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...then as covertly as possible make sure you do not actually 'need' to be hooked up or use the excess space in the structure... have a secret, runs all year, potable spring on your property.
^ There is really a lot to this. It's called "flying under the radar".
If you walk into Town Hall, asking all kinds of questions about what you can live in, if it's 'legal' to be off-grid, etc, you alert everyone to what you want to do. There are many ways to get around regulations, and most involve keeping your own counsel.
The idea of putting up a steel shop is a worthy one. They are quite inexpensive, and can masquerade as a woodshop, ag building, storage, or other non-residential use. You want to side-step the designation "dwelling". Dwellings have all sorts of regulations involved with them. People cause themselves headaches when they insist on adding house-type windows and doors, cute shutters, lawns, and all the rest.
I'm really intrigued by making something look like what it's not. I love adding fake doors to buildings, and hiding the real doors in the siding. I know one guy, in my home state of RI, who moved into a 2-car "garage". It was actually just a one-car garage, as he used one half to park his truck, and finished off the other half as living space. He made a sleeping loft upstairs under the gable roof. He made no changes to the outside, so it still looks like a 2-car garage. This is in a suburban area. There is in fact electrical power to the garage, which he uses, but no running water. He appears to get by just fine, and lives rent-free.
Is this legal? NO. But he doesn't advertise what he's doing. Apparently, the neighbors are clueless.
Probably half (or more) of "off-gridders" are not legal. But nobody knows what they're doing. Use your imagination. Town and county officials have too much to do, to sneak around and investigate everything. In some cases, they probably know what's happening, but if the people involved make a real effort to keep it all under their hats, most officials will just look the other way.
When I moved to Maine, I was not well versed in local culture. A good example of this is the word 'camp'.
Among Mainers everyone has a camp.
Got the weekend off? "go up ta camp".
Hunting season? "go ta camp".
Celebrating your anniversary? "Everyone is invited to meet us up ta camp".
Happy school is over? "Everyone is invited to a party up ta camp".
'camp' is where you go to: hang out, to party, to fish, to hunt, to relax, ...
If a Mainer does not own a camp himself, he has a blood relative who does. It is a noun, it is a verb, and every Mainer has access to a camp.
Some 'camps' are nothing but a firering at the end of a jeep trail in dense forest.
Some are one-room cabins.
Some will be a trailer parked in the woods, an old school bus with a woodstove and converted to sleep 6.
Some camps are 4 bedroom homes with garage space for snow sleds, ATVs, and boats.
Dwellings need permits and get taxed.
Camps do not.
In my town we have more camps than we have dwelings.
My life style goal is to be off the grid. I've checked Two contender states: AZ and Georgia. Each carry incentives and some odd regulations for building sites and materials used. AZ is more "product" bias and Georgia is more , sure! Build in the rural and we'll ignore that atrocious homestead. Pick your battle .. It's going to come down to sustainability. I have zero desire to live in the NE states.. Tired of shoveling .
My icf build plans are already to go. Solar engineer is still tweeking my requests.
The streams are rare in Az, so GA maybe the better source. I'm 100% for asking questions before buying, so no glitches after the digging starts.
Op- maybe write to MIT? they have some great studies on off grid ...
AZ isn't good off grid, I have many telling me this here as have been here now over a long, arduous decade. But Pac NW is. I know biased sounding yet I'd trade Canadian wilderness, or close to it, for southern border states -- anytime. Ok, trying to add sage advice here but if location, x3 like realtors say, is paramount then off grid & way NW of USA is the best bet.
I still mull Maine vs it, but Maine is tricky in that; for now when peace reigns moreso then chaos in this country, then it looks good. But if SHTF I'm not so convinced it'll withstand the onslaught of folks retreating from huge megalopolis turf -- like all of the eastern seaboard from mid-Atl. upward. I know many will dissent from this opinion, yet I stand by it as I have a hunch I'm closer to correct than not (& this is despite the unaccostumed cold that Maine clearly brings much of the yr, as I went to college there so am well versed being from an ice hockey-playing background all my life).
Anyone care to offer any further ideas we'd all be able to benefit from, or if I'm way off base, elaborate as to how & why so I can correct for these wrongs if so. Thanks guys.
