Curious case of shrinking firewood

BETWEEN ordering my firewood and stacking it, 30 per cent has gone missing. I had ordered four stères, the stère being the French way of measuring firewood (it is one cubic metre).

Having just measured the stack, I can only get it to 2.8 cubic metres. At €72 a stère, that’s a lot of missing wood. Having rung and spoken to the supplier, he said that that is correct.

I had ordered the wood cut to 33cm lengths and was told when one cubic meter of wood is cut to 33cm it reduces.

If I had purchased the wood in one metre lengths, it would have cost me €60, so not only did my wood cost me €17 per stère extra, but I lost 30 per cent of it.

I am sure that, if this happened in England, each local council would have a person working in the Trading Standards Weights and Measures department with the title Fire Wood Delivery Inspectorate, who would be fully conversant with all the facts and able to undertake an EU stacked wood calculation to verify if all was in order.

Failing that I would be able to write to government Ombudsman for Timber and related trades. Seriously though, where can I verify this and have any other readers suffered disappearing firewood?

Keith WALKER