Building your own home - need info please (Orlando: house, landscaping)

[GinnyFavers]

My husband is fairly handy, and we are toying with the idea of building our own home in the Orlando area. We'll be living there the rest of our lives, not looking for a quick profit.

We have up to $250K to play with both the home and the land, and we'd like to be as "green" as possible, even to the point of considering building something entirely off grid (well, cistern, grey water recycling, low water use native landscaping, solar, propane, house built into the ground aka the earth ships, etc.).

Hubby wants at least 2 acres if we do this, and we want to be within a 45 minute drive of Disney World.

Curious if anyone has built their own house, can suggest areas/counties with the least b.s. to go through to be allowed to build a non-conventional dwelling, counties that won't stick it to us with taxes for wanting to build at all.

Thanks in advance!

[GinnyFavers]

Nobody? Really? Maybe it's not allowed!

[AONE]

There are all sorts of things needed to be off the grid... For solar or wind power the only way to get rebates is to have some connection to the grid... but it doesn't have to be the whole house but a circuit or 2. Progress Energy will do about 1/3 of the cost so you might find that more attractive than being totally off.

Well and septic aren't too hard. I have a parcel of land that I listed for $70k it is 2.28 acres and is close to the 417 which is how you would get to Disney. its about 15-20 mins away. That gives you an idea of what land will run roughly.

There are many things you can do to reduce the expenses of construction and use the money in other areas you value. I would suggest ICF - insulated concrete form for your home. This is a way to build a bomb shelter strong home that is energy efficient. Combined with and 18-20 SEER furnace system, LED lighting you can get your power demands to less than $100 monthly which would make for a fairly small solar system.

In our area Solar is more likely than wind as wind is less reliable. With both when its cloudy it is windy. Helix Wind has a nice vertical axis system for about $12k which could use the same batteries and such as a solar and reduce the costs.

ICF construction to have it done for you starts around $100/ ft. so if you handle much of the finishing items you could save a great deal and end up with a high quality home.

Hope this helps.