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Small Cabin Forum / Properties / How many acres to feel private?
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kanesta
Member
# Posted: 4 Mar 2013 00:14
Reply 


Hello, just a question: how many acres do you think are necessary if I want to feel like my cabin is private, not see neighbors, in short "get away from it" and have tranquillity? I'm having trouble finding more than an acre or two in my budget at the right distance but I'm thinking a lot more will be necessary..

I'm interested to hear your opinions on this.

BadgersHollow
Member
# Posted: 4 Mar 2013 00:30
Reply 


I have 5 and I can see my neighbor thru the trees. My lot is 330 by 660', so he's a football field away.

Rpritch01
Member
# Posted: 4 Mar 2013 04:07
Reply 


Depends where your at... I have a quarter section that I am away when I am at it, closest neighbor is 4 miles or better crows flight but can still see their places(ok panhandle is FLAT!!!) but parents have a p,ace in Co with less than 5 acres and its very private...
Just all depends on your location...

OwenChristensen
Member
# Posted: 4 Mar 2013 07:36
Reply 


How far will you take it? I have 120 ac. surrounded by one mile swamps on the edges and five miles behind. My Brother-in-law owns 80 in front and the gravel county road is hardly used. All the land is wooded. Very private, but those jet trails bug me.

Owen

Dillio187
Member
# Posted: 4 Mar 2013 11:02
Reply 


it really depends on what kind of cover you have. I have 20 acres, and I can't see any neighbors from my place. I can hear them occasionally though, which I think would be difficult to eliminate. I can just barely see the roof of my cabin during winter from the small road, and that's only because of the snow on the roof. During summer, it disappears.

I think with heavily wooded land, you could hide your cabin on 5-6 acres if you built right in the middle.

jaransont3
Member
# Posted: 4 Mar 2013 12:43
Reply 


I agree with most above....it really does depend on the location, foliage and lay of the land. It also depends on your definition of privacy. Our cabin is on 5 or so, heavily wooded acres. Approx. 300 ft x 700 ft. with very little elevation change.



The river is on the North. You can just see the neighbor to the West through the trees in the winter time, not at all in the summer. Can't see the neighbors to the East ever. Can't see the cabin from the dead-end main gravel road due to the winding two-track that leads to the cabin. The ground is high enough and the cabin set back far enough (zoning laws) from the river that you can't see it from there either.

Pretty private.

However the neighbors are close enough that you can hear them at times. I can live with that.

Rossman
# Posted: 5 Mar 2013 17:59
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I got 25 acres, for me anything less meant people were or have the potential to be too close (things don't always stay as they are when you bought it).

TheWildMan
Member
# Posted: 6 Mar 2013 08:47
Reply 


it depends. you can make 5 acres private, or have 100 acres with public view. if you work with natural vegetation and terraign you can block out most of the rest for a small lot. if you have nothing but grassland it won't matter how big the lot is. 25' deep buffer zone of 6' high dogwood, viburnum, and hawthorn will block out just about anything and can grow up in a couple years. cedar works well to, if its regularly pruned/trained. around here there are camps that are invisible to the road with only 10' thick layer of vegetation (dogwood and viburnum are deciduous shrubs, but at 6-8' high they are so dense with stems they block out all visibility and are a real pain to try walking through)

Borrego
Member
# Posted: 6 Mar 2013 21:46
Reply 


It depends on terrain, but i think 5 acres would be the minimum..although we have 1 acre where we live fulltime and that can be very private in it's own way, it all depends what you make of it!

countryred
Member
# Posted: 7 Mar 2013 09:23
Reply 


I am hoping that 10 acres with really brushy sides will do. I think the key is having something, brush, trees, a hillside to block off the neighbors.

OwenChristensen
Member
# Posted: 7 Mar 2013 18:50
Reply 


I see your point. For me , at least, I don't want my privacy just from the center of my land. I'm lucky to have my land up against state forest and county owned swamps. I didn't plan it that way, just lucky.
When looking to buy, I'd sure look for that.

Owen

joshwesley
Member
# Posted: 30 Jul 2021 17:16
Reply 


this is 11.8 acres, it is very quiet, your layout reminded me of mine, i can hear neighbors sometimes but other than that it is very quiet and peaceful, the home was just built in there in the front in the open area on a 150' hill overlooking nothing but older growth trees,creek and swamp, it's not much but it's my little slice of heaven on earth, my favorite part is the tulip poplar where the bottom of the hill meets the swampland, they are very tall and beautiful.
home
home
poplar
poplar
creek
creek
poplar
poplar


gcrank1
Member
# Posted: 30 Jul 2021 23:43 - Edited by: gcrank1
Reply 


Our first cabin was on my folk's farm where I grew up from age 7. We were inside the south edge of an 8.5 acre, basically square, mixed woodlot with open ground and field south. After growing up there, then 30+ years with that cabin I knew how much ground I liked having around me so when we lost the cabin due to selling the farm 'estate' we went looking for at least 10acres.
We ended up closing last Aug 1 on 9+ac, again basically square. The center is a meadow surrounds unevenly by mixed trees on all four sides, neighbors directly W and E but not close N and S. The cabins is just off center so 'a football field' every direction to property lines.
We have just enough ground for a nice walk, though more would be better this will do; we wouldnt really want less.
It is 'good ground', has character and appeal, and rural enough and far enough away from highways, airports, etc to mostly feel and sound remote. If 'location is everything' this piece of property we have been blessed with is worth far more than we paid.
But we looked off and on for about 10 years. Anything we liked (over 20 properties out of maybe over 100) already was in play with buyers. I had something in my mind though, not clearly defined but I would know it when I saw it and none of those 20 really were 'it'. And we had a list of 'features and requirements'; that really helped keep us focused. When I saw this one, in spite of the junk and trash on it, I said "this really might be IT".
And it was/is.
So I did not linger in going for it. Snooze ya lose.
Sure, more would be better but the going price around here is over $3k+/ac now.

darz5150
Member
# Posted: 30 Jul 2021 23:56
Reply 


How many acres?
As many as possible.

joshwesley
Member
# Posted: 31 Jul 2021 04:55
Reply 


i agree 100% darz5150, in my case the location was so good and it was an area i had set my sights on for so long i was like ima just snatch this perfect little plot up , we went and looked at the land and i said this is it.

