Hello Thomas and thanks for this awesome update. I'm a little vague on why you used 1/2" thread to close in the firebox instead of simply surrounding them with bricks alone. I have leftover CFB I may consider using here since it would be tightly packed away in my stove and not likely to deteriorate packed between the firebricks and the redbrick. Alternatively, I have leftover insulating firebricks as well that probably could fit inside the channel between the inner firebricks and the outer clay bricks.
Did you use durock for the roof of the secondary bell as well?
Fox James wrote:Hi Jeff, it is hard to see what your cook top is made from but I assume it is ceramic glass?
What sort of temperature is the cook top reaching?
To be fair, you have quite a large space to heat with a pretty small fire and if Mat says you need a bigger or another heater then that would be pretty conclusive that you do!
You could maybe get more radiant heat from less brick and more glass but it really sounds like you need something with a bigger fire box that can burn more wood.
Hi! My cook top gets to 900 at best. It is ceramic glass.
Yes, I'm going for a bigger firebox! Next year though. I doubt I could make a new stove in the middle of the winter.
Thanks for the notice about the book. I didn't realize ferns had so many uses. I will study the ferns on my property because of you. They are very very cool plants.
thomas rubino wrote:Hi Jeff;
Bummer the tiny cook stove is not performing as well as you would like.
Are you using a glass cooktop? As Jordan mentioned a tremendous amount of heat will fill the room but your mass will get shortchanged.
You might try laying insulation (super wool) over the cooktop to send more heat into your bell and see if that improves things.
If you are still unhappy, then you can switch to a 6" extended-length batch box.
The vertical riser will start to draw quickly.
Your option is to use a barrel (Quick radiant heat) or build a brick bell to go with your brick bench.
The brick bell would take longer to heat but in return, it will hold that heat longer than a barrel.
The firebox on a 6" batch is quite a bit larger than the cook stove firebox.
Once warmed up you can expect 2-3 hrs of screaming hot fire and coals.
Depending on your house and climate you may burn several fires in a day but you will not need to be burning back-to-back fires all day.
How is your home designed?
What size is it?
Hi! Thanks for your response. Yah, I don't think that I would use superwool to cover the cooktop because a part of my difficulty with the stove is getting it to warm up the house quickly enough for my use in the morning. Hence why I am burning the stove practically all day and as soon as I wake up.
So, I would like to probably use a barrel to make it heat up quicker and achieve omnidirectional heat distribution which (according to the rocket stove video series) is a main benefit of the barrel.
I do like the idea of a larger firebox. Can you elaborate on the 6" J-tube design? It sounds like design described by the Wisners in their rocket mass heater's builder's guide. I'd really like something that hits about 2x as hard for my place so that I can cut my burning down by about 1/2 at least.... Thinking about a world without access to gas for my chainsaw and splitter.
So am I right that the bell bench design is about as effective then as the 6" flue pipe surrounded by earthworks?
jordan barton wrote:Hey jeff
Pictures would be great when you can get them. I am interested in your bench
Some info which I believe most would find helpful.
Where do you roughly live?
How big is the space you are heating?
What is your burn time like? You say constantly. So you light up at 8am and than the stove goes until 10pm? If so I would say you need a bigger stove! Our fisher stove in the big house takes all day to heat the house. Than rinse and repeat the next day
My walker stove heats up a 200SQft tiny house which is very well insulated. Right now I start the fire with a full firebox. this included paper/kindling and 2x2s run the stove with the primary air open for about 10 minutes. When I see the secondary burn start and the "cooktop" get in excess of 600*F I close the primary air. Than about 1 hour later I fill the box up and than call it good until the next evening. Again a small space. I also block the secondary air when I go to bed so air isn't circulating through the mass/bell overnight.
One thing I will say is that I would love to run the stove full blast. However all of the heat will be released from the cooktop with little going into the brick bell. And than my tiny house turns into a sauna! Nice but hard to sleep with.
