Building a home in the woods?

[MO_cows]

A house in the woods might be picturesque but that's the last place I want to live. Gotta have some shade/shelterbelt trees, but in addition to all the other good reasons given here, the woods is where the varmints live and your pets, poultry would need housing like Fort Knox if you want to keep them. Personally, I like an open view. Unless you are on top of a hill, the trees close you in. To each their own, some people feel uncomfortable in the open or find the prairie/plains landscape boring.

 

[Chuckie]

Caustic, let me guess why you don't like Water and Live Oaks! The branches lower to the ground as they get old. That is what I love about them. I planted a Water Oak in the front yard just hoping for the beautiful limbs. I love the large old branches as they look so graceful.

A Burr Oak will do the same if it is allowed to spread but I think that I will never get to see that. I wish that I could be around for all of these oaks to become large with the beautiful spreading limbs. Some reach all the way to the ground, and turn up just before they touch it.

Another thing about Red Oaks, they will not lose their leaves until the Spring. Some people do not like that. The only thing that I don't like about Scarlet and Red Oaks are that the lower limbs grow straight down, and there is a constant pruning of the limbs so that you can mow close to the tree.

I do have Southern Red Oaks that do not do this. Once you trim the branch, the limbs mostly grow up even from a young tree.

 

[Caustic Burno]

The main reason I don't like the Live Oaks is the reason you do.
I think they are beautiful as well, the canopy is so large they make great parachutes
in a hurricane.

 

[backhoeboogie]

Dang Chuckie. What we call red oak around here loses it's leaves.

I have live oak, black jack oak, post oak, and what I thought was red oak. Like them all.

Oak wilt is taking out a lot of red oak around here. Live oaks too. One neighbor had a huge live oak that canopied his whole house. Must have been 300 years old. Dang thing got oak wilt. He spent a fortune. Lost it anyway.

 

[Chuckie]

The red oaks, all the trees in that family in Tennessee as I know of, hold their leaves through the winter. The white oaks drop in the fall. But I only know about the ones here in my neck of the woods.

 

[gimpyrancher]

I guess I have an advantage. My brother recently retired from the state fire service.

The basics after insuring a safe accessible path of travel and turnaround space for large fire fighting vehicles to and from your house.

You don't have to remove all your trees from around your house. 100 feet cleared from around your house means no leaves built up on the firesafe roofing material) You need to cut off lower branches that catch fire first and remove burnable debris from the ground (Like dry brush and leaves).

In a fire, the dry debris on the ground catches on fire and burns toward the trees. Then that fire catches the lower branches of a tree on fire and the entire tree ends up burning up to the canopy above. (Which sends embers long distances in the wind that the fire creates) After the entire tree burns, the tree may fall on structures.

If you have a deck, it is important to cover around the bottom so no embers can get under the deck (or house).

By the way, a real log home (not a log kit home) is less burnable than a conventional stick built home. Assuming above precautions.

 

[greybeard]

Building a home in the woods?

I know a little about it--built in the middle of a US National Forest. what ya want to know?
When I started-- (you're looking down on 90' tall pine and mature oak trees--the black square is where my house is now) :

Today:

Trees are evil--They just obscure the view, block the breeze and sunlight, fall on your house, your fences, your roads, and your vehicles and equipment--and if they don't fall, they catch fire and burn all the above up.. I cut almost all of 'em down.
If I want to look at a tree, I open my front door and look 85' down my driveway into the National Forest. Everything outside that rectangle is forest--govt forest.