I haven't posted on our build thread over the last few months because we haven't done much. Earlier in the year we were hampered with excessive rain and then for the last few months its been excessive heat. These extremes sure have slowed us down a bit. I think the only noteworthy thing we did was buy a wood splitter and split a lot of fire wood.
But that's all about to change. After a lot of discussion between my wife and I we have decided to hire a company to clear about half the land. Now when I say clear, we're only talking trees 6" wide or less and all the undergrowth. Since the property is raw and has never been worked on it's simply too much for us to tackle. Plus half of the area to be cleared is on a hill that will require hand clearing.
We've met with a few companies and decided on one yesterday. He'll bring in a crew of 6 and have the job completed in 4-days. They will chip some wood and make piles for burning on the hill side that they come back in the winter to burn. He'll be doing a little excavation work in filling in some holes left from our perc and mantel test and leveling out the top a bit so they have a large work area. It's going to run us $12,000 to do this. The general consensus between my wife and I as well as friends who have seen the property is it is a reasonable price. And I think that's how we have to look at it. Is it cheap, hell no, but what's it worth to have it all done in a week. For that and the amount of work required we feel it's worth it.
Plus clearing the land is going to give us the ability to start reading the contours of the land and zeroing in on a build site. Right now it is so dense you can't see more that 50' so being able to open things up will be nice. I'm going to be up there for the last couple of days to make sure everything is getting done as agreed.
I'll shoot some before and after video as we go to show what they did. It's a pretty big expense and leap of faith but if it comes out like we expect we'll be happy.