My thread https://permies.com/t/tiny-house-masonry-heater
Hello and thanks for your response! I live in the northern half of Minnesota. My house is 600 sq feet roughly. It is basically a cabin with a loft and a recently built addition that is being heated (fairly well actually) by the brick bench that extends through a wall and into the room.
I think it is a medium-small sized space. The main living room has a high vaulted ceiling that is about 22 feet off the ground.
Right now, I am burning night and day. I burn hard all day to keep the temps inside my house in the 68-71 range and then I try to keep the fire going at night to make sure the house temp doesn't drop below 60 because once it does it takes hours for it to get warmer. My bricks are usually about 170-220 degrees F.
Here are some pictures for those interested to see what I have done. The bench tops only get to about 90 F so I doubt my appliances (a lamp and a speaker) are at any risk (unfortunately) of combusting.
Gerry Parent wrote:Hi Jeff,
Have you spoke to Matt Walker about your findings?
He is very helpful and provides a lot of very good feedback in a short time.
I know I would personally like to know his response if you both would be willing to share.
Hi there! Yes, I spoke with Matt about improving the heat and we decided to set it up so that the chimney was drawing in heat from the stove at the furthest end of the bench (rather than in a port which is adjacent to the downdraft chamber).
When I spoke to him last about my results, he said that I was achieving about what one would expect from his Tiny Stove and that I would maybe need to build a secondary or bigger stove to accommodate my needs.
I feel that Matt has been very helpful throughout this process, answering about a million questions I asked.
Unfortunately, I don't seem to be getting the kind of heat output I was expecting since I am still burning about as much wood as I did with my old stove, a large cast-iron box with a blower mount that knocked a good deal of heat around.
This new stove provides gentler, more consistent heat but I am literally constantly burning it. So its coming out to about the same amount of wood.
I'm not too pleased about this fact because I mostly built my stove to improve the efficiency of my wood burning. I had hoped to reduce my burning from 4 cords to like 1.5 but it won't happen with this design.
So what happened and what can I do?
first of all, I think the problem with this design is that it relies on a 'riserless core', i.e. no barrel heat riser. Since the barrel creates an omnidirectional heat flow and helps to suck up air in, through, and up the burn box, not having the burn barrel means I 'm probably not getting the kind of temperatures I need.
Secondly, I am thinking that the bench I made could be limiting heat capture, however, I am not sure. Walker's design relies on the use of a bell bench rather than the j-tube design. My bench is built out of red bricks, man made stone counter tops, and fireclay/ sand combination. The flue of my stove reads about 90-100 degrees which is great considering my firebox, at that same time, can be 1500+ degrees ( the max of what my heat gun can register). I think this means I am getting optimal heat capture but maybe not optimal heat activation and distribution without the barrel...
Hence, I am thinking of just remaking my stove using the barrel design but keeping the bench because I like its aesthetic and I don't want to scrap entirely all my hard work (my bench is fairly large). What are your thoughts? I'll upload some pictures soon....
“Master gardening courses are no joke. They can take as much effort to master as the craft of gardening itself. I know because I’ve taken several master gardening courses over the past decades, and they can be as jam-packed with content as a polyculture garden’s soil is with microorganisms. There simply is a LOT going on.
Taking with others master gardeners over the nation, I learned that the course I took was a lot richer than most other master gardener courses. This and the expertise I have gained over the years as the founder of Permies have inspired me to build my own master gardener course which replaces all the stuff about pesticides with the best topics in gardening: permaculture market gardening, commercial food forest care and ALL the stuff I think is really cool.
You know what I think is one of the coolest things of all, I’ve just upgraded my master gardener course by combining my noggin with Helen Atthowe, my old master gardener course instructor! Helen has the fortune of being an intern for Masanobu Fukuoka, the man who kicked off the one-straw revolution himself. Plus, during the 17 years Helen taught master gardener courses, she simultaneously managed an organic market garden, AND she has managed two other market gardens ANND a 2000-acre organic farm since then.