AZ isn't good off grid, I have many telling me this here as have been here now over a long, arduous decade. But Pac NW is. I know biased sounding yet I'd trade Canadian wilderness, or close to it, for southern border states -- anytime. Ok, trying to add sage advice here but if location, x3 like realtors say, is paramount then off grid & way NW of USA is the best bet.
I still mull Maine vs it, but Maine is tricky in that; for now when peace reigns moreso then chaos in this country, then it looks good. But if SHTF I'm not so convinced it'll withstand the onslaught of folks retreating from huge megalopolis turf -- like all of the eastern seaboard from mid-Atl. upward. I know many will dissent from this opinion, yet I stand by it as I have a hunch I'm closer to correct than not (& this is despite the unaccostumed cold that Maine clearly brings much of the yr, as I went to college there so am well versed being from an ice hockey-playing background all my life).
Anyone care to offer any further ideas we'd all be able to benefit from, or if I'm way off base, elaborate as to how & why so I can correct for these wrongs if so. Thanks guys.
We lived in PNW for 5 years, looked at a lot of places to possibly settle. It might be great Post-SHTF, but for now my pension is not enough to support a family there. As we got closer to my retirement, we had to leave the PNW and look for somewhere else to settle.
The Eastern seaboard does have a lot of people. I do not personally believe that very many of them will try to migrate North Post-SHTF.
For one, there are massive cities a person would need to travel through to migrate North. If things collapse, can you imagine trying to then travel through the heart of NYC Post-SHTF? New Haven, Hartford, Springfield, Boston, Manchester, these are high-population-density congested cities now. Roads are commonly grid-locked with traffic now, even on the best day, traffic is horrible. Imagine trying to travel through those cities Post-SHTF. If you are not already North of Boston previous to SHTF then you are not traveling North Post-SHTF.
The next big barrier is partly mental. You have the snow-belt. The region East of the Great Lakes, gets huge dumps of snow and rain. This region is basically "Grand Rapids-Detroit-Cleveland-Toronto-Buffalo-Rochester-Syracuse-Ithaca-Scranton-Albany-NYC-New Haven-Hartford-Springfield-Worcester-Providence-Manchester-Boston". Not very much of Maine dips down South into that region. Inside the snow belt they get over-night snow dumped on them, that will be multiple feet of snow in a single storm. We may get that quantity of snow spread out over the course of the entire winter, a couple inches one week, a couple inches the next week, and so on. Maine gets a lot of summer tourists from the snow belt. They think we are heroic for living here since we are North of them, they think we must get 10X more snow than they get. But they forget that we are not in the snow belt. People who live in the snow belt region, will not be traveling North Post-SHTF, because of the mental association with how much snow they get in the snow belt.
Most of Maine is rural. As an off-grid homesteader I know many people who have likewise migrated to Maine to live this lifestyle. Once you become acclimated to the temps a person can be very comfortable here. I have seen some people who have not been able to acclimate, due to this they have had to leave seeking somewhere else to settle. We have no water shortages. The local culture is very accepting of small farmers, hunting, fishing, foraging. The 'Self-Sufficiency and Preparedness' mindset is not out of the nomr here.
AZ isn't good off grid, I have many telling me this here as have been here now over a long, arduous decade. But Pac NW is. I know biased sounding yet I'd trade Canadian wilderness, or close to it, for southern border states -- anytime. Ok, trying to add sage advice here but if location, x3 like realtors say, is paramount then off grid & way NW of USA is the best bet.
I still mull Maine vs it, but Maine is tricky in that; for now when peace reigns moreso then chaos in this country, then it looks good. But if SHTF I'm not so convinced it'll withstand the onslaught of folks retreating from huge megalopolis turf -- like all of the eastern seaboard from mid-Atl. upward. I know many will dissent from this opinion, yet I stand by it as I have a hunch I'm closer to correct than not (& this is despite the unaccostumed cold that Maine clearly brings much of the yr, as I went to college there so am well versed being from an ice hockey-playing background all my life).
