Here are the issues that we will be addressing:
Electricity
We found out that power lines are now about one mile away. The power company quoted me $15,000 to $17,000 if we were to have this done on our own. We are exploring the possibility of joining with neighboring property owners to extend electric service together to defray the cost. If this does not happen we will have to consider alternate sources of power, including solar, a gas or diesel generator and/or wind power. There are a great deal of people who operate "off grid" homesteads through out the Southwest, as well as every other region in the country. We found a couple major resouces for these people are Home Power Magazine and Real Goods. Even if we do get electric service we will be considering alternate power sources for a back up system.
Water
We are still debating whether or not to drill a well for water. It's actually an acceptable living situation in rural parts of Arizona to haul water from and off-site water source and store it in a large water tank on your property. We originally thought we'd go for the well right away, but are a little hesitant as we heard that the two most recent property owners in the development to drill wells drilled 700 feet and came up dry. You pay no matter if you get water or not, so each of those land owners sunk $20,000 into a dry hole. This may not happen to us as we are about seven miles away from both of those properties, but I'd like to see one of my closer neighbors go first.
If we decide to haul water we would get a 200 to 500 gallon portable tank that fits in the back of a pick-up truck or utility trailer to purchase water in Yucca. There's a self-serve well there that charges 25 cents for 80 gallons of water (that's less than 1/3 of a penny a gallon). Given the average American consumes about 100 gallons a day (we will try to use less), we'd be making several hauls a week to keep our 2,500 gallon storage tank topped off.
Septic
Well, that's first easy thing we've encountered! Our soil is a sandy loam and is perfect for septic systems. The ground was perk tested as a formality by the developers and will be inspected by the county and given a permit as it is being installed. Interestingly, this is the only permit we will need during our whole building process; unincorperated areas in our county don't even need building permits.
Building Design and Materials
Our whole idea from the beginning has been to build an affordable home that will be economical to maintain over time. We didn't want to have a big mortgage or high maintenance costs. We are also concerned about our environment. We immediately thought of a passive solar home. The theory being that we would save the expense of heating and cooling our house if we implemented the proper design to take advantage of the temperature change between day and night .
