I'm not entirely sure about Swedish regulations in regards to building permits, but based on a quick Internet search it looks like one may or may not require a permit, based on the location, size and purpose of the the log cabin, and as a rule of thumb one should check with the local authorities before starting construction. The Swedish rules seem to be more lax when the building is to be located in sparsely populated areas.
If it's anything like the rules in Finland there's probably a bunch of environmental and building codes that needs to be adhered to, but on the other hand this is a traditional build so it might be perfectly possible that he just needed to submit the plans and get someone to approve them.
[1]: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vastmanland/han-bygger-en-...
> In Sweden, a friggebod is a small house which can be built without any planning permission on a land lot with a single-family or a duplex house. It is named after Birgit Friggebo, who was the Minister for Housing in 1979 when the new type of building was allowed. The word is a portmanteau of Friggebo and bod, the Swedish word for shed.
Regardless, it's usually a matter of documenting that the new building adheres to various standards.
I want to clarify that I'm not saying this building is illegal, which is what some people seem to choose to read: I simply said that a large step in this process often seems to be omitted.
If you own the land, and neither the land nor the tree (specimen or species) is protected, you should have no problem.
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attefallshus (link in Swedish)
These rules are mostly for built-up areas with neighbors. The rules used to be very draconian, but during the late 70s they were liberalized.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWgG5pmhdik
They tend to get more into the realities of this type of work and lifestyle.
Purchasing land, getting building permits, etc. are not part of the fantasy, so they are never going to feature in the video.
It's like saying "these videos of hot bikini models oddly omit all the dieting and exercise"
Technically, I need to get a permit to cut down _any_ tree over 5 years old more than 30 meters from my house. Nobody does this, and the law is unenforced, but I probably wouldn't put up a video of it for fear of attracting attention.
I also should have tried to get a permit for my daughters' playhouse - _clearly_ not an inhabitable structure - because it's in the curtilage of a protected structure. But I didn't.
Recording things and putting them online invites complaint from busybodies though.
You consider these videos fantasy, for others they may be instructional. That everyone watches popular videos with exactly the same perspective seems pretty unlikely.
You may look at this video as instructional, and that's probably okay, but it definitely wasn't created for that purpose. So its up to you to do the research on the omitted content.
"Hello, Geico. How much to insure a Huracan?"
Arguably, this is to protect what little woodland we have left. Practically, though, it means that I would _love_ to reforest my land with native species, but don't, because it will forever lose its value as grazing land.
And I tend to agree, though private property is a complicated thing. After all, who did you buy it from? And who did they buy it from? And the person before that? Unless you're royalty and can defend your property by force (arguably the only true allodial title), you're basically borrowing the land from whatever government defends it for you.
http://www.seattle.gov/sdci/codes/codes-we-enforce-(a-z)/tre...
California is famous for such regulations. In other states you are unlikely to have problems.
“Where’s the R40 insulation?” “This is a 3-season cabin unoccupied 75% of the time. Or the insulation is weak, but the structure and windows are small, so it’s actually far more efficient than an R40 mansion”
“Where’s the septic field?” “The toilet is for guests (100flushes/yr) into a holding tank, pumped out yearly. I use the outhouse”
“Where’s the 20A circuits in the kitchen?” “I have 1 socket for 1 appliance, everything else is gas”
“Why aren’t there sockets every 10 feet?” “The whole point is to NOT have dozens of gizmos here”
“Your shower doesn’t drain into an approved gray-water system” “I can wash my car/shower outside but can’t shower with a bucket indoors?”
“This doesn’t meet min sqft requirements” “I built all the sqft I need, I’ll spend a half my time here hiking and fishing”
Crap like that.
One whole reason to build out in the boondocks is to build as you like. So it’s kind of beside the point, I think.
On the other hand if you want to build to some code, no one is stopping you either, so there is that.
Great memories: I spend an entire summer building a primitive "log cabin" from young trees as a kid with a few friends in the forest behind my parent's house. After the cabin was nearly finished, we were chased one day by a group of adults (apparently the owners of the forest) and hid a few hours deep in the woods. We only returned the next spring, when we finished the roof. I remember how proud we were when we cycled to the hardware store one day and bought a cheap lock for the cabin door. We lost interest the next year, of course, but the cabin remained intact for years. The local kindergarten used to go there for a few years.
It sounds like our productions were a lot less involved than your "log cabin" though. Mostly just switches and young hollies tied together with briar vines to form a roof, occasionally with walls (built of the same materials).
As to building codes, they are very strict in zoned areas, possibly the strictest in the world, but it's much more relaxed in rural areas. Plus even in zoned areas you can always build a 30 m2 supplemental building. Plus a 15 m2 shed.
