How GoOffGrid Works
The methodology behind the 0-100 off-grid 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.
- Water (25%). Can you reliably get drinking and household water here?
- Legal (20%). Can you legally reach the land and live off-grid on it?
- Energy (15%). Will solar panels make enough power, including in winter?
- Hazard (15%). How exposed is the land to floods, fire, quakes, and storms?
- Food (15%). Can you grow food: good soil, a long enough season, enough rain?
- Buildability (10%). Is the ground flat and stable enough to build a home and septic?
The Six Dimensions
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.
Water Access & Rights
25%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.
Legal & Access
20%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.
Energy Potential
15%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.
Natural Hazard Risk
15%FEMA flood zone designation, wildfire hazard potential, earthquake ground-shaking risk, and severe weather exposure including tornado and hurricane zones and extreme wind.
Food Production
15%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.
Buildability
10%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.
The Scoring Method
We start each property at full points, subtract for the problems we find in the data, then flag any deal-breakers separately.
Each dimension begins at its full point value and loses points only 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 works in three passes.
1. Subtract for each problem
Every data point is checked against roughly 75 scoring rules, and the matching ones take points off the relevant dimension.
2. Add weight when problems stack up
When several problems pile onto the same dimension, they cost more together than alone. Low rainfall is a problem; low rainfall plus deep wells plus no nearby creek is a much bigger one.
3. Stay honest when data is missing
When a source has no data for a location, the engine uses a conservative default and marks that dimension's confidence as Moderate or Low, rather than guessing.
Separately from the score, the engine raises risk flags for potential deal-breakers, marked Warning or Critical, so a single catastrophic issue can't hide inside an otherwise decent number.
Data Sources
Every score is built from public data, queried live for the exact coordinates you enter. Here are the sources behind each part of the score.
- USGS national groundwater well records
- BC GWELLS provincial well database
- Open-Meteo 30-year rainfall history
- OpenStreetMap surface water (creeks, ponds, springs)
- FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer
- USGS earthquake ground-motion data
- US Forest Service Wildfire Hazard Potential
- MODIS satellite fire history (22 years, Canada)
- World Bank ThinkHazard flood levels
- USDA SSURGO soil survey (texture, drainage, organic matter, pH)
- Copernicus GLO-30 elevation model (slope, aspect, ~30m resolution)
- NLR PVWatts (US)
- PVGIS (Canada)
- Open-Meteo 30-year temperature, rainfall, and wind archive
- OpenStreetMap road network
- County zoning GIS where published
US and Canada Coverage
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, such as soil quality or groundwater outside British Columbia, the score applies conservative adjustments and lowers the confidence rating instead of filling gaps with optimistic guesses.
US properties draw on the deepest data, and Canadian properties lean on conservative defaults wherever a source runs thin. Because we never guess upward when data is missing, treat the score as a floor: the property is at least this viable, and on-the-ground checks can only confirm it or surface details no public dataset can see.
What the Score Is and Isn't
The score is a screening tool that does not replace on-the-ground due diligence.
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.
Free Score vs. Full Report
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
Enter any US or Canadian address and get its free 0-100 off-grid score across all six dimensions in about a minute.
Screen a property free →