
The stere or stère (st) is a
unit of
volume
Volume is a measure of regions in three-dimensional space. It is often quantified numerically using SI derived units (such as the cubic metre and litre) or by various imperial or US customary units (such as the gallon, quart, cubic inch) ...
in the
original metric system equal to one
cubic metre
The cubic metre (in Commonwealth English and international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures) or cubic meter (in American English) is the unit of volume in the International System of Units (SI). Its symbol is m ...
. 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 m
3, 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.
See also
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Board foot
The board foot or board-foot is a unit of measurement for the volume of lumber in the United States and Canada. It equals the volume of a board that is in length, one foot in width, and in thickness, or exactly liters.
Board foot can be abbrev ...
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Cord (unit)
The cord is a unit of measure of dry volume used to measure firewood and pulpwood in the United States and Canada.
A cord is the amount of wood that, when "racked and well stowed" (arranged so pieces are aligned, parallel, touching, and compact ...
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Cubic ton
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Faggot (unit)
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Forest product
A forest product is any material derived from forestry for direct consumption or commercial use, such as lumber, paper, or fodder for livestock. Wood, by far the dominant product of forests, is used for many purposes, such as wood fuel (e.g. in f ...
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Hoppus
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List of metric units
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List of unusual units of measurement
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Petrograd Standard
A standard or standard hundred was a measure of timber used in trade.
The measure varied in number, size and composition from country to country so the term is usually preceded by the region or port of origin. The countries of the Baltic regi ...
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Units of measurement
A unit of measurement, or unit of measure, is a definite magnitude (mathematics), magnitude of a quantity, defined and adopted by convention or by law, that is used as a standard for measurement of the same kind of quantity. Any other qua ...
References
Units of volume
Non-SI metric units
Logging
{{Forestry-stub
ja:ステール