Looking to go off grid and tiny on the Hilo side! (Hawaiian Beaches: real estate, mortgage)

[hjmontijo]

Aloha everyone! Thank you so very much for stopping in to take a quick peek. If some of you have read some of my recent posts, you know that my fiance and myself are planning a move to the Big Island of Hawaii. After doing a lot of research and getting advice from some of you fine members. We have decided that the Hilo side would be the best option for us as we plan to do the off grid living. And being that it rains more on the east side, we don't have to haul our water in. Additionally, I would love to grow a lot of our own food. I've heard of the issues with the soul and I am not afraid of a little hard work and I'm up for a challenge. We will of course be bringing our truck and selling out other vehicle. We feel the truck will be necessary to haul mulch and what not. Maybe even start a side business to haul thing for people.

Anyways. I have noticed a few plots of land that look appealing in the OLE area. I've also read that its a pretty nice area that people who live there really love. Any thoughts on any other parts of the area that would be good? We are looking to buy really cheap land as to not have to pay a huge mortgage or maybe not have one at all. We would like to buy 2 - 3 acres for no more that $40,000, lower if possible.

Also, any information or recommendations about building my own tiny house on a foundation. I am looking to build my own home and doing most of the labor myself. I am only looking to build a house that is about 480 square feet with a loft. I was initially planning on doing an unpermitted build but am worried something would cause me to have to tear it down. But I also read that unpermitted builds are pretty common in Hawaii and nothing to worry about. Any thoughts or experiences with this? Additionally, I've recently seen a couple of old farm houses on 2 acre lots that need some work but that were really well priced, under $50,000. I'd be open to this as well.

Has anyone here build their own off grid home? Any recommendations that you would make. Mistakes to avoid? Wind power or solar? Composting vs Septic vs catchment, etc.

Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated. My fiance and I will be on the big island in a couple of weeks from April 13th through April 20th and we plan on spending one of those days looking at some land if possible. We are not guaranteed to buy anything, but if we see something that we really like we'll go for it. So let me know if you have any info.

Thank you all!!!

[Arktikos]

Regarding permitted or not, I suggest you read through the thread building code crackdown in Ranchos

Unpermitted homes are quite common in the area, but I doubt you'll find many people on a public forum advocating this practice.

I suggest a bit larger than 480 sq. ft, or perhaps a separate garage/work shop area.

Get a big water tank, bigger than you think is necessary (maybe 7 to 10K gallons?), and make it a good one. Either ferro cement or galvanized.

Unless your site is exposed and/or high, I'm not sure wind power would work that well.

A side business truck hauling is a good idea, IMO.

Have you seen this real estate site? https://www.redfin.com/city/15216/HI...dlands-Estates

It's a good area, IMO, and I have built in this general vicinity.

I won't be there during that time, so can't be of any help on the ground. Good luck.

[terracore]

Your post looks a lot like one I could have made several years ago. We live in OLE and love it. A few good bullet points:

* If you aren't buying property with a permitted structure, you can't get a mortgage. You can get loans for "land only" but do the math- the interest on a land-only loan is around 10% while the current mortgage rate on a 15-year mortgage is under 3%. A $50k land loan will cost more in the long run than buying a much more expensive property with a permitted home already on it. Mind you, none of this matters if you are paying cash or using a builder's loan.

* 90% of OLE has no useful soil to speak of. You said you want to grow your own food- you will need to use hydroponics or aquaponics to grow your food in OLE. To do this in any appreciable amount takes some $ investment and ongoing energy costs. The other options are to haul soil in or get the lot ripped, or doing both. (ripping a lot means paying a bulldozer to rip up the layer of lava that is covering up the soil underneath and crushing the resulting rock chunks into a size you can deal with). It's best for growing crops that have roots that can reach the old soil (like trees). That means several years before any return on your investment. You need to factor what it costs to make your lot able to grow things into the purchase price. Last I looked, you could get ~3 acre lots in OLE for 30K ish. I don't know what it costs to rip a lot these days but back when fuel was more expensive it was about 10k per day. And once you rip a lot, it is changed forever. The population of centipedes and buffo toads will explode and invasive species will take advantage of the access to soil. The worst thing you can do is to rip a lot and not have a plan and money to maintain it.

* A good strategy is to shop for a property that has had all these things already done to them. We've seen many lots that were bought back when the land was practically given away and it was cheap to get a lot ripped, and it has passed through many owners since then so you could be looking at 2 side-by-side lots that might be priced very similar- both might be priced at 30k but one of them has had $50k worth of site prep done to it already. The lot with all the money poured into it is likely the ugly one that is full of invasives- again, do your homework, it might be cheaper to get rid of them than it is to modify the other lot.

