States laws and regulations concerning off grid and homesteading? Best locations

[Moab]

Is there a resource for finding which states or even counties that favor homesteading and off grid living?


Ive watched enough yt vids to know its a crappy source. And i dont have enough hours to watch videos. Looking for a chart or spreadsheet or website or something in writing that breaksdown the best locations in the US.


I am only really looking at the west coast. WA, ID, MT and maybe Alaska. Alaska i kmow is probably the best. As it seems to be the wild west as far as what you can and can not do. But it also lacks the medical care for my wifes heart transplant.

[Crosscut]

Planning on building an offgrid home Moab, or buying an existing home (and possibly converting it to offgrid)?

I'm not aware of any resources for finding offgrid friendly locations, but I've both bought and built them in my midwestern state.  Building one was by far the biggest headache (but worth it in the end), and the initial planning was more focused on what was not restricted by the local zoning in the area we had already chosen than what is specifically stated as 'allowed' in the regulations.   Or stated differently, anything not restricted must be therefore allowed.  At least here there were state level considerations like our Right to Farm act, district level for the health dept (septic and well), the county for the building/electrical permits, and the township for the land use and zoning.  A couple times during the process we found it was easier to get forgiveness than to ask permission too. 

Buying was far easier, just the usual real estate transaction.  The one I bought (a 2nd home / hunting / vacation retreat for the prior owners) wouldn't even meet the current code for the minimum square footage, and had no septic but only a 16 sq ft outhouse, but was grandfathered in as it met code when it was built.  Most zoning regs allow for that I think.  There was no inspections for habitability, health code, or requirement to bring it up to current code levels, and if I wanted to move into it full time now it'd be as simple as changing it to be my primary residence with the state. 

If you have any questions I'd be happy to share what I learned in either process.

[Moab]

Crosscut - Preferably something already built. Or putting up a premanufactured home on a piece of land. But really the first is more likely.

I grew up in the mountains of WA. Very rural. But have never lived in an off grid home. Other than maybe digging your own well. Which my father did. Having gardens. Hunting, fiahing and foraging for food.

More complicated items like solar, generators or the like  i have no experience with.

Any books or publications u can recommend? My father always subscribed to mother earth news. Which was full of this type of info. Pre internet.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Crosscut]

Most of my experience came from helping my Father at our offgrid cottage growing up, it wasn't extensive and mostly small-scale projects for a weekend retreat.  Other than portable generators we didn't have any type of renewable/offgrid power there, and when it came to planning and installing the solar power system at our current home (after we had final electrical approval on the professionally installed home wiring and standby generator) I relied on what I learned in a few electronic courses in college and later in the Navy - plus a whole lot of internet research.  I did have a couple books on offgrid home design, mostly relating to passive solar, but can't locate them at the moment.  Most might be hard to retrofit into an existing home, but there could be a few ideas you could implement.  Give me a few to look around some more for them, if I can find them they're yours if you want them. 

[Moab]

Most of my experience came from helping my Father at our offgrid cottage growing up, it wasn't extensive and mostly small-scale projects for a weekend retreat.  Other than portable generators we didn't have any type of renewable/offgrid power there, and when it came to planning and installing the solar power system at our current home (after we had final electrical approval on the professionally installed home wiring and standby generator) I relied on what I learned in a few electronic courses in college and later in the Navy - plus a whole lot of internet research.  I did have a couple books on offgrid home design, mostly relating to passive solar, but can't locate them at the moment.  Most might be hard to retrofit into an existing home, but there could be a few ideas you could implement.  Give me a few to look around some more for them, if I can find them they're yours if you want them. 

Super nice of you. Thank you so much.

[Crosscut]

Sorry Moab, I checked everywhere including the 'attic library' and those books are nowhere to be found.  I must have given them away, after we built our home we had a number of family and friends take an interest in doing something similar.  The best book by far, and probably the only one I really needed in hindsight, was The Passive Solar Energy Book: A Complete Guide to Passive Solar Home, Greenhouse and Building Design and it's a steal at $4.75 used. 

[Moab]

Cool thanks man. Ya. I figured id spend some time on amazon. I guess its just solar and water collection i need to study up on. Thanks for that recommendation. I dont know that i would have found that book otherwise.

Im gonna keep digging for a site with county or state info. I think ill end up having to search county by county.

[Anianna]

You can download that book for free in a variety of formats, btw.  https://archive.org/details/fe_The_Passive_Solar_Energy_Book

Some of the formatting is a little off in some versions, but it's worth taking a look at to see if you want to buy a copy or just take notes.

[Moab]

You can download that book for free in a variety of formats, btw.  https://archive.org/details/fe_The_Passive_Solar_Energy_Book

Some of the formatting is a little off in some versions, but it's worth taking a look at to see if you want to buy a copy or just take notes.

Thank you for the link. Ive bookmarked it. Thats a new one to me. I tried to search for the Firefox books. But mo luck. Tjey were a collection of books about homesteading written back in tje 60s or 70s. My father had a set they were very valuable. Stuffed with survival and homestead stuff.

