The methodology behind the 0-100 off-grid viability score.
When you enter an address or GPS coordinates, GoOffGrid queries more than a dozen government and scientific data sources for that exact location, runs the results through a scoring engine with roughly 75 rules, and returns a 0-100 score in about a minute. Here's what gets checked, how the math works, and where the data comes from.
Every property is scored across six weighted dimensions. The weights reflect how often each factor kills an off-grid plan in practice — water problems end more land purchases than anything else.
Annual rainfall (30-year history), nearby government well records with depth and yield, detected surface water (creeks, ponds, springs), and groundwater availability. Water is weighted heaviest because it's the most common deal-breaker for off-grid land.
Road access — distance to the nearest maintained road and whether the route is paved, gravel, or unmaintained track — plus county zoning designations where public GIS data exists, and state or provincial land-use frameworks that affect off-grid living.
Peak sun hours from solar irradiance modeling, terrain shading based on the slope and direction the land faces, and winter solar production — the season that actually sizes an off-grid system.
FEMA flood zone designation, wildfire hazard potential, earthquake ground-shaking risk, and severe weather exposure including tornado and hurricane zones and extreme wind.
USDA hardiness zone (computed from 30 years of temperature data), frost-free growing season length, soil texture and quality — organic matter, pH, water-holding capacity — and growing-season rainfall.
Ground slope measured from satellite elevation data, soil drainage and septic feasibility, restrictive soil layers like bedrock or hardpan, and estimated frost depth for foundation planning.
GoOffGrid uses a subtractive model: each dimension starts at full points and loses points for specific, documented problems — a water table at 600 feet, a 25% slope, a FEMA flood zone, no maintained road within five miles. The engine runs three passes:
Separately from the score, the engine raises risk flags for potential deal-breakers — Warning or Critical severity — so a single catastrophic issue can't hide inside an otherwise decent number.
Every score is built from authoritative public data, queried live for the exact coordinates you enter:
US properties get the deepest data coverage. Canadian properties are fully scored using Canada-specific sources (PVGIS solar, MODIS fire history, BC GWELLS wells); where Canadian data is thinner — soil quality, or groundwater outside British Columbia — the score applies conservative adjustments and lowers the confidence rating instead of filling gaps with optimistic guesses.
The score is a screening tool. It tells you which properties deserve your due-diligence budget and which to walk away from — it does not replace a site visit, a test well, a survey, or a conversation with the county planning office. That's why the full report ends with a prioritized before-you-buy checklist: the specific things to verify on-site for that property, ordered by how likely they are to change your decision.
The free score shows the overall 0-100 number, its interpretation, and how many risk flags were found. The $79 full report unlocks the complete analysis: 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, the before-you-buy checklist, and a downloadable PDF. More questions? See the FAQ.
See it on a real property — screen one free.