Hauling firewood while towing a trailer

[justintyme01]

Have any of you hauled a full bed of split and stacked firewood while towing a 5x9 with a load of wood at the same time? I have a large supply of free ash and usually go weekly to every other week to bring wood home for the furnace. I had a 3/4 ton before I bought my ram 1500. Just wanted to know how it handled before I drive an hour there and back with the wood. I usually just get a bed full but I have access to a trailer and figured I’d borrow it so I don’t have to make the trip so often. This is also the first truck I’ve owned without leaf springs.

 

[MADDOG]

How much do you figure the weight of your load will be in the bed? How high you gonna stack it? Is it wet or dry?

It's all about the weight.

 

[justintyme01]

Wood won’t be any higher than the sides of the bed. I’m guessing 1/3 of a cord of ash so between 1000-1300 pounds. Just a guess though. Most is dry and ready to burn.

 

[justintyme01]

Most of it is split already but there are still some rounds left. I try to plan for worst case scenario so I plan like it’s all split and stacked nice and tight

 

[MasonD21]

Unfortunately, this is a very hard question to answer. 60% of wood's weight can be just water. If it's been dried appropriately, a 6.4' bed tightly stacked up to the bed cap might only weigh 500-600lbs. Wet, it can weigh nearly 1 ton.

I know this is not a scientific method for figuring out how much weight is in the truck... but I've always gone by a rule of thumb of "If your front and rear are level, add another few logs. If your rear is sagging, you're over loaded."

 

[justintyme01]

How easily do these gen 4 rams squat with the rear coils instead of leaves? I know they will do their job and do it well but I have only had the truck for a week and haven’t loaded it yet.

 

[NewBlackDak]

Wood won’t be any higher than the sides of the bed. I’m guessing 1/3 of a cord of ash so between 1000-1300 pounds. Just a guess though. Most is dry and ready to burn.

1300lbs in the bed of a 1500 seems like insanity. You will probably be bottomed out with that(and likely very near or over your payload capacity). No way I would add a trailer on top of that.


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[justintyme01]

My payload capacity is almost 1600 pounds. I didn’t think that would
Be insanity?

 

[justintyme01]

 

[sbarron]

1580lbs - 1300lbs *wood" = 280lbs left - 1/2 tank fuel (15 gal @ 6.3ppg - 95lbs) = 185lbs left - 180lbs driver = 5lbs left for tongue weight.

 

[justintyme01]

Thanks sbarron, that makes sense. I know i estimated for green ash though so if I picked up only seasoned ash when I towed the trailer I think I’d be fine.

 

[sbarron]

yeah. There's always some margin engineered in as well. Make sure you check your tires for load capacity and have the correct inflation. If you're slightly over, you should be ok, just don't flog on anything.

BTW. In no way am I responsible for any consequences of following my advice.

 

[MasonD21]

How easily do these gen 4 rams squat with the rear coils instead of leaves?

In many cases, the coil springs provide better weight support than leaf sprung trucks. I don't want to link to another website or forum necessarily, but if you do some looking, there are a couple video blogger journalist organizations that do MPG tow tests, etc on these trucks and they've shown with Ram trucks with coils tend to squat less. I saw an example of this when a Ford was Paired with a Ram (250/2500), the Ram truck squatted half an inch less than the Ford with a leaf pack.

However, I did recently hear Ford went from a 2.5" wide leaf to a 3.0" wide leaf (still using 2 leaves with the helper spring). So I'm not sure how that mash-up would be now.

 

[Burla]

I am doing this all the time, no issue man. I put 2k pounds plus pallet exactly when I haul my pellets home. I wouldn't want to drive 100's of miles like this, but there is no rubbing- stock shocks 1500 4x4. Yes I do get a cali lean with this, but it is very doable, don't take sharp or fast corners.

Specifically wood, I sell my wood so I do exactly the bed filled to top, not over no extra walls and a 5x10 trailer with 3-4 ft walls fill again to top not over. When I haul the wood, it isn't even close to when I haul the pellets, much less weight, assuming you don't have a 5th wheel trailer. Now large rounds, that sounds heavy and also back breaking. Break it down on sight first, good luck Burla

 

[MasonD21]

I know i estimated for green ash though so if I picked up only seasoned ash when I towed the trailer I think I’d be fine.

Something to consider, because this is what I do now... so just my 2-cents.

I used to pull my hair out trying to figure out how to haul and tow anything from wood, to bricks loaded on pallets, to sand and gravel. What I concluded at the end of it all seems so obvious now. Instead of loading anything in my truck, I just load my trailer. My truck is almost always empty. My double axle utility trailer has a GVW of 10,000lbs. I only put weight in my trailer, and I've never had anything close to 10k worth of weight loaded (I probably got close with a load of gravel, but didnt fill to the top). The tongue weight of the trailer alone puts me close enough to my payload to where I can load the wife and fuel. And the trailer has more than enough room in it for all kinds of goods.

Plus, my truck's bed no longer gets beat up. I beat up my trailer instead.

 

[justintyme01]

Thanks for you’re replies. I looked up and found that video with the 3/4 ton ford and ram and did see the coils make the ram squat less, I wasn’t sure if it would be close to the same results with a half ton.

We should do away with the 1/2 ton and 3/4 ton etc...anyway. Obviously most half tons have a payload capacity of 1500 pounds or 3/4 ton these days and some have much more.

I didn’t think I was crazy to our 1300 pounds in the bed when I see a bunch of people carrying a ton of pellets for their stoves.

Maybe I’ll buy a trailer to save my bed, I like that idea masond21!

Got a question for you burla, do you have a pellet stove or pellet furnace? I was thinking about getting one so i could run it instead if my wood furnace when I’m sleeping or not home, plus the wife hates when she has to deal with the wood furnace and I’m gone.

 

[Burla]

From what I ascertained by using google, non-seasoned wood could be double the weight, generally I don't mess with fresh wood, nobody wants to buy that. But if you load the trailer and hook it up first, you can easily gauge how much firewood you put in the back as you will see the tires slowly compressed. I wish I would have taken a picture for guidance, but 3 inchs clearance from tire to fender you are good, more then good. Next time I haul pellets I will measure from bottom of bumper to ground. I believe there to be about 2 inchs from fender to tire when I do this. The payload of 1600 pounds is a very safe load.

 

[mtofell]

Any chance can just rent or borrow a bigger trailer and put all wood in that? The impact of weight in the trailer on payload is only 10-15% of when you put it directly in the bed.

I picked up a 1/2 cord of freshly cut ash a couple weeks ago with my 2500 and I can tell you that is some heavy stuff. I would guess it to be well north of 2000# but couldn't find a scale. I've had other loads that heavy in my truck it felt about the same. Granted, mine was literally cut about 24 hours prior so it was full of water.

 

[justintyme01]

The wood I’ve been getting was standing dead wood. Most of what I bring home was cut down a year or two ago. Most is very dry. My father in law did just drop another one for the guy last week though. I’m sure that’s not as dry as what I’ve neen getting

 

[14hemiexpress]

Just load as much as you can comfortably like stated before take the trailer load it up good and full the load the truck to your comfort level. 1300lbs is a lot in the bed of a 1500 while pulling a trailer. I have had around 1000-1200 worth of fencing supply's in my 14 Express 4x4 when. I had it and it did just fine.