Planning to Buy Vacant Land
If you’re thinking about buying vacant land which is away from public utilities such as electricity, the main question to ask yourself is how do you want to live?
You could always make the move the inexpensive way and go back to heating with wood and lighting the house with candles and kerosene lamps, but to be honest, most of us are spoiled enough not to want to experience that lifestyle for extended periods. It gets old pretty quickly.
Unless that mode of living is your thing, you need to shed that mindset. Not connecting to public utilities does not automatically mean going back to the past. In fact, it’s most often going forward, into the future. You’re not depriving yourself, but rather, improving your life.
Another idea to get rid of is that you’re going to save tons of money. When you take into consideration the costs of establishing and maintaining private versions of public systems, you may or may not save money, but money should not be your overarching reason. It takes a higher vision than profit and loss to carry you through. You’re not doing this because it’s less expensive, you’re doing it because it’s better. Better for the world, and better for you and for your family.
These days, when most people talk about “living disconnected” they’re thinking of living a modern and comfortable lifestyle while unattached to and not dependent on public utilities. But like everything else, to do it successfully requires planning from start to finish, beginning with exactly where you intend to move. Remember the old adage: “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”
When it comes to exactly where you plan to move, make your choice with care. Where you live determines how you’ll live. Consider the climate, the road conditions, the local legal restrictions, and other bureaucratic regulatory agencies, like HOAs. Know what you’re getting into, both geographically and legally. Continue reading for more vacant land buying tips.
On the physical end of things, consider how the most obvious issue, electrical power, will affect your choice. If you locate in the deserts of the American Southwest, solar energy will naturally be your mainstay. On the rainy Northwest coast or deep in the Appalachian Mountains, solar energy may not be suitable. It’s recommended not to choose your power generation system and then try to adapt the site to it, but rather to adapt the system to the site. Things go much more smoothly that way.
After the property purchase, your system of power generation will be your most substantial expense and must be evaluated with a critical eye. Unless you have a small stream you can dam and put in a water-powered turbine, you’re probably going to be faced with a choice of solar power, wind power, or a combination of the two. To make the decision, you’ll have to research and see how many sunny days per year the place averages, what the average wind speed is, etc., and go from there. You may also want to install a backup gasoline, diesel, or propane generator to cover spells of bad weather or things breaking down. You’ll also want the most energy efficient appliances possible to stretch your power supply.
Once you choose your location, you’ll have to look at the micro-climate of the prospective site. Does the site have any trees, hills, or other objects that can’t be removed blocking your sunlight or wind? Does it have a well, stream, or another source of water? If you plan on putting in a garden or raising livestock, does it have the space or pasturage? Do the mineral rights come with the property, and are there any local, State, or Federal restrictions on what you can do or build there? If you want to have a phone or the internet, does any cable or satellite company serve the area? All of these factors should be carefully considered before you buy.
Water is going to require either a well, water tanks you haul water to or are fed by rainwater collection, or a spring or stream. If the available water is non-potable, and you should have it tested to make sure, you’ll have to purify it yourself. To save energy, non-potable water can be used for things like flushing toilets, washing clothes, and watering gardens.
That brings us to wastewater. Everything but the toilet water can be used for watering plants. For actual sewage, you’ve got a few choices depending on local regulations. The first is the old-fashioned outhouse, but most people prefer their plumbing indoors, especially in areas that get extremely cold in winter. That means either a conventional toilet with a septic tank, a chemical toilet, like in an RV, if there’s a dump-station nearby you can haul it to, or a composting toilet. You need to see what the local zoning allows and which kind is best for your needs.
Heating and cooking are also considerations. This usually means wood, propane, or coal. If you’re in a coal mining area, it’s often your most economical choice. Also, if you have a seam of coal near the surface, and you own the mineral rights, you may want to mine it yourself with a pick and shovel. The family coal mine was once a common practice in much of Appalachia and Southern Ohio. Electric heaters tend to be too inefficient and expensive to heat entire homes.
Now that you know where you want to go and how you want to live when you get there, it’s time to budget for it. If you don’t have the money to buy the land and make the improvements outright, you should try to borrow enough to build what you need when you make the initial land purchase… which means you’re going to have to figure out what you need before buying.
Remember the old saying: knowledge is power.
