Windbreak locations

This is a mixed question about earthworks, energy conservation, trees, drainage, but have to start somewhere.

Scene:
I live in an 1830s cobblestone on top of a ridge.  There's a sharp drop-off behind the house, then a more gradual drop-off to rolling hills then another distant (2000 ft away?) sharp drop-off.  Our climate is very damp, the town is riddled with an extensive drainage system. The antique drainage under my property works better in some places than others,  and empties into a neighbor's pond.  We are very wet from snow melt until  midsummer.
Heavy equipment is only useful in fall.  We're near a Great lake, so we have cold weather but a warmer growing zone than our frost dates indicate.  I own 17 acres. The property is irregulary shaped, but I own a significant amount of downhill and upwind of the house. Our soil is rich but rocky. We have a few large trees shading the house but the wind passes under them.

Problems:
Wind: The prevailing wind comes up the side of the ridge and is funneled onto the house.  We lose significant heat from the upwind side of the house and we get crazy drifting in the driveway.  We don't even plow during storm weather. It will just drift back in.
Drainage: You would think living atop a hill that drainage wouldn't be an issue,  but the soil retains water so any little hollow is swampy all spring and half the summer.  The basement does mostly ok without a sump, there's a floor drain that comes out downhill that is also carrying our greywater.

Resources:
Basketry willow grove.  I can make additional hedges from cuttings, or even allow some to become full trees.
Tractor with bucket.
I can budget whatever will have a 10 year ROI, but I don't like being extravagant.

Ideas: I think the simplest thing to do is to add some hedges and trees upwind, but I'm not sure what sort of arrangement would be most beneficial.  Dense hedges work best at slowing wind at ground level, the top of the hedges would be lower than the grade at the house unless directly against the house.  (4 feet of flat land behind the house before drop-off. ) taller trees take a long time to grow in, and have less precise effects.  How far from the house?  Species? Perpendicular to the wind or at an angle to the wind to deflect it away?

Terracing would allow me to plant hedges closer to the house and get a little backyard.  Would also make mowing safer.   Might throw in a root cellar if I'm doing earthworks behind the house.

This may help with a design https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/small-landholders-western-australia/establishing-effective-windbreaks-swan-coastal-plain
Can you use rocks to build deflection walls?
Are massive earthworks practical to divert the wind direction?

By all means plant evergreen trees, bushes etc. the problem is they take time to grow.  For more immediate relief, in addition to the flora, is to consider building a storage shed to serve as a wind break as well.  Solid fencing can also help.

Around here on North East Coast we get some heavy duty winds and snow off the bay. Folks have been planting spruce wind-breaks for years and closer to the water you get, even a staggered double row, I know one farmhouse down by the water where the house was actually floated through marriage by ship-builders in the 1800s and that one has 3 sides of spruce planted on three prevailing wind sides.. If you didn't want tall leggy trees you could top them earlier on to form more of a hedge, and it'll live a relatively long time. They're tough and they grow fast, don't prune the bottom branches if you can help it, (some people seem to like doing that to get around the tree easier) those will help a lot with snow load. They don't mind rocky soil and cling to the edges of cliffsides to boot! And you can get them cheap through county/state/provincial forestry suppliers etc. How far down is that first drop-off?

Ian Fairweather wrote:How far down is that first drop-off?

I think around 20 feet?  The topo I have on hand isn't very precise, but it's definitely more than a story, less than 3 stories.  So hedge height blocks won't do a whole lot for the main force hitting the house, but could reduce the accumulation of wind funneling up the side of the ridge.

[quote=John
C Daley]
This may help with a design https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/small-landholders-western-australia/establishing-effective-windbreaks-swan-coastal-plain

Looks like a good resource, although they are not talking about snow drifts when recommending setback distances...  "Windbreaks offer wind protection to a distance of about 10 times their height." is a good rule of thumb I can work with.  That means a 10' hedge at the end of the driveway could be effective for 100', which would get most of it sheltered.  

John C Daley wrote:
Can you use rocks to build deflection walls?