Anyone care to offer any further ideas we'd all be able to benefit from, or if I'm way off base, elaborate as to how & why so I can correct for these wrongs if so. Thanks guys.
you have to watch out for the pac nw though, I believe in Oregon, any water you have on your property does not belong to you, it belongs to the county and state because of some law passed in the 1920's.
you have to watch out for the pac nw though, I believe in Oregon, any water you have on your property does not belong to you, it belongs to the county and state because of some law passed in the 1920's.
In Oregon, the water is consider public. However, all regulations and laws pertaining to the regulations on use and permission, Does Not Apply to personal family use of under 15,000 gallons a day. The aim of the regulations is to prevent some large user from setting up a water intensive operation and sucking every bit of water flowing on or across their property for their own use without regard to those downstream.
My life style goal is to be off the grid. I've checked Two contender states: AZ and Georgia. Each carry incentives and some odd regulations for building sites and materials used. AZ is more "product" bias and Georgia is more , sure! Build in the rural and we'll ignore that atrocious homestead. Pick your battle .. It's going to come down to sustainability. I have zero desire to live in the NE states.. Tired of shoveling .
My icf build plans are already to go. Solar engineer is still tweeking my requests.
The streams are rare in Az, so GA maybe the better source. I'm 100% for asking questions before buying, so no glitches after the digging starts.
Op- maybe write to MIT? they have some great studies on off grid ...
Places like AZ have several building acceptances based primarily on it's proximity to development. If you try to build with harden cow dung in the Phoenix or Tucson metro areas, you'll be shot down. But in unincorporated isolated areas, so long as the basics are adhered to, they accept all forms of building practices. As an FYI, ICF is accepted in all location of that state.
Although constant active streams are rare in AZ, they are widely present on a seasonal basis. However, that does not mean states like AZ are without water. The water at the doorstep method of streams, rivers, ponds and lakes are not what you have in the southwest region. You depend instead on finding, acquiring what you found and storing the production for use when needed. That makes planing to live in an arid location a exercise in preparation.
Arid locations are not a place you can just be plopped yourself down in and expect to survive. That's why so many preppers and survivalist bad mouth these arid regions and avoid it like a plague. You need education, skills, experience, motivation and above all confidence in yourself. For most people, it's just too darn hard and is beyond their ability. But, if your strong and intelligence enough, it's makes for the best rational survival location.
In short, if I knew that SHTF was nigh, I'd relocate to a small town or village, (1500 + population) that is near to a rail right of way or navigable waterway, and in close proximity to agriculture (preferably not monocrop agribiz). In addition, the area should have a wide range of skilled people capable of establishing small scale mass production, in wood working, metal working and other trades. That would maximize the odds on long term prosperity. Added bonus for hydropower or nuclear power.
I'd avoid the megacities and the suburbs and the very sparsely settled rural areas. Their quality of life will decline with an increase in cost for petroleum (or lack thereof).
In addition, I would avoid areas where fracking is going on. Their long term prospects are not good. The short term economic boom from drilling and extraction only hastens the day when the fossil fuels are too scarce and expensive. I suspect that there will be long lasting side effects that will pollute the water table for decades to come.
You need to define what you want to do and ask specific questions to get the answers you need.
All I really want to do is just acquire a cheap, smaller piece of rough land, say 2 to 5 acres in size with as few restrictions as possible. Ideally I'd like to set up a small off grid cabin that's no bigger than 500 sq ft. I'd use solar panels for energy or a wind generator if more efficient in the exact area.
I'm interested in living in The Midwest since I'm from there and familiar with the region, though I'm not opposed to anywhere in the Central or Mountain time zones, if it offers exactly what I want. I have no interest in leaving the CONUS for Alaska or one of the islands, even though I hear nice things about those places, they just aren't for me. I'm also not interested in anywhere along either coast or along the Mexican border. I would say anywhere west of The Mississippi River, east of The Rockies and north of the 37th parallel is considered good to go for me.
Other than those things, I'm not too picky. I suppose somewhere where people are fond of guns and dogs would also be ideal considering I have dogs and I like guns. I guess my main overall concern would be government overreach. I don't want to live anywhere where people are okay with restricting freedoms, especially pertaining to guns and property rights. Secondary concern would be avoiding the masses of sheep prevalent in cities that are completely clueless and unprepared. So I don't want to be anywhere too close to any major urban areas. That about sums up all I'm looking for. So how do I go about locating this? Thanks.
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