The macrocarpa, taken from the gateway into the property. It dwarfs the house and would have ended up in our bedroom.
And this is how the tree was dismembered, limb by limb.
The neglected and wind-damaged evergreens on the slope immediately below the house.
These two conifers would have ended up almost in the new living room.We took the decision to cut down the evergreen trees very early on but selecting which ones, explaining it to the neighbours (who were all in favour, as it opened up their views across the valley too), clearing it with the local planning department and choosing a local tree surgeon all took a considerable amount of time, effort and angst. And that was before the chain saws started to howl, in November 2008. Three men, industrial sized chain saws, several sets of climbing ropes and carabiners, an astonishingly versatile 4-wheel drive articulated dumper truck and a chipper to spray the wood chips around the hillside, took four weeks to complete the work. The kind neighbours who'd offered their driveway for the men's vehicles received as much wood as they wanted from the trees near the top of the site; the rest was cut into huge chunks and we have stacked and sheeted some of it. It will provide our fuel for years to come. We wanted a wood burner because despite the work involved and the dust, there's nothing like a real fire. The house will be so well insulated that we shouldn't need it for heating except on the bitterest of days.
In fact, to begin with, we had planned to install a ground source heat pump, to run under-floor heating but both the mechanical engineer and a friend who'd put in such a system convinced us we wouldn't need it. When we are really old and need more heat without the work, we'll put in some clever and beautiful wall-mounted electric radiators. Some of the latest ones are just a sheet of glass...
