Frequently Asked Questions

GoOffGrid is a pre-purchase screening tool for off-grid land. Enter any US or Canadian address or GPS coordinates and it returns a free 0-100 off-grid score showing whether that specific property can realistically support off-grid living, before you spend money on site visits, surveys, or earnest money.

Six factors determine whether land can support off-grid living: water access, legal restrictions, solar energy potential, natural hazard exposure, food-growing capability, and buildability. GoOffGrid scores all six for any US or Canadian property using government data: rainfall and aquifer records, zoning and road access, peak sun hours, flood and wildfire maps, growing season and soil quality, and slope and septic feasibility.

Before buying off-grid land, verify five things at minimum: (1) legal access to the parcel (not all land touches a public road), (2) water availability (well depths and rainfall in the area), (3) zoning and county restrictions on off-grid living, (4) natural hazards like flood zones and wildfire risk, and (5) whether the terrain allows building and septic. A GoOffGrid report screens all of these from public data, then gives you a prioritized checklist of what to verify on-site.

The free score shows the overall 0-100 score, the score interpretation, and how many risk flags were detected. The Property Report ($23.70, 70% off the regular $79) unlocks everything underneath: sub-scores for all six dimensions, every deduction with its reasoning, each risk flag explained with a recommended action, development cost estimates (well, septic, solar, road, land clearing), property-specific written analysis, a before-you-buy checklist, and a downloadable PDF.

The Homestead Plan is a step-by-step build plan for land you own or are about to close on. It starts from the same government data as the Property Report, then reads the land itself from public maps: the aerial, tree cover, streams, and the parcel line, with the house placed where you put it. Around your household it sizes solar and battery for the leanest sun month, water catchment and storage against 30 years of rainfall, growing area from the real season and soil, septic from EPA loading-rate tables, heat and firewood from the climate, and building budgets. Then it puts everything in build order with cost ranges. It costs $29.70 one time, or $14.70 if you already bought the Property Report for that parcel. It is planning guidance with named sources, not engineering or permitting. It covers US and Canadian land: a Canadian plan follows the province's own septic and water rules and reads in metric and Canadian dollars.

The score is a screening tool, not a substitute for on-site due diligence. Its verdict lines were set against two research panels that judged 160 parcels without seeing our scores, and every dimension carries a confidence rating (High, Moderate, or Low) that tells you how complete the underlying data was. The rating is there to read, not to take points. Use it to quickly rule out bad properties and focus your in-person verification budget on promising ones. The Property Report includes a checklist of exactly what to confirm on-site.

A risk flag marks a potential deal-breaker, listed on its own so it cannot hide inside a decent score: sitting in a FEMA flood zone, very high wildfire hazard, no verifiable road access, salty or weak wells nearby, or a point that falls on public or tribal land. Each flag carries a Warning or Critical severity, and the Property Report explains every flag in plain language with a recommended next step.

The score is split across six weighted dimensions (Water 25%, Legal & Access 20%, Energy 15%, Natural Hazards 15%, Food Production 15%, and Buildability 10%). Each reading, like well depth, sun hours, season length, or slope, earns part of its points on a sliding scale between a poor value and an excellent one, instead of passing or failing a single cutoff. Serious problems such as a FEMA flood zone cost more and are listed separately as risk flags. Missing data is never scored as bad: a gap in the records is not held against the land. The verdict lines are 95 and up Strong Candidate, 80 to 94 Good with Caveats, 70 to 79 Significant Challenges, 50 to 69 Major Concerns, and under 50 Not Recommended.

GoOffGrid reads government and scientific sources: FEMA flood maps, USGS earthquake, groundwater, and salty-groundwater data, state well-drilling records, USDA soil surveys (SSURGO), NLR PVWatts solar modeling, US Forest Service wildfire hazard data, USGS 3DEP and Copernicus elevation, PRISM temperature and rainfall normals (PRISM Group, Oregon State University, https://prism.oregonstate.edu), 30 years of climate history via Open-Meteo, NOAA hurricane and tornado tracks, CMS hospital data, FCC broadband data, Census 2020 housing counts, USDA county land values, USGS PAD-US public land, and OpenStreetMap roads and surface water. Canadian properties also use PVGIS solar data, BC GWELLS well records, SoilGrids soil, ISED broadband data, StatCan health facilities, and MODIS satellite fire history, with farm burns left out using Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada crop maps.

Living off-grid is legal in most of the rural US, but the details are controlled at the county level: some counties require a connection to the electric grid or an approved septic system, others have minimum dwelling sizes, and some have no zoning at all. GoOffGrid's Legal & Access dimension scores road access, distance to emergency care, internet, and how built up the area is (more homes nearby usually means stricter local rules), and surfaces county zoning information where available, plus state-level frameworks like Oregon's land-use laws or Vermont's Act 250, so you know what to verify with the county before buying.

Yes, for informational purposes. GoOffGrid looks up county zoning designations from public GIS systems covering roughly 571 US counties, and identifies states and provinces where rural land is commonly unzoned. The zoning designation itself does not change the score, though how built up the area is (homes per square mile, from the 2020 Census) does, because denser areas tend to carry lot-size, livestock, and zoning limits. Zoning is surfaced so you can verify the rules with the local planning office, and every report includes direct guidance on which office to contact.

GoOffGrid screens water availability using nearby government and state well records (how deep wells run and whether they come in salty or weak), rainfall through the year, and detected surface water like creeks and ponds. Water is the heaviest-weighted dimension at 25% of the score, and the Property Report includes estimated well-drilling costs for the area. It can't guarantee what's under your specific parcel (only a test well can), but it tells you what wells in the area look like before you commit.

Yes. GoOffGrid covers all of Canada with full scoring, using Canadian sources like PVGIS solar data, MODIS satellite fire history, BC GWELLS well records, ISED internet data, and StatCan health facilities. Some Canadian data is thinner than US data: soil comes from a global soil map rather than a detailed survey, well depths exist only in British Columbia, and flood risk is estimated from elevation, water, and slope rather than mapped zones. A reading we could not get is not held against the land, and the confidence rating shows which parts rest on less data.

Either works. You can enter a street address, a place name like "Perry County, TN", or GPS coordinates in almost any format. For raw land without an address, GPS coordinates are most precise: in Google Maps, right-click the parcel and click the coordinates that appear to copy them.

Yes. Your Property Report lives at a permanent private link, and the PDF can be re-downloaded at any time. Reports are not listed publicly or indexed by search engines: only people you share the link with can see them.