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25 Jan ’16
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My husband and I are getting closer to retirement and long for a place in the country again. My husband's employer pulled out of Oregon several years ago which caused us to lose our property and we had to start over again in the city.
Since we are new to this site, we were wondering if there were any states out there where you can build a home without having to obtain permits for everything you do. We would love to find a spot on several acres with woods and not have to tell the powers that be what we're doing! Oregon regulates you to death...
Just curious if such a place exists still in the United States.
Thank you and we look forward to spending time in this site learning from you all!
21 Feb ’12
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Well, depending on how far out in the boonies your are, West Virginia seems to not really bother with permitting. You'll run into a problem if you want to borrow against the property and need an appraisal or inspection. Heck, folks use cinderblocks as their foundation around here.
I'll recommend looking elsewhere though. All in all, it's not exactly a great place to live.
6 Oct ’15
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Welcome to the Forum.
Hope things move forward with your journey to the country. Not easy to do and it takes time.
Building Codes are a mixed thing. We have our share in my area; some seem stupid and other's make sense. Here it's a give and take, we are fortunate that the people are pretty logical for the most part.
Look forward to seeing you here on the Boards.
15 Feb ’12
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Welcome @kimmer61 , When we first moved to Maine the state allowed the towns to set their own building codes. The town we first bought land in only had the code that the main house had to be 800 square feet. The state has since adopted the national building codes for everyone.
With that being said, a large amount of the smaller towns cannot afford to hire a code enforcer. The only downside to that is that usually those towns are in the middle of nowhere and employment opportunities are very limited so traveling an hour or more to larger town would be necessary.
If you really want a backwoods experience most of Maine is unorganized territories with pretty much zero amenities.
A lot of freedom could be had there.
4 Mar ’12
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welcome to the board kimmer61!
nice to have you. I read an article and will post a link for you.
Delta County, Colorado is one county to consider
Out of curiosity I searched the Delta County website, clicked on Departments, then Planning and Community Development, then Building Information. Sure enough, it clearly states “No building permit is required for the construction and placement of any structures in the unincorporated area of Delta County.”
from:
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K15 Feb ’12
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I love naturalbuilding, great site and resource
6 Oct ’15
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I am going through the Building Code aspect of things right now. It's really not that bad. For the most part it is making sure that people are doing common sense things. I am having a decent experience with it. But, I also have a Codes Officer that is a reasonable guy. You end up working with what you have where you have...good, bad or indifferent...when relocating choose the place that fits you the best.
I am the last one for more regulation...at the same time I believe way too many people can't build a bird house less alone their own home without screwing it up. I have seen a lot of homes that have inadequate structure, poorly placed insulation, messed up footings, unsafe wiring, poor plumbing...you know, the whole gambit...the thing that amazes me the most is the number of crappy and unsafe installations of wood stoves--that is kind of a big one.
Should we protect people from themselves? or let Darwin sort them out?
If someone is too lazy or ignorant to know what the hell they are doing...well, that is there tough look...there are good resources for building...do your homework don't just wing it.
15 Feb ’12
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also don't be discouraged by code if you are looking at alternative building, there has been a lot of progress done with getting alternatives approved with engineered testing, earthships come to mind, it may take a little extra leg work but it can be doable. Sitting down with the local code enforcer before putting any money down on a piece of land can be a good first step
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