We have dubbed our course "The Certified Garden Master Course" because of how certified amazing it is. Classes sold out. People asked if they could participate over the internet, and we set that up too.
Throughout the classes, the skills-building lessons, and all the Qs, As, and Cs (connections!), I was recording in HD video. It was fun and the raw footage gives us all we need to make the essential master gardening course I wish I had decades ago.
Actually putting that together, however, requires a specialist who has the time and skills to make it bloom like flowers in May. Jeff Bosch already took a hand at that and made me a sample video that looks excellent! He says he can do that for the whole class, but, you know, for monies. And that's the big Kickstarter question: are there enough people wanting video of the whole class to pay for the editing?”
Hi Paul!
Here’s my script for you! I’m not sure how to do the credits but the intro I understand. I’m a pro writer and I appreciate Permies a lot. If you use what I wrote, will you let me know? I like where this project is headed.
p.s. feel free to take this as a sample of my work if you ever want professional help with something else like it.
Glenn Herbert wrote:There is no inherent difference in efficiency between J-tube and batch box, nor between bell and piped mass. Your actual efficiency will depend on materials used and how well you follow recommended proportions.
great to hear. Thank you.... However, I'm not sure why there would be no difference. Doesn't the piped mass mean a great amount of thermal energy is being stored than in a bell?
Glenn Herbert wrote:Any of the "bell" style bench designs would do what you describe. Peter van den Berg's website mentioned above has a lot of information on bells.
For the foundation, you could just stack blocks up to floor level. I would then drop a piece of rebar down the cores of each stack and fill the cores with concrete, to make it good and strong. You will get better support and more safety if you cut out the decking at each stack and run the blocks up to a couple of inches above the top of the floor. Then the mass can be continuous, supported directly by the piers, and safely separated from the wood.
To lay out the footings, I would suggest deciding on mass placement, drilling holes in the decking where you want piers, and dropping a plumb line down to locate the center of each pier. Cutting out the decking to clear the piers will make stacking and filling easy.
Thank you! I will do that! Do you happen to know how efficient the bell style stove (or walker's riserless core) is compared to the conventional rocket mass heater with the barrel heat riser and ducts inside the bench?
I can't find any info comparing the two heaters on your recommended cite nor walkers'.
Glenn Herbert wrote:Yep, you're not going to want the decking there anyway, so just cut it out in the footprint you want. You can either build the block piers up between the floor joists, or frame around the footprint. I would give the existing framing some (but not too much) consideration in the new layout - if moving a few inches makes framing easier, do it.
So do I just get concrete blocks and put them on the basement's concrete slab until a stack is between each floor joist? You also said 'frame around the footprint' does that mean go around the whole thing with blocks? thank you so much for clarifying!
Jeff Pollari wrote:Wow!
So, my deck is only 4 feet off the ground. Stacking concrete on a slab is not a bad idea but IDK how hard it would be to build such a slab considering I'd have to hang out under the deck to dig and pour it.
In that case, it's easier if the deck is opened up first, then you have a nice open hole in the deck in which to work standing up straight etc.
Jeff Pollari wrote: My house is already heated with a big stove which is on the other side of my coming addition. I'm wondering if I can just convert the present stove (pictured below) into a thermal mass rocket stove which connects to the addition through the wall behind it.
A doorway or two in the wall behind your present woodstove will allow the adjacent addition to be heated, assuming it's not a huge room. As far as converting a steel box-stove into an efficient, say batch-box, you basically just end up using the door off the thing, if you want to do it right. It can be done, has been done, but it takes a good deal of work to do the conversion, metal working skills, and etc. and really doesn't save (replace) much in the way of masonry materials. Easier to just build a batch-box / bell brick masonry stove. Have you seen Peter van den Berg's website ? --->
https://batchrocket.eu/en/building
thanks to the link for the batch box. It reminds me of a thermal mass design that I found on YouTube where the guy had a bench that he vented his rocket stove into that was just open air covered by large slabs of stone. The bottom of the bench had a hole where the cooled air would exit up the flu. Are you familiar with that type of design? I've looked all over for that video but can't find it.
