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How many feet do you typically clear around the outline pod of house , on a wooded lot on sideyards, and frontyards, This is a wooded lot with oak
and pine. Also about how much is typical to set back a two story brick 3000 sq ft house on a 230′ by 140 ft lot?
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i Also about how much is typical to set back a two story brick 3000 sq ft house on a 230' by 140 ft lot?
What difference does "typical" make. First you need to look at the local zoning requires and then any C&R's.
After that you want to look at the best way to site the house. What are the views, what about sunlight, do you want the house to be seen from the road or not, fancy gardens or just play space for the kids?
*Boy, Rather than finding out what somebody on the other side of the country uses as a "typical" setback, I think I would be more concerned with local codes, neighborhood covenants and restrictions etc. I am not trying to sound nasty but I don't think you want to build a house according to something you read on the internet and then find out that you have it sitting five feet over the local setback requirement.
*I am always concerned about trees dropping branches on the roof or blowing over in a storm. Leaves in gutters and valleys are an issue too. And then there is fire.So, I would start by getting a recommendation from the local fire department. Then I would have someone knowledgable look at any trees that are outside that range but still capable of falling on the structure. I would remove any that are compromised by disease or rot. A lot of trees around here hollow out. They look sound to the casual observer but they are reall dangerous. I have two trees that my wife insisted on leaving. One has since died and the other is on the way. Both are close to the structure and will require a bucket truck to bring down safely.
*There's a good article about trees & construction at:http://www.jlconline.com/jlc/archive/foundations/saving_trees/That will give you some food for thought.
*As mentioned above, talk to an arborist about the health condition of the existing trees. Secondly,get the advice of an agronomist or soil engineer.Large trees growing in hard clay soil often have shallow root systems. Once you start removing just a few for your building a couple of things can happen. (1) you change the wind patterns and can create currents of air that can fall other trees, (2) you change the drainage plane of the site and can erode or swamp some of the remaining trees. Neither of these two items are apparent unless you are trained to look for them. The affect of not considering is also slow in manifesting itself. It can take several years for trees to die from disturbing thier natural setting.See piffen's thread about "moving a large rock", the same thing can occur with trees.At the very least choose the tallest trees and clear an area 30 to 40 feet wider than they are tall. Remember they wiil keep growing, and your house won't be moving, hopefully:)Dave
*it costs money to save trees... you have to decide which ones are really worth saving...it's always frustrating to spend a lot of time and money trying to save trees the homeowner insists they just have to save , only to come back a year later and find them all cut down
*Amen Mike.We did a total rebuild of a house, putting about 350,000 into it. The owners were certain that they wanted to save an old flowering shrub that was about ten feet tall near the front entry. Even with digging to put in a new perimeter drain and repair the foundation, re-roofing, etc we managed to keep the #&%[email protected] thing healthy. It cost them an extra grand or so to do it. Six weeks after we were done and they took over with a gardenner, guess what? There was a five inch stump left!Aurraugh!!!!!!!
*The moral of the above posts is that too many people make emotional decisions when it comes to trees. In the end, it is just luck if the emotional decision is the correct one.Rich Beckman
*I'm in a similar predicament and would echo some of the advice above. However, you'll need to remember that the distance from the house to the tree is much less important than what you do to the tree and it's root system during construction. Compaction of the soil in the root system is generally the cause of a tree's slow decline over time following construction. Note also that many perfectly healthy trees contain rot in the center, for example most of the red oaks in our area (norther illinois) are hollow inside. We consulted an arborist at the beginning of our project as suggested above and I'd strongly recommend you do the same. The arborist may be willing to consult for free if you use them to clear the necessary trees. We also generated a tree survey to help the architect design the house within the required setbacks. You won't have a lot of room to play there if you're trying to get a house that size on that lot, especially if you're also trying to get a septic system in there. Good Luck.
*Here's just two odd thoughts off the top of my mind: How much wind do you have and from what direction does it blow? Around here we always get 80MPH gusts from SE to SW. You don't want 100 ft firs on the south side of a home. What are your environmental codes? We can't disturb more than 5,000 sf of soil without a special engineering study. This makes it expensive to have a 150ft curved driveway up to the home.
*Ony direct advice would be on Doug firs. Don't leave 1 or 2 standing by themselves under pain of crushed house next windstorm. Have a number of 2 ft dia trees around the house that I specifically saved in clumps (did cut about 10 from where the house is for lumber). Root balls are about 30 ft dia (have pulled an number over with crawler) so left 15 ft space to house. Have permanent stairs to the roof (3 in 12) to allow periodic sweeping of needles, otherwise supermoss! Most people here would rather not have the needles mess so they have cut all within 100 ft of their house down.
