Off-Grid Living in Easton, New Hampshire

I've been digging into what off-grid living actually looks like in Easton, New Hampshire, a small rural town up in Grafton County, and here's my honest read after going through the town's own documents.

Zoning is real here. Easton is not one of those unzoned New Hampshire towns you sometimes hear about. It has an adopted Zoning Ordinance (revised March 2023), a Master Plan, an active Planning Board, and a Zoning Board of Adjustment that hears appeals. So the idea of just buying raw land and doing whatever you want isn't accurate for Easton. Any land use plan should run through the Planning Board or at least the zoning ordinance text first.

Dwellings, tiny homes, RVs: this is genuinely murky. I could not find a town-specific page spelling out how Easton treats tiny homes or RVs as permanent dwellings. The Building Permit Application references Town Ordinance Article VII, and there's a sheet included to help you figure out if you even need a permit. My advice: don't assume, call the Select Board's office before you set anything up.

Building permits: Easton administers its own building permits under Town Ordinance Article VII, which lines up with how New Hampshire's RSA 155-A lets municipalities handle enforcement locally. So the state sets the framework, but Easton's Select Board office is who you're actually dealing with for a permit.

Septic and composting toilets: this one's state-level. NH DES regulates all individual sewage disposal systems statewide under what's called Env-Wq 1000. You need DES approval for construction and, separately, approval for operation before you can actually use the system. I did not find anything specific to Easton about composting toilets, which likely means it falls back to whatever DES's general septic rules require, so ask DES directly if that's your plan.

Greywater: unclear. I couldn't find an Easton rule or a clear NH DES residential greywater standard in my research. This is a real gap, worth a direct call to DES before you build a greywater system.

Rainwater harvesting: nothing in Easton's ordinances suggests it's restricted. State plumbing and residential codes would apply as adopted through the town's building permit process, but no rainwater-specific rule showed up.

Wells: private wells are licensed under the state's Water Well Board (RSA 482-B). No separate Easton well ordinance surfaced in my research, but DES septic paperwork does require documenting well location and radius on your lot.

Off-grid / disconnecting from utilities: I didn't find anything mandating hookup to municipal water or sewer, which makes sense since Easton doesn't appear to run its own municipal water or sewer system. Still, you'd need to satisfy septic (DES) and building permit rules regardless of how "off-grid" you go.

Bottom line: the state (through DES and RSA 482-B) sets the water and septic rules, while Easton's Select Board and Planning Board control land use and building permits locally. When in doubt, call before you build.