Glenn Herbert wrote:Yep, you're not going to want the decking there anyway, so just cut it out in the footprint you want. You can either build the block piers up between the floor joists, or frame around the footprint. I would give the existing framing some (but not too much) consideration in the new layout - if moving a few inches makes framing easier, do it.
I agree that it would probably be easier and maybe less expensive to just replace the wood stove (which looks to be older and likely not that efficient) with a new masonry RMH. If the existing building is solid enough to support the weight you could build one RMH there and make openings to the new room, or even run a bench through the wall to directly heat both spaces. If the existing framing is not beefy enough, maybe it would be easier to take out the stove and build the new RMH in the addition and open the wall or run the bench through into the existing room.
I like your suggestion of placing a part of the bench in the new room, however, I'm not sure how I would begin with cutting through a wall in my house. The wall is load bearing... soo that could be an issue. Do you have recommended sources where I can learn more?
Jeff Pollari wrote:I've hired a contractor to build an addition for my home on my deck and I need to know what rocket mass design would work best for my needs...
Which begs the question: how high is the deck above the ground? One option being, reinforced concrete filled CMUs' resting on a concrete pad, rising up to the floor level of the deck via another (elevated) concrete pad to support any version of RMH footprint desired. A compact 6" system size batch-box with thermal mass bench can easily fit onto a 44 to 48 inch wide by 10 foot long concrete pad.
Hello again! Are you suggesting that I could put concrete blocks on my concrete pads to rise up to the floor level under the thermal mass to support the weight? I'm reading the book on the stove and it cautions against building on top of reinforced flooring. But, I do not want to bother with cutting my floor and other stuff.
To reinforce the heater, can I just stack CMUs on the concrete pad to reach the floor joists or do I go for the plywood or do I need something else. thanks! -Jeff
Hello! I'd like to replace my old stove with a thermal mass rocket stove. I'm trying to learn the skills on my own but am nervous about completing it 100%. I think I could get close but would really like someone to help make it with me so I have the momentum I need to get it done before winter.
I would appreciate any recommendations for where I can find such help. I've been studying alot around the Permies site but IDK how much I truly know yet.
I'm working on a YouTube channel right now: the Quest_On Channel. I've just begun to more seriously edit the videos I create to have mix-media, like images of things I'm referring to. its mostly me talking about esoteric concepts related to reading at the moment but permaculture will be included as I feel I've something cool to share.
Anyway, I've started my YouTube channel primarily as a visual journal/lesson plan I can use as a remind of who I am today and to present my ideas to future generations (like my kids). I look at it as a form of art and I will be discussing art frequently on the channel.
For instance, one day, I'll discuss my theory of ecothetics which is about how nature became the main theme of art. If you look around, it is very difficult to find art from prior to the 1960s in which nature was depicted for its own sake. For example, almost no stand-alone portraits of animals could be found unless they were pets, servants, or symbols. Movements like the American Sublime looked at the land as a commodity or reflection of the American spirit. Nowadays, however, art, nature, and man have become one. Here is the art of Hannah Faith Yata, a pop surrealist artist you've probably never heard of. I plan to elaborate how nature became a part of art (I believe LSD played a role) and what its implications are for society.
So, bringing you all to the fore front of consciousness and art is the goal of my Youtube channel:
Quest On
Hey ya'll! I was wondering if anyone had tried to make a bed frame out of thermal mass rocket stove. I want to build my own bed frame in my new room and I want to put a stove in that room. Putting the two together could save money and space.
Your thoughts and experiences?
-Jeff
p.s. enjoy this picture of a chicken for visiting my thread! IDK the artist
Wow! Thanks for the replies everyone! Many good vibes to each of you!