Brettny
Member
# Posted: 31 Jul 2021 05:32
Reply 


I have never felt like a property was as private as the cabin on 2,000ac behind a locked gate. We spent a week there and saw 3 people.

spencerin
Member
# Posted: 1 Aug 2021 08:10 - Edited by: spencerin
Reply 


My pops has 3 heavily wooded, I have 20 mostly cleared. Like others have said, location and terrain are big factors. Even though mine's cleared, I feel I have plenty of privacy given my cabin's location within the property and the surrounding terrain (hilly), whereas despite having a lot of trees, I don't feel the same level of privacy at my father's because it's flat land and you can see neighbors easily through the trees.

Steve_S
Member
# Posted: 1 Aug 2021 08:23
Reply 


The location has a lot to do with it... I'm on a stub of a 3rd level road (means it is plowed last in winter) LOL, surrounded by 1200 acres of "Protected Land" that will never be split or developed. I have neighbours down at the end of the road by the highway and I can hear them making noise occasionally, see them if I am standing on the road at my driveway (but they are only about 2" tall or so (Adult that is) LOL).

My home is "invisible" as such, being inside a Mixed Forest (more evergreen than anything else), I have a Forest Green Roof, and the siding is Live Edge Cedar so it just disappears into the background as such. You really have to stare at where the house is to make it out in any way, a passerby would never see it. Especially because there is 200' of forest between the road & house and most of that is Cedar & Scotch Pine with a few Red Pines in the mix.

gcrank1
Member
# Posted: 1 Aug 2021 21:36
Reply 


If/ When you find a piece of property that looks promising you might find out if you can spend some time being there at different times of day, even night to hear what is going on. Weekdays and weekends. It is surprising how far highway sounds travel, or the train horns at crossings near the place, flight paths overhead, big farming operations, even pit mining or gravel pits.
Look at the sat views of the surrounding area, drive around and check things out.
Talking to the neighbors can be interesting. We asked about the 'culture' of the area and how the local governing body is to get along with. Asking them about noise can be good or bad. At one property we asked about how often the trains go by in a day 1/4 mi. away several people said,"what train"; they had tuned it out. Btw, it was Often and crossing horns too.

joshwesley
Member
# Posted: 1 Aug 2021 21:44
Reply 


you hit the nail on the head, Due diligence, i scoured google earth to find the location i wanted to be at, my fiancee found this property and i got excited, we went and got out the truck, it was raining, we walked to the edge of the hill overlooking the woods and i said this is it, we hear occasional farm equipment, truck going down the road off across the woods but overall it is such a delight, back to what you were saying, i could not have summed it up better myself.

joshwesley
Member
# Posted: 1 Aug 2021 21:50
Reply 


I have add and i am also ocd, sometimes my words get tangled up if they do i apologize.

joshwesley
Member
# Posted: 1 Aug 2021 22:02
Reply 


to add to your comment and not to take away from it, it was spot on, i actually looked up the state county census population density for each county, shaded dark green for dense, lighter shade for less dense, very light for very sparse population, so forth, i also pulled up the surrounding towns which are all but ghost towns and checked the population over the course of timefor increase or decrease and pretty much came up with my own conclusion based on surrounding industry or what have ypu any future drastic increase in population, i also took into account the size and amount of the plats and also studied the general topic of about how much of that has been passed down over 100 years, 200 years and more than likely will not be sold and or broken up and developed, i had to take into account my commute to work and such, how much i could afford and fit everything into that space where everything clicks into place and i probably only mentioned a third of the homework i did, maybe i'm too much for myself.

joshwesley
Member
# Posted: 1 Aug 2021 22:09
Reply 


almost forgot, the more protected areas surrounding you the better , national parks, wma's, check state wma locations map, i have a topo app that has a wma/national forest tiled overlay, us topo maps, there is also 3,000 acres right below me that is historic, it's an old mill town that dates back to the 1700's, i pretty much boxed myself in from any drastic population growth as best possible, i also studied historical arial photos and google earth engine, i overthunk it all.

joshwesley
Member
# Posted: 1 Aug 2021 22:24
Reply 


most people do not want to live near these, espeacially within the 10 mile radius, many leave apparently, to be honest, the way things have been i just said to hell with it, when it's my time to punch out so be it.
20210728_145426.jpg
20210728_145426.jpg
20210709_121339.jpg
20210709_121339.jpg


joshwesley
Member
# Posted: 1 Aug 2021 22:25
Reply 


the ones to the left are brand new like a clean pair of nikes out the box.

gcrank1
Member
# Posted: 1 Aug 2021 22:38
Reply 


We've been 35ish years at our country home with a coal power plant 2 miles to the north. It huffs & puffs sometimes, have coal trains and unloading once a week; ie, empty cars run down a grade and bang into each other auto-coupling back up.
And we get NO power from it, it is 'exported'.
All that to say, um, yeah....we been here 35+ years.
If that nuke plant aint noisy it could be easy to forget about.

joshwesley
Member
# Posted: 1 Aug 2021 22:42
Reply 


cool, thanks for sharing.

joshwesley
Member
# Posted: 1 Aug 2021 22:43
Reply 


let me guess, west virginia?

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