I teach HVAC at a local community college, the trade I ended up in, after starting in electricity and wading through some of the others. I've been involved in construction most of my professional life - I spent nearly a decade working for a homebuilder in my rural county, doing all phases of construction. After I got into commercial electricity and HVAC in a more urban environment I helped build apartment blocks, schools, senior living centers, shopping malls, restaurants, tall buildings, remodeled historic buildings into other things, some underground work, etc - most of the types of construction in my native state. I carry five trade school degrees, two master's level licenses and several more journeyman's and certifications. I have also lived off grid since 2011 in the middle of nowhere KY in a house my family built, on solar most of the time and generator when the sun was not available. We have propane delivered for the range and the water heater and somehow got internet wire all the way up the hill and down the driveway, and if having fast as fuck internet makes me less off grid then so be it.

Now that I have my credentials out of the way, I want to make a slightly different point about permitting and whatnot.

A lot of people come into the off grid community from a non-construction background and that is totally cool. Some of us like went to shop classes, or grew up on farms, and might have a better idea of how things go together or buildings are built. Some of us are tradespeople. The vast majority of other off grid people that I have met, however, were like normal people who didn't necessarily know anything about building or code before they got started. I want to emphasize to everyone, however, that codes, permits, plan review and inspections are a part of almost all construction projects all over this country and probably aren't targeting your owner built structure any more than any other construction project.

Now that has been said, I acknowledge that there are some jurisdictions out there that absolutely don't want people moving there and setting up earthships and whatnot and therefore have onerous permitting and review requirements. Some areas have code requirements that are downright hostile to off grid living. However, this is, in it's own way, no different than code restrictions on non off grid buildings, such as no slapping convenience stores in the middle of a residential block or no building houses in industrial zoned areas. I have been on a huge number of construction projects that have been delayed or even downright stopped over permitting and code issues. All construction projects experience this. In some cases I guarantee that inspectors are hostile to off grid projects. Flip of that, however, are the number of inspectors that I know who are hostile, for example, to one particular construction company, and mire, slow and tediize any project that company is a part of.

I have gone on elsewhere at length about the reason that permitting and codes exist and I'm not going to belabor that point again. I will amplify, however, that in most cases, municipal plan review and code enforcement are very busy people who aren't paid nearly enough for all of the shit that they have to deal with (believe it or not, it's true, and why I have turned the position down in the past.) When plan review can look through blueprints and be like engineer's stamp, check, septic, check, smoke detectors, check, blah blah they don't have to think too much and can move on to the next thing. When unfamiliar things like greywater systems, composting toilets, rain catchment, etc show up they have to think about those things and examine the plans closely. Making these people actually have to work slows everything down, and it makes them grumpy and hostile. I've seen massive projects grind to a halt midway through construction over things like a missed asterisk, or a line pointing a different direction on a change order, etc. These things happen. Are they ok? No, but there is almost no way to speed things up either.

The point that I am trying to make is that permitting, code, etc is not just a thorn in the side of the off grid community, it's a common thorn in the entire construction industry. When you build your off grid home, you become a part of that industry, albeit temporarily, and are welcomed to the lovely world of review, inspection, etc. It is hostile to everyone, not just you.