a season already underway, it never changes where you sit on the list, and nobody's row gets worse for saying no.
Whatever it turns out to be, it won't be a cut of your cord. The day we earn on the spread between what wood costs and what you pay, every number on this site becomes a sales pitch.
What we'll never do
- Sell a higher position on the list, a mark, or a better description
- Take a cut of what a customer pays a seller for wood
- Handle your payment for a cord we had nothing to do with — no deposit, no card, no invoice from us for somebody else's wood
- Hide a seller's phone number or make anyone go through us
- Sign an exclusive that stops a seller selling direct
- Publish a moisture reading nobody took
Those are about keeping the list worth reading. The list itself is free to read and always will be.
Eight
“I don't want my prices on the internet”
Fair, and it's the first thing most sellers say.
We only hold prices we publish
Give us a price and it goes on the page. If you'd rather it wasn't public, don't give it to us — we won't keep a private list. A directory quietly collecting current prices from competing sellers and using them off-page to decide who gets sent which customer is exactly the arrangement competition regulators are wary of. There is no third option.
A single figure isn't required, because firewood doesn't have one price. A range, a starting price, or a price with its conditions attached — any honest answer to “what does it cost” counts.
Every price carries the date you gave it, same as the readings. That's also why we won't lift one off your website: we'd have no idea when it changed, and the first person to find out would be a customer in your yard.
And if you still say no
A price is never required. You can carry the Guarantee without one and keep the readings, the mark and the reviews. Your row says “Price on request” — not as a penalty, and with no commentary attached.
What we'll never do: set your price, suggest one, tell you what anybody else charges, or put you in a room with other sellers to discuss it. Your price is yours and we don't have an opinion about it.
Sell firewood?
Getting listed is free.
Your name, town, number and what you carry. No fee, no agreement, and nothing owed on a sale.