The stere or stère (st) is a unit of volume in the original metric system equal to one cubic metre. The stere is typically used for measuring large quantities of

firewood Firewood is any wooden material that is gathered and used for fuel. Generally, firewood is not heavily processed, and is in some sort of firelog, recognizable log or branch form, compared to other forms of wood fuel like pellet fuel, pellets. ...

or other cut wood, while the cubic meter is used for uncut wood. The name was coined from the Greek στερεός ''stereós'', "solid", in 1795 in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

as a metric analogue to the cord. The unit was introduced to remove regional disparities of this former unit, for which the length could vary greatly from 6 to 13.5 m. It is not part of the modern metric system (SI) and is no longer a legal unit in France, but remains used in the commerce of firewood.

Background

The correspondence between stere and cubic meters of stacked wood is imprecise because it depends on the length of the logs used and on how irregular they are. The stere corresponds to of wood, made exclusively with logs of in length, all stacked parallel and neatly arranged. If the logs are less than 1 m, the volume of visible wood decreases because the voids are better occupied. Thus the "stere" no longer corresponds to 1 m³, but to for logs, for logs and for logs. In Dutch and German, a closely related unit called ''kuub'' (Dutch), short for ''kubieke meter'', or "Kubikmeter" (German) which differs from a stere. Whereas a "kuub" or "Kubikmeter" is a solid cubic metre, as it was traditionally used for wood, a stere (in German: Raummeter) is a cubic metre pile of woodblocks. A stere or Raummeter is less than a kuub or full cubic metre of wood, because the spaces between the woodblocks are included in a stere, while they do not count towards a kuub or Kubikmeter. In Finnish, the same unit is known as ''motti'' (from Swedish ''mått'', "measure"). The stere as used in contexts outside the timber industry is not subject to the same ambiguity. In particular, stere and kilostere are sometimes used in hydrology, as the kilostere ( or megalitre) is a slightly smaller metric analogue of an acre-foot (approximately ), similar to the relationship of the metric tonne to the short ton.

References

Units of volume Non-SI metric units Logging {{Forestry-stub ja:ステール

Background

See also

References