> considered too boring
Would you really find it interesting to watch the process of him signing the contract to acquire the land? I can't think of anything less exciting than that.
I thought to put this here just because it's such a romantic notion regardless and I'd love it to be true, but I fear my dear friend was never less than a true romantic soul himself and it may have been a genius line with the ladies fed up with London living...
Seems there's an important detail here.
It is quite offensive. But, it is a prime example of American imperialism/colonialism at its best, when the American empire is not only in hardcore decline, but literally crumbling, if not collapsing.
Also, I love all of the Americans in the past few days who are trashing both the European Union (who did not suspend AstraZeneca vaccinations) and the European Union countries that have suspended the AstraZeneca vaccine for a week, most likely, at the absolute longest. By the way, those EU countries made that decision independently from the EU, so maybe you should not be trashing the EU here. We also have other vaccines in our arsenal to fight this. We also trust our officials, and we have a culture of doing so. We are willing to pay taxes not only for a stable government, but a stable society.
Yes, the EU did mess up with the procurement of vaccines, but we will get through this. We have handled the pandemic better than America has (I am also American...).
Oh yeah, to the Americans reading this: the EU, and its founding and its precursor organizations were designed for “what to do after your empire fails”. I suggest Americans maybe try to learn about this. Otherwise they are going to have more of the same, as in rulers like Trump or worse.
My favorite was where someone built a house in the middle of a block, in previously unused land between the houses, and had to get permission from 17 separate future neighbors to tear down and rebuild the back walls of their gardens while digging the foundations of their house.
Free as long as you live there afterwards.
https://www.hemnet.se/bostad/tomt-norra-rorum-hoors-kommun-s...
10k SEK, close enough to cities to commute.
[0] https://www.hemnet.se/bostader?by=land_area&housing_form_gro...
The building codes are administrated by the municipalities. To find out more, one would visit the website of the municipality where one would like to build the house. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_municipalities_of_Swed...
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vastmanland/han-bygger-en-...
Interestingly, if you're First Nations, those laws don't apply to you and you can essentially build whatever you like on Crown Land, provided you can make the case it relates to your cultural heritage.
There are many places where you could build and live the rest of your life without seeing another human (all on crown land) if you are so inclined. I don't hate society quite that much yet, but I'm keeping it in my back pocket.
0 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/hidden-japanese-se...
In many parts of world it is pretty easy to acquire land out in the middle of nowhere and basically do whatever the hell you want on it.
In essence, you will have a hard time trying to do this.
I personally found his series a bit painful to watch as he's doing it all the hard way (which is his point).
It is similar to how, for example, there are many videos for how to travel the world by bike and how you can budget for it daily, but extremely few of those videos explain that cyclists typically have to work really hard in some boring normal job for a while to save up that budget for their travels, and then the process of buying all the necessary gear can be long and frustrating as one has to compare various websites and wait for things to arrive by post. Who wants to watch that?
Other posters have noted this but Canada is almost unique because of its vast forested wilderness and sparse population. If you wanted to buy a parcel of forest somewhere and build a cabin, it wouldn't be a particularly expensive undertaking, so long as it's well away from an expensive urban area like eg the Lower Mainland of BC.
The only time you're in danger with the law is when some logging company buys the rights to the land where your cabin happens to be and you're in the way of the clearcutting. But if you're far enough from any roads even this is extremely unlikely.
How do you know if you don't bother to look it up? Many countries have national parks and entire areas where any "modification" to nature is illegal.
This is not a good thing though.
Exceptions apply in some localities, please check before cutting down all your trees.
Serious question. Why does the government have any business telling me what I can and cannot do with my own property if it does not impact others?
I'm not saying i support clearcutting, from a purely environmental and aesthetic point of view, but I really disagree with government or any other associations telling me what I can do with my own property.
In a rural area in bulk, they effect air quality and carbon capture. Also erosion and water run-off. Clear-cutting a forest completely changes the local ecology, and not for the better, in a way that is irreversible.
We all need trees, and they take many years to grow to maturity. they should not be cut down en masse capriciously. And to do so effects others.
Almost everything we do impacts others though, in some way.
If you're felling a large amount of trees in a forest, at the bare minimum you need the blessing of the land owner (if that isn't you). Most likely, you'll also need in addition to this a permit to fell trees to begin with, because land owners in most countries aren't free to simply fell any amount of trees they wish just because they own the land.
It's obviously an impressive feat to build a log cabin from scratch, but since this step is so often completely omitted, I have to ask myself whether this is because it's considered too boring, or because there are people out there who think that as long as you go far enough into the woods, you can do whatever you want because no one will notice.