[flybynight]

FOXFIRE

https://newbooksinpolitics.com/political/foxfire-book/

https://archive.org/details/FoxfireVol1

https://www.homesteadingtoday.com/threads/first-6-foxfire-books-in-pdf-free-download.173724/


I saw some other sites that required membership to download

[Moab]

FOXFIRE

https://newbooksinpolitics.com/political/foxfire-book/

https://archive.org/details/FoxfireVol1

https://www.homesteadingtoday.com/threads/first-6-foxfire-books-in-pdf-free-download.173724/


I saw some other sites that required membership to download

Awesome! Thank you so much. Wish i could get the first link to work.

[Crosscut]

You can download that book for free in a variety of formats, btw.  https://archive.org/details/fe_The_Passive_Solar_Energy_Book

Some of the formatting is a little off in some versions, but it's worth taking a look at to see if you want to buy a copy or just take notes.

Spent the last hour leafing though it, it's almost 20 years since I bought it and spent many, many hours studying it and then researching the principles of it on the internet.  It's like an old friend.

Im gonna keep digging for a site with county or state info. I think ill end up having to search county by county.

Since you haven't decided on the location yet you might start the search by looking at climate data for different areas.  Average temps, wind speed and prevailing direction, dinural temperature change, percent of sunny/rainy days, etc, and focus the search on counties with desirable traits.  Unless you're planning on installing a very large solar/alt power system to live offgrid in a modern home that wasn't designed for it then you'll want to take every advantage on energy savings that you can.  Other than superior insulation/R-value over most older homes the usual solution for architects and builders of modern homes is just to throw more watts or BTUs at any problem until it's solved, with little or no thought towards energy conservation in the design at all.  Even things as common as wall-to-wall carpeting, if you want it don't forget to factor in an extra 1-2 kWH per week to run the vacuum cleaner.  Much better would be tile over a concrete slab that is inside the insulation envelope, that not only increases the thermal mass inside the home but also saves energy by requiring less vacuuming.  Then let some winter sun shine on that tile through south facing windows (with the roof overhang designed to block the summer sun at your latitude) and you're getting free heat.  Then if you selected a location where the summer dinural temperature cycle typically goes above and below the comfort level (say, 70 degs F or so) you can save energy on cooling costs by closing the windows during the day and letting the thermal mass absorb the daytime heat, and opening the windows at night when the outside temp is lower than the inside so the mass releases the heat and it's carried outside the house by the breeze naturally.  To increase the breeze/airflow inside the home consider outward opening (casement style) windows that help funnel air into the house on the prevailing windward side, and ones that open in the opposite direction on the lower pressure/leeward side to act as the vents to let the breeze out  (see page 262-263).  I'm starting to rant so I'll stop here.   

[Moab]

You can download that book for free in a variety of formats, btw.  https://archive.org/details/fe_The_Passive_Solar_Energy_Book

Some of the formatting is a little off in some versions, but it's worth taking a look at to see if you want to buy a copy or just take notes.

Spent the last hour leafing though it, it's almost 20 years since I bought it and spent many, many hours studying it and then researching the principles of it on the internet.  It's like an old friend.

Im gonna keep digging for a site with county or state info. I think ill end up having to search county by county.

Since you haven't decided on the location yet you might start the search by looking at climate data for different areas.  Average temps, wind speed and prevailing direction, dinural temperature change, percent of sunny/rainy days, etc, and focus the search on counties with desirable traits.  Unless you're planning on installing a very large solar/alt power system to live offgrid in a modern home that wasn't designed for it then you'll want to take every advantage on energy savings that you can.  Other than superior insulation/R-value over most older homes the usual solution for architects and builders of modern homes is just to throw more watts or BTUs at any problem until it's solved, with little or no thought towards energy conservation in the design at all.  Even things as common as wall-to-wall carpeting, if you want it don't forget to factor in an extra 1-2 kWH per week to run the vacuum cleaner.  Much better would be tile over a concrete slab that is inside the insulation envelope, that not only increases the thermal mass inside the home but also saves energy by requiring less vacuuming.  Then let some winter sun shine on that tile through south facing windows (with the roof overhang designed to block the summer sun at your latitude) and you're getting free heat.  Then if you selected a location where the summer dinural temperature cycle typically goes above and below the comfort level (say, 70 degs F or so) you can save energy on cooling costs by closing the windows during the day and letting the thermal mass absorb the daytime heat, and opening the windows at night when the outside temp is lower than the inside so the mass releases the heat and it's carried outside the house by the breeze naturally.  To increase the breeze/airflow inside the home consider outward opening (casement style) windows that help funnel air into the house on the prevailing windward side, and ones that open in the opposite direction on the lower pressure/leeward side to act as the vents to let the breeze out  (see page 262-263).  I'm starting to rant so I'll stop here.   

Thats a good rant tho.

If i were open to the entire us id probably look closer to weather data. But it does apply to each property i would look at. So there is defintely value in that. I think im only condisering wa, id and mt. At this point.politically wa is going in a weird direction. The entire state seems to be conteolled by its one population center - Seattle. So gun rights are going. And other issues

ID and MT on the otherhand are much more rural centric. But my family lives in WA. We will see.