Off-Grid Living in Pulaski County, Illinois

I'll be straight with you: Pulaski County, Illinois is one of the harder places for me to research from a desk. It's a small, rural county down at the southern tip of the state (formed back in 1843), and I simply could not pull up an official county zoning ordinance, building permit page, or health department site with real detail during this research pass. A lot of what comes up under "Pulaski County" search results is actually Virginia, Indiana, or Arkansas's Pulaski Counties, not Illinois's. So take this as a starting map, not a finished picture, and plan on a phone call to the county before you act on any of it.

Zoning and dwellings. Illinois has no statewide zoning code, so whether raw land can be occupied, or whether a tiny home or RV counts as a legal dwelling, depends entirely on whatever Pulaski County (for unincorporated land) or a town like Mound City or Mounds has adopted locally. I couldn't confirm whether the county has countywide zoning at all. This is a "call and ask" situation, not a "look it up online" situation right now.

Building codes. Illinois only adopted a statewide building code effective January 1, 2025. Before that, and to some extent still, local governments set their own permit rules for unincorporated areas. I found no confirmed Pulaski County building-permit page, so I can't tell you what's required.

Septic and wells. This one I can speak to more confidently at the state level. The Illinois Department of Public Health regulates private sewage disposal systems (septic tanks, seepage fields, aerobic systems) under the state's Private Sewage Disposal Code, but IDPH hands the actual permitting and inspection work down to local health departments. The same pattern holds for private wells under the state's Water Well Construction Code. So in Pulaski County, your septic and well permits would run through the local county health department, not the state directly, but I could not find that department's own web page, forms, or fee info to confirm exactly how they administer it.

Greywater and rainwater. No state or county rule specifically addresses either one that I could find. In practice these often get folded into the same septic/private-sewage review by the local health department, but that's an inference, not a confirmed rule.

Off-grid utilities. I found nothing at the state or county level that outright bans disconnecting from grid power or municipal water and sewer. The real constraints would come indirectly, through zoning, building permits, and septic/well permitting, whatever those turn out to be locally.

Bottom line: for anything beyond septic and wells, Pulaski County is a "pick up the phone" situation. Start with the county government offices below, and don't be shy about asking to be routed to whoever handles zoning, building, or environmental health, since I couldn't confirm those departments have distinct public-facing pages.