So, my deck is only 4 feet off the ground. Stacking concrete on a slab is not a bad idea but IDK how hard it would be to build such a slab considering I'd have to hang out under the deck to dig and pour it.
I'm definitely going to reinforce the floor now that I've started studying designs more seriously. Thanks!
I have a thought though that I'd love some feedback on.
My house is already heated with a big stove which is on the other side of my coming addition. I'm wondering if I can just convert the present stove (pictured below) into a thermal mass rocket stove which connects to the addition through the wall behind it.
Occams' razor suggests I should just use my present stove more efficiently than building a new stove for a new room when the old stove is only a few feet from that wall.
Relatedly, I looked into a heat reclaimer device and the creosote build-up it generates spooked me away from that for sure.
I've hired a contractor to build an addition for my home on my deck and I need to know what rocket mass design would work best for my needs.
I really want one that will let me look at the fire for aesthetic purposes.
Also, one that allows for sustained heat (thermal mass?) is ideal as well.
My limitation, however, is that I am building on top of an existing deck and, therefore, probably cannot have a stove that is too heavy.
Does anyone have any recommendations based on this situation? Thanks for letting me know.
I live in the Lymes disease epicenter of the world, Minnesota's Pine County. More people have it here than not from what I have heard.
Lymes treatments that have worked well in order of most effectiveness:
Hydrocolonics to remove build up of lymes bacteria in the gut and intenstines
2x daily Herbal concoctions of warm water and tinctures of: Rhodesia rosea, teasel, cats claw, skull cap, holy basil,
Bee Venom therapy, actual honey bee stings or cream infused with bee venom (Venex) on the spine
COQ10
Extra fishoils for inflamation
Probiotics
Lots and lots and lots of vitamin c
grapeseed extract (natural antibacterial)
Colloidal silver
I didn't use it but seabuckthorn probably would help based on what i know now.
And, as an aside, I used the magical practices of Thelema to help me deal with the psychological issues of lymes. You really have to go to war with it when you have chronic lymes.
My dad also had the autoimmune disease ALS and, despite a 2 year diagnosis, lived for 6 years with alternative therapies which were largely centered around treating diagnoses like lymes. He wrote about it in a book on Amazon called "A Seeker's Harvest" by Kevin Pollari. He was sure that most people with ALS are suffering from Chronic lymes as evidenced by a florida test of 100 ALS patients who all tested positive for lymes. ALS is really just an umbrella term for all the autoimmune diseases that we don't have a name for.
Something awesome just happened. Marisa Lee just sent me free wild flower seeds from Permies. Blown away by her incredible generosity, I knew a way I could return the favor: a free tarot or lifepath reading. Although they have yet to take me up on the offer, I am sure some of you may be interested in making such a trade: Tarot Readings for Plant Seeds and Seedlings
Why would you care for a tarot reading? well as this forum thread indicates, you may need "tips for awkward spots." I am a very well educated psychologist and philosopher who knows much about the soul and spirit. Or, if you don't feel deficient in anything, I can also provide an astrological reading that will definitely give you some fun ideas to work with in creating your identity.
To see what I mean, you can watch my recent YouTube video where I do a lifepath reading for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to test out how various astrological systems work with that prestigious, heroic, and iconic man. webpage
I'm also really experienced in the tarot with a book that develops a whole new system for reading and using it in case you want to know more (Arcane Arcade
So, if you're interested in a reading or know someone who could use some personal or spiritual guidance right now, I am here for the small trade of a few plants or seeds!
I'm zone3-4 ish and my soil conditions are mostly clay. Sun is partial to total shade.
I'd like any useful, pretty, rare, or special plants you may have! I'm starting a nursery this year so your gift could get quite a bit of mileage!
thanks for letting me know! I'm here to answer any questions on this post or in personal messages!
Cool links! Thanks for sharing. I'm wondering how this compares with a system like humanure. Is the benefit of the worms that you don't have to import organic materials like sawdust for smell and hay for decomposition?