* If you are considering two otherwise identical lots on either side of the street, the lot on the side with the power poles will allow you to put your house about 50 feet further back without having to install an additional power pole or running the line underground (which is expensive here). I understand you want to go off grid but we crunched the numbers and conservation is cheaper than investing in solar or wind power for most people at this time. And "camping" gets less and less fun the older you get. Propane here is generally more expensive than electricity. This is one of those things where YYMV but most people that we know who are totally off grid either don't have a modern lifestyle, can't be off grid for whatever reason (no access to electricity), or we hear their generators run ALL THE TIME charging the batteries their solar systems couldn't. Our last several electricity bills have all been under $90. I don't know what our neighbors are paying for generator gas plus amortization on their solar panels but here on the cloudy east side, your money is usually better spent on electricity efficiency rather than electricity production.

* You asked about composting vs septic- If you get permitted for a composting system the codes still require you to also have a septic system for the gray water. Since cesspools have recently been banned on all properties, the only advantage on having a composting + septic system is bragging rights on how green you are. If you are very very young you MIGHT live long enough to recoup the extra costs of just a septic system vs composting system PLUS septic system in the form of less septic pumping expenses over the decades.

[hotzcatz]

I'm guessing OLE is Orchidland Estates or some such?

For power, solar is the only way to go, IMHO. Not enough wind for wind power plus the wind generators have moving parts and the solar panels don't. Either system will have a battery bank, charge controller and an inverter, so that part will be the same from one system to another. We've been really happy with a grid tied solar system since that means we don't need the battery bank. Other than the cost of replacement, I always wonder where all these old batteries go?

If it were me, I'd look for an existing permitted house that needed fixing up instead of starting over. There's a lot of money in groundwork that would already be done. I prefer County water, too, if possible, but it's not an option in many places in Puna. Water around here isn't expensive, electricity from the grid is what's expensive. If you have a grid tied system and use less than you provide, then it's a $20 monthly charge to not have to use batteries. If you figure to pay $150 for a deep cycle battery and use twelve of them for seven years, it's actually cheaper to be a grid tied system than a stand alone system. Not to mention not needing a generator which has a high probability of sprouting legs and wandering off in the Puna area. But, that's just me, choose what works best for you.

If you get one of those old farmhouses you could take it off grid easy enough. Structurally, there's no real difference between an on grid house and an off grid house. The electric system is the same on the house side of the circuit breaker panel. It's where the power comes from that goes to the circuit breaker panel that makes the difference between a grid tied and off grid house. There's usually some differences in the appliances between a grid tied and off grid house, though. Off grid houses will usually have gas stoves, sometimes gas refrigerators and gas water heaters. We've found that gas refrigerators are much more expensive to run than electric ones. My advice would be to get an Energy Star electric refrigerator with the freezer on top, ice maker in the freezer (if you get an ice maker) and less than 22 cubic feet and you can run that easy enough on a solar PV system. We put 5 kW on the roof here, though, so we have an electric water heater, refrigerator and we could have an electric stove, too, but I like cooking on gas.

Ask the Planning/Building Department which brands of composting toilets are approved for use in Hawaii County. I think some are these days, but I've not looked. Cesspools are pretty much out nowadays so you're left with septic systems. Which in areas like most of Puna, means you'll need to spread 25-30 cubic yards of fine red cinders around for the leach field. Probably in an area of about 20' x 20' or so, your septic engineer will give you dimensions, but you don't get to install it anyway, all electrical and plumbing work has to be done by licensed contractors. You can build the rest of your house yourself, though.

[HPP_Since_79]

Originally Posted by hotzcatz

I'm guessing OLE is Orchidland Estates or some such?

aha! That must be it, lived in HPP since '79 and was completely confused by 'OLE' reference, had no idea what area OP was talking about.

[hotzcatz]

Hey, I'm just guessing, I've never heard of it either. Every once in awhile subs change their names, HOVE is now Ocean View, but that one kinda makes sense. Not sure about the OLE, most folks just call it 'Orchidland'. The use of 'Estates' in a sub-division name always reminds me of something hopeless trying to make itself look good. Nanawale calls themselves 'Estates', too.

[Arktikos]

Originally Posted by hotzcatz

Hey, I'm just guessing...

You're right. Similarly, Papaya Farms Road is PFR, and so on ad nauseum. Thankfully, I haven't seen any effort to abbreviate the name of Belly Acres though.

[leilaniguy]

Names get changed up around here too. Pohoiki is pronounced Pohiki by almost everyone, also referred to as "Isaac". Black Sands Beach is just Blacksands, Kalapana Seaview Estates is Seaview, Kalapana Gardens is "the gardens" and Hawaiian Beaches and the three other subdivisions next to it are all called "the Beaches".

[hotzcatz]

There's also those folks who refer to roads by some sort of number, like we're gonna know which one they're talking about when they don't use it's name.

[leilaniguy]

I suppose that's for tourists reading maps, they can't pronounce the names anyway. We have names out here for every milepost too, like Kapoho Rd. (RT 132 for tourists). Mile 1 is Nanawale, 2 is the tree tunnel (gone), 3 is Geothermal, 4 is the Chow's place, 5 is Ardie Harm's place, 6 is "Where Nancy hit Louise", 7 is Kapoho (gone) and mile 8 is actually around the corner on Red Road (tourist RT 137) at Green lake. Go figure.