*I have to agree with Art B. on the Doug firs - they are shallow rooted and will blow over fairly easily if they are aren't in a group. Having a number of them single file doesn't help as a wind from the side will still take the down (actually, have had a few blow down in the middle of a stand.) Some trees have invasive roots or shallow roots that will cause problems in your yard or raise sidewalks, so you need to figure out what types of trees to leave as well as where. Minimum set back is usually set by local code and can be 5', 15' or 20', depending on various factors, in the areas I am aware of. If the price the tree removal folks charge in your area is like it is in the SF Bay Area, make sure you don't need to take down any tall trees close to your house after it is built. I had two 70' pine trees die in an area between the house and the power lines which were 20' away from the house. The low quote I got to remove them was $1300. (I rented a 60' man-lift for $400 and brought them both down 2' at a time with my chainsaw within a total of about two hours - well, actually not quite that simple, but that is a tale for another day...) A neighbor told me that she paid $2000 to have a single 65' pine taken out. For fire protection the county where I am currently building, all brush must be cleared in an area 50' from the house and all tree limbs must be cut so none are lower than 8'from the ground.
*Remember nature abhors a vacuum.When you take out some trees the others will start leaning and reaching for the sun where the others were.Ive watched the whole crown change shape on some trees.Have a good old freezing rain storm and youll get religion fast about anything close to the footprint of the house.Plus a lot of unseen damage can be done to trees from reckless excavators that may not become a problem till later.Put temp. physical barriers around anything you really want to save
*There has been some pretty good advice already. Anytime I read "arborist" in a thread I know that there is a kindred spirit involved.Call a good arborist first to decide which trees are worth saving. Put up solid construction barriers around the trees. Group a bunch together for the best protection. Keep ALL traffic off of the Critical Root Zone. The CRZ can be calculated by taking the DBH [diameter breast-4.5 feet off the ground-height] Multiply that number in inches by 1.5 feet and you will have the radius of the CRZ. Ten inch diameter tree equals fifteen foot circle around the tree, thirty foot diameter circle. If nothing happens inside the CRZ you can almost quaranty that the tree will survive unharmed.For more information about construction damage, look here:http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/housingandclothing/DK6135.html To find a Certified Arborist in your area, look here:http://www.ag.uiuc.edu/~isa/ Search by zipcode.Trees that die during construction don't die from mysterious reasons. Most are killed because no one cared to attempt to save them. When they die, everyone is let off the hook with a shrug of the shoulders. I have been involved in assessing construction damage to trees. Any builder who thinks that they can just shrug off tree killing will stop wonce they meet up with one of my peers around the country. Tree death is just as predictable as many construction problems. "God" gets blamed too often for tree deaths. You will have another surprise when you find out how much trees are worth. Killing a tree or two can really take the profits out of a job.Tom DunlapISA Certified Arborist
*If I may steal a small corner of your thread to ask a related question... I am planning on pouring a concrete slab for my shop under some 45' Oregon white oaks on my property. Oregon white oaks seldom grow that tall around here and are generally referred to as "scrub oaks". They seem surprisingly resiliant, however. I have seen road cuts that shear off all the roots on one side of the scrub oaks on the high side of the cut and pack down the road dirt on the roots on the oaks on the low side. They all appear to continue about as if nothing happened to them. Thus I hadn't given much thought to digging the required 24" footing about 15' from the base of the oak trees. I will also need to run underground power to the shop and cutting the ditch closer to the oaks will save me some rather expensive wire. However, having had a tree come crashing down on one house that I have owned, I would just as soon avoid it happening with these oaks. Thus, are these oaks more likely to be resistant to damage than indicated by Tom's rule of thumb? I haven't measured the diameter of the trees, but what would you guess would be about the minimum distance from these trees that I should put the footings and run the utility ditch? (While we have a lot of orchardists in the area, I am unware of any arborists within 85 miles of my place...)
*I would think it would depend on the species of tree and how mature they are. Yep! Trees are very expensive to save AND remove.. Best to get a expert. Some state universities will give you free expert advice. Some states have ag or natural resources departments that will help.
*The rule of thumb is quite accurate and has been tested by seeing how trees survive construction and storms. As you slice off more of the circle of roots you can expect less stability. There is another root zone that you can consider. It's called the Zone of Rapid Taper. To find this area, multiply the diameter by .9 This will give you the diameter that you should consider as sacred as anything in your life. If you cut into this area you can almost guaranty instability. If you have ever seen trees tipped over from windstorms the soil plate that tips is this ZRT. Take a look when you see trees that have been bulldozed out of the ground. The root ball is another example of the ZRT.A creative way to trench wires into the area around your tree is to use a tool called an Air Spade. TAke a look at any of these sites:http://www.google.com/search?q=%22air+spade%22Another similar tool is the Air Knife:"http://www.google.com/search?q=%22air+knife%22&btnG=Google+SearchYou can blast the soil away and not damage any of the roots. You can start out with a general path that you want to follow and then move aside if you need to avoid a major root. You can also excavate undet the roots too. Some trees survive human abuse better than others. American elm, silver maple, boxelder, white oak, live oak are a few. Others, like red oak will die if you say "Tractor" too loud. Filling soil on top of roots is another good way to damage trees too.Take a look at the Construction Damage link in the previous post.Be careful of having an agricultural extension agent consult about trees. Landscape and woods trees are a lot different than orchard fruit trees and row crops. Tom
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How many feet do you typically clear around the outline pod of house , on a wooded lot on sideyards, and frontyards, This is a wooded lot with oak
and pine. Also about how much is typical to set back a two story brick 3000 sq ft house on a 230' by 140 ft lot?