How to Clear a Wooded Lot

How do you clear a wooded lot?

In order: set the goal, mark the boundaries and the trees you are keeping, check permits and call 811 if anything will be dug, clear the undergrowth, fell the trees, handle stumps where needed, dispose of debris legally, and stabilize the soil. A lot cleared for a view or a yard can keep its roots; a house footprint cannot.

Before anything is cut

• Find the lines. Locate the survey pins or have the corners marked.
• Flag the keepers. Keep machines, piles and vehicles off the ground under their canopy, out to the drip line, because compacted roots can kill a tree slowly.
• Check the rules. HOA covenants and some city codes limit tree removal. Lake lots on TVA reservoirs may border TVA-owned shoreland, where vegetation work needs TVA's written approval. Creeks and wetlands bring state rules, and the state's construction stormwater permit applies once clearing and grading disturb an acre or more.
• Call 811. Tennessee law requires notice to Tennessee 811 at least three working days before excavation, and pulling stumps is excavation.

Step by step

1. Clear vines and undergrowth. Privet, honeysuckle, greenbrier and kudzu are common in East Tennessee woods. Cutting them first opens sight lines and makes tree work safer. Heavy growth is a job for brush removal or a mulcher.
2. Thin the small trees. Saplings can be cut and chipped, or a forestry mulching pass can grind them in place with the brush.
3. Fell the larger trees. Plan each fall direction and an escape route. Any tree that could reach a house, fence, road or line belongs to a professional, and trees touching power lines are the utility's job. See tree and stump removal.
4. Decide on stumps. In a lawn or building area they come out, ground below grade or grubbed with the roots; in woods they can stay and rot. A house footprint goes through lot clearing and then pad prep.
5. Get rid of the debris. Chips can stay; logs can be split or hauled. Burning needs a free Tennessee Division of Forestry permit from October 15 through May 15 for a fire within 500 feet of woods or grassland. Knox County runs its own permit program, limited to brush under three inches in diameter grown on the property at a residence, farm or church, and stumps are prohibited. Inside Knoxville city limits, open burning of yard waste is banned.
6. Cover the soil. Seed and straw bare ground promptly, or leave the mulch in place. Where bare ground slopes toward a ditch, creek or neighbor, put up silt fence first; see erosion control.
7. Follow up. Expect sprouts from privet and other stump-sprouting species the next growing season. Mowing or spot treatment keeps the lot open.

East Tennessee details that change the job

Most wooded lots around Knoxville sit on ridge-and-valley ground: clay weathered from limestone and dolomite, under oak, hickory and other hardwoods, with cedar where old fields grew back. The clay ruts and gets slick when wet, so dry spells are easier on the lot. The same limestone forms sinkholes. Never push brush, stumps or fill into one; sinkholes can carry surface water straight to groundwater, and modifying one can require approval from TDEC's underground injection control program.

When to call a crew

Call when a tree is taller than its distance to a house, fence, road or line; when trees are dead, leaning or hung up in others; when the lot is steep or wet; or when stumps have to come out. The land clearing cost page shows typical ranges for each kind of work.

Get the lot looked at

Call (865) 622-5131 and say what you want the lot to become, or ask for a callback.

Call (865) 622-5131   Request a callback