I'm not sure rock would be any easier or more effective than shrubs?  Definitely could use rock to support other earthwork.  As much stone as we have around here, it's mixed with the soil and I might be better off importing stone than trying to sift what we have.  The house is mostly built from stone that just washes up on the beaches a few miles north of here, with some field stone, and some quarry stone.

John C Daley wrote:
Are massive earthworks practical to divert the wind direction?

I'm not sure that they are?  But could integrate terracing for easier property maintenance with windbreaks that also double to hold the soil in the new shape with their roots.

If you want to control where the snowdrifts end up you might find this link helpful. It gives some rules of thumb for height and positioning of snowfences.


image from a completely different website

An advantage of rocks may be that fact they dont take 10 years to appear.
Those snow fences look interesting.

John C Daley wrote:An advantage of rocks may be that fact they dont take 10 years to appear.

Hedge height willows grow pretty fast, a 10-15 foot windbreak wouldn't take very long.  Anything as high as the house roof is a many decades plan.

Nancy Reading wrote:If you want to control where the snowdrifts end up you might find this link helpful. It gives some rules of thumb for height and positioning of snowfences.

For example, an 8 ft (2.4 m) fence should be placed at least 160 ft (49 m) from the area you want clear. If it is vital to prevent even shallow snowdrifts (on a busy road, for instance), install the fence at least 280 ft (85 m) away.

So, by that math, I'd want my fence way downhill from the house/road.  I am already working on a hedge there, that's where my willow grove is.  But not sure how the elevation change interacts with their height math?  Are we looking at the height of the shrub, or the relative elevation from the top of the shrub to the ground protected?  If the latter, then I'm better off with several rows of effectively short hedges closer to the area protected.

Denise Skidmore wrote:But not sure how the elevation change interacts with their height math?  Are we looking at the height of the shrub, or the relative elevation from the top of the shrub to the ground protected?  If the latter, then I'm better off with several rows of effectively short hedges closer to the area protected.

It's all to do with the way the wind is slowed down and deposits the debris - the same logic would work for leaves too I suppose. It depends on your wind speed and directions too. My suggestion would be to try and mock something temporary up this year with netting and posts and see where the drifts end up. Or maybe with brash windrows if that is a possibility in your area.
They certainly make a big difference in my tree field. It's like walking into a whole new climate once you get in the shelter of the spruce. My predominate wind is from the SW, which is a bit of a nuisance since my windbreaks also block a lot of our scanty sun, but shelter for me is more valuable than sunshine.

Our prevailing wind is from the west/downhill, the storm winds come from the north, the road is to the east.  Snowdrifts during a storm is just part of the climate here, we're looking for things to stay cleared after they're plowed rather than prevent the need for plowing.  Just buying some snow fence and trying a few things makes sense.  I need to get on that before the ground freezes if I'm doing it this year.  (Probably a next year project, we've got a lot of other things going on this winter, and I'm mostly planning for spring projects right now.)

We installed a small willow fence this winter. Most of the information about willow fences is from a warmer climate than mine, midwinter seemed a bit early for the work here. We're getting only a few of the rods sprouting this spring.

Not much effect on snow blowing this year, but the sprouting rods will thicken, and we will replace dead rods next year.

Denise Skidmore wrote:We installed a small willow fence this winter.

More branches sprouted as the summer went on, but it never thickened much in the middle, new growth is mostly in pollard shape.  Little effect on drifts.  I may have to clear to the ground and develop it as coppice for a few years to get significant wind dampening.

Where I live the wind is either from the north, in winter/fall or from the south, spring summer.

Most folks use either arborvitae or Lombardy poplar for windbreaks.

Anne Miller wrote:Where I live the wind is either from the north, in winter/fall or from the south, spring summer.

Most folks use either arborvitae or Lombardy poplar for windbreaks.

The road is north/south, the prevailing wind comes from the west.  Storm winds come from the north, but not much I can do about those as the road goes.  The house is in the lee of the barn during storms, we get both highs and lows of drifts between them.