I'm going to start collecting my seeds now that I've read this post. Sounds pretty fun and easy. I like the idea of having it as a part of my harvest. I'm also in the MN area. I hope I have some good seeds to share by fall
Great post! Quick question, is that bar on the goat's head for riding him around??
I'm homesteading year three, and I think the best thing I can advise is to get a plant identification app so you can learn to take advantage of all the naturally growing plants in the area. I've become quite the herbalist this way!
I don't even have a smartphone. I use an android emulator known as 'Bluestacks' on the computer and get the google store app 'Plantnet' which is free. Then I upload pics to that app and figure out the names of the plants around. Then I google the name with (+medicinal properties or +Magical properties). I then look for the best post and copy the words into an expanding word document which has like 17 plants on it now with the pictures I have taken.
The results are quite profound. Every plant I have thought was a weed actually has a healing or spiritual benefit. Plus, whenever I am experiencing a physical or emotional problem, I can search the whole document (which is like 60 pages long now) for plants that treat that condition by simply using 'Ctrl+f' which raises Word's search function.
I don't have many insights into permaculture so far, but this one I think is a real game changer. Learning to identify every plant in your homestead is extremely rewarding, especially if you come from cities and parents that never taught you a lick about nature.
I'm really excited to get some plants. I'm right on the edge of zone 3-4 in central Minnesota but I will probably take a risk with that. Any recommendations for your most hardy berries and food producing plants? Also, any techniques for protecting them from the cold?
So, I take from this thread that I could consider sowing some wild flower seeds randomly right now before the end of winter so they get the benefit of these last few months of cold.
Any recommendations on where to find the best collection of wild flower seeds for variety and quality?
So, I'm interested in growing a lot, but I don't have the money to spend $15 per plant in my food forest to be.
I want to learn what options I can take to cut costs dramatically through resourcefulness, the internet, and w/e else.
So far, I've already started an air prune seedling bed which has about 1,000 seeds of siberian pine, hazelnut, and chesnut. Whatever I don't plant I plan to sell for a nursery side business.
I also think I will get an orchid started by collecting branches from apple trees from a nearby orchard and then putting that root grow stuff on them, however, I don't have a lot of experience with either method.
Right now, what I really want are a few acres worth of flowers, like Iris and dafodil, and berries, like boysen berry, salmonberry, thimbleberry, hawthorn, elderberry, and Service berry.
I'm not sure what the cheapest way to start them is however. Any recommendations or resources from the community? I live in mid-Minnesota so any tips with starting the plants with the cycles of the seasons would be helpful as well.
I'm a nerd for words and I love taking and breaking them down to the root. I've done so with permaculture and found a very lovely definition I think you all will appreciate.
PERMA can be broken down to Per & Ma. In Ancient Egypt 'Per' meant house
Ma, on one hand, can be interpreted a variety of ways. most notably, it is the start of Mama, as in Mother Earth.
Relatedly, the Egyptian root of Ma refers directly to the Goddess Ma'at, who presides over the scales used to weigh the heart (against a feather) after death. Ma'at, therefore, is the Goddess not only of balance but measurement as well. From Ma'at we get a host of words related to measurement like Math, Mastery (measurement of the asters ((stars), Mater, Manifestation, etc.
Finally, the root of culture refers to the practice of cultivation (duh). So, if you put it all together, the definition of permaculture is something like:
The Living House of Balance That is Nature.
p.s. I share this definition because words are magical things. To write is 'to rite' in that it constitutes one of the most fundamental of sacred rituals. the word scribe (and I assume sacred) have deep ties to the 'scarab' the Egyptian God Kephra whose name meant 'To Bring into Being.' Every time we 'spell' a word we take part in an act of magic. Grammar is like a 'grimoire' a book for magical spells. The period at the end of every sentence refers to the 'per' (house) and yod, the Hebrew letter for spirit). Hence, every period makes a little house for the words we right. I could go on but you get the point.
