Guidance: Building a new house on ROUGH land

[weesa20]

I am looking at 32 acres in the Piedmont of NC that is pretty heavy, old forest. I am considering building a 4 bedroom home on the property but don't really know where to begin now that I have found the land. The first thing, before purchase will be to make sure it will perc. (Has old perc for 4 bedrooms)

Next I guess would be permits for road buidling and colverts for the 3 streams that would cross the presumed drivgeway. (there is a rough trail into the area, accessible by truck/SUV)

Next I guess I need to decide the location of the planned buildings (house & garage) and then get permits and see about clearing. I think there is some timber value and I may try to find a logger to work the area.

Then the clean-up after timber removal and begin building?

I think I have simplified it quite a bit, anyone who has gone through this process, please feel free to chime in the advice.

Also, any advice on equipment for clearing and cleanup would be great, too. I think I will be adding something bigger (not sure what yet- backhoe, dozer, tractor) to my GC2300.

Thanks for any advice

W

 

[andrewj]

I bought some acreage that was "cut over" so I had stumps to remove. I bought a small dozer 8500 pounds, and it is the smallest you would want. I am glad I got a dozer versus a loader. Seems like you have the plan pretty well mapped out. I don't know if that small amount of timber on the lot would be worth someone bringing out equipment for it. well if you are talking 10 acres that may be different, but not sure how much you are making into the lot.

 

[Onthesauk]

I bought 40 acres and did what you are planning. Get it surveyed!!!

I brought in road about a quarter mile from pavement. Traded out site work for timber. Undergrounded power and phone with a neighbor. Drilled a well. And then used a design/build firm to build the house.

We had the luxury of not being in a big rush to build so spent a lot of time walking and planning. Able to redirect some water away from the home site, knew where the wind was going to come from and what shade we wanted to save. Have now been in exactly 6 years and don't think I would change anything, worked out well.

Don't get in a rush or cut corners, you'll live with the results for a long time.

 

[Nat]

Wessa, welcome from another Carolinian. I don't know what part of the Piedmont your in but here we need a Septic permit before anything else, then a Planning and zoning permit before any building can take place.
CountryByNet.com Forums :: Started on new house
Here is a link to a thread on CBN where I built our house, maybe it will help some. PM me if you have questions, maybe I can help, later, Nat

 

[MikeD74T]

32 acres is a fair size lot. Before you perk look at all the places you may want a house & prioritize them, most to least desirable. You may find only the least desirable perks. In New England many loggers will trade site work for logs because they have to do some site work anyway for a landing, etc. You could end up with a good driveway & lot after they've left or you could end up with a road & clearing that you don't want. Most projects work out if you know where you want to end up before you start. MikeD74T

 

[MarkV]

We have gone through the same thing several times and it sounds like you are on the right track. Find your house site and get a perk test done. If the Health Dept. will not issue a septic permit you will not get a building permit in most areas. If you have a lot of rock on the land keep that in mind as you pick your house site. It cost a bunch of money to move large amounts of rock.

How is the water table in your area? Some areas good water wells can be a hit and miss type of expensive adventure. I like to know I have good water before spending any more on the building process.

Have fun and get ready for a bunch of work.

MarkV

 

[BobG_in_VA]

I am looking at 32 acres in the Piedmont of NC that is pretty heavy, old forest. I am considering building a 4 bedroom home on the property but don't really know where to begin now that I have found the land. The first thing, before purchase will be to make sure it will perc. (Has old perc for 4 bedrooms)
W

I'm in exactly the same process in the Piedmont of VA. 34 acres. Timbered about 27 years ago and now has all sorts of underbrush/trees that are about 25-30 feet tall and anywhere from 4" to 12" in diameter. I found a local family owned engineering firm thru the excavator that I am using (another local family run business). He's used to dealing with the county and knows his way around the different site issues, permits, etc. He's been very good so far. One thing he did was get an arial photo of the property and had a topo overlaid on it to show the elevations of the various potential house locations. He advised that I would need a survey, but he "drew" one up based one the deed so the Health Dept could go ahead and do the perc test. He just about hit the nail on the head as far as where I was thinking about the house location, drain field, well, etc. He told me if he had done that it would have been about another six months to get the perc done,as the survey could take a while (based on their workload). I think you might want to think about finding a local engineer that can help. Save you time, effort and, hey, they do this for a living. Good Luck! BobG in VA

 

[schmism]

ive got a measly 5 acers thats almost dead flat (which sounds good, but just make things more difficult)

i had it surveyed but has been of little use other than to tell me were the corners are.

what has been the most help is an old areal of the property that is to scale.

we probibly spent a couple of hrs looking at the areal moving around a little scale paper cutout of the footprint of our new building talkign about pros and cons of various sites and locations....

then this past weekend we spent another couple of hrs just sitting in the area looking at shade, sun, access to sewer runs, keeping trees, routing driveways, layouts of gardens, lawn, parking, pros/cons of mirrioring the layout to put various rooms in various places for sun/shade faceing north cold sides etc.

THEN we started putting stakes in the ground and going over it all again.

we did this for like 2 hrs sunday and had 3 diffrent locations of stakes before we settled on our "permant" location, and in the meantime downsized the size of the building at the same time so it would "fit"

even for my tinny 30x30 apt project there is an amzeing amount of planning that needs to go into the front end to make all the details work out in the back end. and not wind up with lots of "hindsite" mistakes and costly changes.

In the back yard (of my property) was very overgrown. After a month of weekends of cleaning out it looks like a TOTALLY! diffrent peice of property (even better in our opion) but its one of those things were you cant be afriad to break a few eggs to make an omlet. in other words, dont be afarid to clear out some spots so you can get a better feel of the land. Trees and brush can be replanted and or grow back. Wishing you had moved the house 50 or 100' in a direction will be a decision that will haunt you for as long as you live there....

 

[wilkesland]

Sounds like you have a pretty good plan as the others have said. We have just gone through the same process, moving into our house last April. We purchased our land two years ago. Perc test is critical, at our old location in Montgomery county, there were more places that would not perk than would it seemed. Here at our new location, that was not a problem. The well, however, cost considerably more than planned at 700 ft with only 1 1/2 gpm. We depend on storage and so far that has not been a problem - but no washing cars!

Some counties - Wilkes for example - have aerial photos and topography of the county. The Wilkes web site is particularly nice in that you can look up your property and overlay both an aerial photo and topography of the property - very nice for planning.

If I can help in any way, feel free to email.

Barry

 

[ALHILLDIRT]

Best advise don't get in a hurry. We bought 35 acres 4 years ago. Lucky the site had good timber, for we were able to sell off the mature pine for close to 50% of the price of the property. We left all the hardwood intact. The result was that we were able to SEE the lay of the land. We spent the next couple of years cleaning and clearing the remaing underbrush, and replanting the areas we wanted to reforest. During the clean up process we developed 4 potential building sites. We narrowed those to first and second choices, based on view, accessability, and cost of services (electric, water). We were lucky that our first choice perked, and we didn't have to move to the next spot. The point is take your time in choosing your spot. What looks good now may not be so pretty come winter or summer.

I'm very pleased with our site selection, and our house should be finished next month.

Attached is the view from our front deck.