Off-Grid Property: What to Check Before You Buy the Land

Land is the one preparedness purchase you cannot return. I moved to Colorado in 2012 and would not make the same move today, but the list I bought on still holds: a year-round creek, a deep well, hidden from the main road, hard to get to, many acres, views for miles, open ground without many trees, and clear sun for solar. The open ground earned its place the day a wildfire crossed the property and burned fast around the house instead of settling into timber. What the list left out, I live with: no real soil, everything on a slope, ground that is mostly rock, so every job takes longer than it would on flat dirt, and a political climate I would not have chosen. I still love it. The mistakes that hurt are the ones a day of checking would have caught: a well that runs dry in August, a road the county stops plowing before your gate, a parcel the zoning office will not let anyone live on. This is the order I check, worst mistake first.

Start at the state water office, not the listing. In Colorado and most western states water runs on prior appropriation: the right to use it is separate from the deed, older rights come first, and a creek crossing the parcel may be fully spoken for by a rancher downstream. What to ask for:

• The well permit and its allowed uses. A household-only permit may not allow livestock or irrigation. If no well exists, ask whether a permit is available for the parcel at all.
• Depth and yield of the neighbors' wells. The state keeps well logs; pull the nearest three. Three to five gallons a minute is comfortable. Under one still works with a cistern and a slow pump, but the drilling bill is the same either way and a dry hole is your cost.
• A water test on any existing well or spring: bacteria, nitrates, arsenic, uranium and radon in mountain country, hardness. Treatment is on clean water.
• Rainwater rules. In Colorado the answer depends on the well: a home on an exempt well can collect an unlimited amount of rooftop rainwater for the indoor and outdoor uses its well permit allows (Senate Bill 09-080), while a home on municipal water is held to two barrels and 110 gallons. Some states allow unlimited collection, a few restrict it more. Do not plan a roof catchment without checking.
• A creek, river or lake. Year-round surface water is worth more than the view, and the listing will not tell you whether it is year-round. Walk it in late August or September, not May; a creek that roars in runoff and goes dry by Labor Day is a ditch. Then check the right: in Colorado and most of the West, water flowing across the deed is not yours to pump, divert or dam without a decreed right, and the county or the state engineer can say in an afternoon whether one comes with the parcel. Ask whether a pond or lake is natural or a reservoir, and who holds the storage right. A creek also means a floodplain: pull the FEMA map before you place a house, and know that everything out of it gets treated before you drink it (giardia lives in the prettiest water).
• Storage. Plan on a cistern regardless: 1,500 to 2,500 gallons turns a weak well into a steady one and covers the days the pump is down. Hauling water is a real option for a small place, if the road allows it in winter.

A county-maintained road to the property line is worth more than an extra ten acres. Ask the road department where maintenance ends and how far down the priority list your road sits after a storm. If the road is private, find out who maintains it, whether there is a road agreement, and what it cost last year. Then drive it yourself in the worst season: a north-facing grade that holds ice until April, a creek crossing, a stretch of clay that turns to grease in May. Budget for a plow or a tractor with a blade if the road is yours; the recovery gear in the truck gets used more than you think.

Also check how far the fire department, the ambulance and the nearest hospital are. Response time in rural country is measured in tens of minutes, which is why medical preparedness matters more out here than in town.

Check cell coverage standing on the building site, not in the car at the gate. Satellite internet works almost anywhere with open sky and has made remote parcels workable for people who need a connection; the radios and the backup for when it goes down are on communicating with no cell or internet. Then talk to the neighbors. They know the road, the well depths, the wind, the bear that comes through in September, and whether the seller's fence is on the line. Ten minutes at their gate is worth an hour with the agent.

Take it to the parcel. Anything you cannot answer is a phone call before an offer.

• Well permit, or permit available; allowed uses
• Nearest wells: depth, yield, water test
• Spring or surface water, and the right to use it
• Rainwater rule for the state
• Zoning: full-time residence allowed, minimum dwelling
• Living on site while building: allowed, permit, time limit
• Building department, owner-build rules
• Percolation test, septic type and cost
• Easements in and across, in writing
• Mineral rights: who holds them
• Covenants or an HOA
• Road: county maintained to where, private agreement, winter
• Fire, ambulance, hospital distances
• Solar: open sky south, 9 to 3 in December
• Grid line distance and run cost
• Wood supply, heating degree days
• Frost-free days, soil test, slope
• Wildfire rating, flood map, insurance quote
• Cell signal at the building site
• Neighbors: asked