Practical land sizes

[penguins4me]

I'm looking to buy a parcel of multi-use land to be used as an investment (better than holding on to these rapidly devaluing FRNs), eventially as a home site, and also for a food and fuel (wood) source. Much of the land in the applicable area is arid, "high plains" land, which is essentially the same as a desert - not much else other than sagebrush and tumbleweeds grows well. Generic "high plains" land goes for around $1000 an acre for reference.

Lots with useful foliage (read: trees) are much more expensive. Some plots of mostly flat (read: accessible) land with trees growing on them run upwards of $10,000 per acre - not sure how much of that is due to the foliage as opposed to the distance from a town, etc...

The question I'm looking to work towards an answer for is 'how much wooded land would be needed to support a few families' (roughly fifteen people) wood fuel needs pretty much indefinitely, assuming all heating and cooking, etc. is done with wood? Obviously, the answer would depend on how fast trees grow, how dense the timber is, etc., but being a city boy, I don't have any real experience with what questions to ask to determine what I should be looking for, nor where I should go to start looking.

What would ballpark figures look like, assuming *any* sort of tree density or growth to start with? Is such even possible with less than ten wooded acres? Twenty? Fifty? Hundreds? Are there any resources folks could recommend for further reading or research?

[Lex]

I didn't know there were places in NH that were "high plains" land/desert.

I would say that there isn't really a straight answer to your question. There are just too many variables. You have to start your calculations at "What temperature do you prefer to keep your house at?" to "What size and type of trees are on your lot?". The type of house you build will also make a huge difference also. A bigger house will need more wood (could be twice as much wood) to heat it than a smaller house. A draftier house also needs more wood than a airtight house. The size of your house is kindof a personal preference. Airtightness and insulation (superinsulated house) is a bit more complicated: your house has to breath to exhaust stale air and take in fresh air - an airtight house does not breath on its own (at least not enough to make it a healthy living environment), you have to have mechanical means of exchanging the inside and outside air. Back in the day most houses were pretty badly insulated but people also weren't too concerned about fuel so they were able to keep the house warm and at the same time the house was able to naturally breath. Unfortunately this kind of house would require A LOT more work on your part to cut, store and feed wood into the stove on the other hand your house is much cheaper to build and simpler to maintain (don't have to super insulate it and deal with air-to-air heat exchangers). There are pros and cons to both a superinsulated house and a poorly insulated house.

You would really need to sit down and figure out what kind of house you are going to build (this will tell you your heating requirements) then figure out how warm you want to keep the house (this will tell you exactly how much wood you will need to heat your house). Another very important consideration is how often will there be someone at home to feed the fire? If you have to leave during the day and allow the fire to die and then have to start it backup after you get home you will be wasting some wood starting the fire and bringing the house back to temperature as opposed to just keeping the house at a warm temperature all day (on the other hand if you have a superinsulated house this won't be a problem). Also, if you do a really good job designing and planning your house and the site taking the sun into account, you may not even need to heat your house very much and take full advantage of solar heat. I took a class a few months ago at Yestermorrow Design/Build School and their entire school was heated with passive solar heat in the middle of january, they had to put drapes over windows cus it was overheating. Pretty amazing stuff.

[penguins4me]

The place where I'm looking for land at present isn't in NH - I've already admitted to being a FSW kook. ;)

I'm aware that there are a boatload of variables involved, which is why just about anything would be useful as a starting point. Since the folks involved right now use modern amenities, such as electricity, for their comfort and other needs, but I believe it would be wise, if possible, to have an investment/hedge be as useful as possible. If Something Bad were to happen, having some resources available, from simple fuel sources to possible farmland, would be nice. I figure that problems with a house's insulation, etc. could be resolved as they are identified should such a situation occur, so I aim to start planning for the worst and hoping for the best.

I've got a ways to go before committing to anything, but I thought this might be as good a place as any to see if any folks have had experience using wood for their heating and cooking needs for a while. I could then scale the information to match the specific circumstances and have a better idea of what I'd need to look for.

[Russell Kanning]

so our answers about the NH woods will not help you .... maybe you need to try a wyoming forum.

[cathleeninnh]

Yeah, I think the locality is critical. I have seen and heard this kind of analysis for NH, but I wouldn't recommend using it elsewhere.

Cathleen

[Lex]

Have you tried the TCF forum? Most folks on there are from western parts of the US and there are a lot of FSW folks on there in particular:

http://www.tcftalk.com

[cathleeninnh]

You need enough land to heat the structures and renew itself. And, of course, more to support the other sustenance needs. In NH, for a typically inefficient smallish 1-family home, it would be 20-30 wooded acres on a 10 year circular route, cutting timber that has reached "leg" sized.

Cathleen

[penguins4me]

I'm aware that there are a huge number of variables involved here, but thank you all for giving me some information to start going with.

Might be even more useful if I'm ever corrupted to the point of moving to NH! O.o

[Russell Kanning]

I have lived in Wyoming and The Shire. It is much more exciting here ........ and we have a lot more trees/acre.

[Lex]

I will add that how you build your house could literally be the difference between needing twenty acres to heat it to needing a hundreds acres.

[penguins4me]

I have lived in Wyoming and The Shire. It is much more exciting here ........ and we have a lot more trees/acre.

NH certainly has a lot more trees - as noted, most of Wyoming is pretty much the equivalent of a desert. However, it's also not surrounded by socialist nanny states. ;) The FSW kooks, along with the Montana and Dakotas kooks might one day have to march to save you NHites from the MAssholes! ;D

One of the housing styles I'm investigating is a mostly or completely underground house made primarily of steel-reinforced concrete. Take that, termites!

[Dreepa]

NH certainly has a lot more trees - as noted, most of Wyoming is pretty much the equivalent of a desert. However, it's also not surrounded by socialist nanny states. The FSW kooks, along with the Montana and Dakotas kooks might one day have to march to save you NHites from the MAssholes!

I guess they will have to wade thru the Fed Territory in WY 

[penguins4me]

Touche.

[MaineShark]

I have lived in Wyoming and The Shire. It is much more exciting here ........ and we have a lot more trees/acre.

NH certainly has a lot more trees - as noted, most of Wyoming is pretty much the equivalent of a desert. However, it's also not surrounded by socialist nanny states. The FSW kooks, along with the Montana and Dakotas kooks might one day have to march to save you NHites from the MAssholes!

What are the MAssholes going to do?  Throw brightly-lit signs at us?

Joe