I saw this approach used once. The trees were dead in 5 years. Of course, this was far from a representative sample.
I'd probably not do it any way for aesthetic reasons. I'm all for making woodworks with copice farming, like a living fence, but those trees look monstrous and not in a good way.
This is a pretty interesting idea. Could it be performed on mature trees though without killing them?? I kind of doubt it but who knows, trees are resilient.
thomas rubino wrote:Hi Jeff;
The way I see it is you have all healthy trees excepting the largest one.
That is the one I would take down as a precaution.
As Skandi mentioned its loss of life, not damage that is the main concern.
The other 12 trees have been growing just fine for the last 50-100 years.
None of the bad storms in that time have toppled or broken any of them.
If fact it has made them grow thick and tall...
If your area is not known for toppling trees then I would let them grow.
Remember those trees are worth money as lumber. Every inch larger in diameter they get worth more.
One log from your largest tree could cover the cost of having it brought down.
One thing to consider.
Yep! I think that is a good point to remember. most healthy trees don't fall over, but sometimes it is hard to tell which trees are healthy are which are not.
Unfortunately, I couldn't get a logger to do it for free. Said they would charge me for $1300 for the trees because it wouldn't be worth of their time and they were not technically insured for house damage, so if something went wrong I'd have no recourse. Anyway, I appreciate your comments!
Mike Haasl wrote:Unless they show any obvious signs of damage, disease or death, I wouldn't worry about the house. Cutting them for other reasons is fine but not to protect the house.
If you look out in the forest, how often do you see oaks or maples of that size fallen over? I'm guessing it's nearly never. I'd be much more concerned about spruce (they fall over if you look at them funny around here) and fully mature poplar. Those tend to be the main fall hazards I see around here.
Hey! That's a really good point! It is just maple and oak. They rarely fall down of that size in the forest and when they do I think its mostly because they lack enough sunlight due to the density of other oaks and maples around them. These ones do not have that issue nearly as much because they are close to my house!! Plus, the density of my forest seems like it would be a good wind break anyway... .
Complex question and I don't know who to turn to advise.
I have about 13 oak/maple trees within falling distance of my house with trunk diameters ranging from 10" to 26" and I do not pay for insurance.
I'm pretty hesitant to cut them down because I'm attached to the trees as they give shade, character, and wildlife habitats.
On the other hand, if one falls and it hits my house, I'm guessing it'd screw my life up hard and be a big hassle for my family.
Plus, if I cut them down, I could:
-Use the logs for firewood on my stove
-Get more sunlight around the house which I need for growing
-Relatedly plant nut trees in their stead that produce nuts I want to eat (like chesnut)
-Attempt copice farming with the shoots of whichever trees survive the cut
My reason for posting here is, I really don't know what to do. Maybe, I am being paranoid about the trees falling. They all, except the biggest one, are looking very healthy. Only a few are slightly leaning toward the house.
I was wondering if there was anyway to secure the trees with ropes or chains near the crowns to prevent falling as well. I may build a tree house out of one set of trees near to me that form an almost perfect square with 8' sides.
Anyway, I ask because I find getting a straight answer out of arborists is difficult because they are biased towards cutting down trees.
Should I just chop them all down and feel totally secure and plant things in their stead, or should I try to respect mother nature and keep things as they are? Maybe, I should just cut the few that lean towards the house, but I worry that may not be enough.
We have 5 acres in a climax forest of oaks and maples in mid-Minnesota.
Thank you for your thoughts, experiences, and recommendations. I'll post some pictures too sometime since that will help.
If you are far enough off the grid, away from authorities, and already possess a zoned living structure, could you just build a semi-hidden unregistered wofati? With most of the structure being underground, it may not attract much attention or it could be written of as a workshop / sweatlodge
Is this an inappropriate question to ask on Permies since it may technically be illegal? I just built an account to study this subject deeper.
