I belong to a couple off-the-grid forums. Recently a person posted about wanting to know exactly how to locate off-the-grid property. I have written about this in my book, My Homesteading Journey, but thought maybe I need to add a little more detail as well as update the information. The thing we did was to look for “don’t wanter” types of properties as we call them. Meaning the seller doesn’t want the property anymore and wants to sell it very badly. Plus there is something about the property that makes in not able to get financing through a bank or mortgage company. That in turn, makes the seller have to hold the mortgage for you.

The next thing to look for is the type of contract you want with the seller. There are several ways to go about that. Rent to own is one of the most popular. That usually means that a portion of your rent goes toward your down payment. I am not real familiar with that type of deal so you would have to research it a little on your own. It may depend on your area of what it entails. Our homestead was a hunting camp, off the grid, no plumbing, no bathroom, house needing work and insulation, no telephone wires, on a dirt road and very secluded. No bank would touch it. So in order to sell it the sellers either had to wait for an all cash deal or finance it themselves. I wrote up a proposal and they changed a couple of things and we worked it out and got it.

Hunting camps are ideal for the modern homesteader or for someone just wanting to be off the grid. Living off the grid is not for everyone. If you and your family agrees on it that is fine. But if one person in your family balks at the idea then it may not be a good choice for you family. Or if you have plenty of money or are able to take out a loan to purchase your equipment that is one thing. I am talking about frugal living here so I can’t comment on that aspect.

You can easily move into a home that is not hooked up to the power grid and make it doable until you can add your first components. A generator could help with some of the things you need. Starting off you will need a way to cook, a way to get water, a way to heat your home if it is cold or for when it turns cold, lighting, a way to keep your food cold and a way to bathe and wash laundry. I think I have them all covered there.

When we moved here in 1999 we had already bought several things in advance and one of them was our Jewel Wood Cookstove. We bought her at a antique shop and had installed her in the house we were living in. So I learned how to use her before our move. Another item we bought was a wood heating stove that we were able to use in that house also. I had never been around wood stoves and had to learn everything. From starting fires, to keeping the fire going, how to bank it back for the night, what to do when it got too hot (besides scream!), cleaning the chimney, how to gather kindling for starting the fires, how to get firewood, how to split it (three jobs I happily gave to my hubby!) and I even learned how to cook on my heating stove as well. Still do that to this day!

Now for lighting, we were hoping we would have an off the grid house but wasn’t sure we could find one. So we started buying kerosene lamps in thrift stores and using them in the front room of our house at the time. We both loved them! Learned how to fill them, clean the chimney and trim the wick. So when we moved here and the first few years before we added electric lights we had 12 lamps and 2 lanterns. Our house was brightly lit! Even now we still have one or two but use the electric lights mostly……afterall, they are free. The lanterns we could hang on the front porch for a night light and my husband would carry one when he went out to give the horses their night hay.

This house it turned out was already set up with a pitcher pump out front for water, an outhouse, a Servel propane refrigerator, a propane cooking range and a huge Alaska wood stove. The chimney was not set up correctly and we could not use the heating stove till my husband put a new chimney in, but the items were in place. The house had no bathroom only an outhouse. So we bought an old claw foot bath tub from a junk shop and the downstairs bedroom quickly became our bathroom. We also had purchased a Sun Mar composting toilet which we used a few years then after reading the Humanure Book started using the famous sawdust toilet. One of the first things my husband did was to install drains so that we could use the bath tub and sink even without running water. I heated water on my stoves and poured the water into a sink or the tub and still do. Before he did that we did use a solar shower outside. But not good in cold weather so he quickly put in the drains. That made it so we could shower or take baths and use the kitchen sink. Washing dishes in dish pans and dumping the water outside was not a job I liked to say the least!

In the beginning we used the small propane tanks that are used for gas grills for our propane. We filled them at our local convenience store. Had 5 of them and would take the empty ones with us when we went to town. Did that for the first few years. Now our propane is hooked up to a big tank the propane company comes to fill it up. Like that convenience! Since we took out our refrigerator which I wrote about on a previous post we are using less propane. Eventually we will have the SunDanzer units but for the time being no money is being spent on refrigeration except for buying ice when it is hot out. Which is a short time here in NY state.

I hope this helps for people with questions on how to get started with finding that piece of property. Another thought I had is that you can contact a realtor, which is what we did. Tell the realtor what you are looking for. Many times they show you what they think everyone wants….not what you really want. They may have listings they don’t show much because they think it isn’t good enough. But once you get them to see what you really want………they may have many of those listings for you to choose from!

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