Monday, August 25, 2008

Research and Planning

I think I have had sufficient time to research treehouse design and construction. Over the last 6 years or so, I have read (and re-read) about six books completely dedicated to the subject, and more recently visited a number of websites as well. In general, the information I found was very useful, and has certainly cleared up any misconceptions I may have had about the best manner of construction.

It seems the two most basic rules of treehouse construction are to keep potential injury to the tree to a minimum, and to make sure your design accomodates future growth of the tree.

A treehouse should be attached to the tree with the least number of connections (threaded rods, lagbolts, brackets, or wooden clamps) as possible, and these connections should be large enough to easily support the load of the treehouse and its visitors.

With respect to future growth of the tree, any attachments must be designed in such a way that the year by year growth of the tree doesn't end up breaking the supports or "foundation" or pushing the frame away from the tree.

The design I finally decided on will use two trees, the first for a small platform, and the second around which the treehouse will be built, with a walkway between them. This means that the main support frame fixed to the trees could not have a rigid connection. If you look closely at the picture in the next post, you will see that the main support frame is bolted directly through the larger of the two trees, and then just rests on a wooden bracket on the smaller tree, and can slide back and forth as the trees move in the wind.

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