Off-Grid Living in Sandown, New Hampshire

I'll be straight with you: Sandown, New Hampshire is not a place where you can just buy a wooded lot and quietly go off-grid. It's a zoned town, with a formal Zoning Ordinance (last comprehensively updated 2015) administered by the Planning Board and Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA). That matters because a lot of the off-grid dream depends on a town either not having zoning or not enforcing it closely. Sandown enforces it closely.

Zoning and land use. Every parcel sits in a zoning district (Residential, Business, etc.), and the ZBA has shown it will deny variances for undersized or "unbuildable" lots, and will reject uses (like campground-style cabins) that aren't spelled out in the ordinance's permitted or conditional use lists. In one recent case, the town found that proposed cabins didn't even qualify as a residential use, let alone a permitted commercial one, in the Business District. If your plan is anything other than a conventional single-family home in a district that allows it, expect to need a use variance from the ZBA under state law (RSA 674:33), and expect scrutiny.

Dwellings, tiny homes, RVs. Sandown has an actual working definition of "dwelling unit" in its ordinance (Article II), and the town has litigated whether small cabins without permanent cooking facilities qualify. Tiny homes and RVs used as year-round residences are going to run into that same definitional fight. This is genuinely case-by-case, and I'd get a written determination from the Building Inspector or Zoning Board before you buy anything or build.

Building permits. The Building Inspector/Code Enforcement Officer, per the town's building permit page, requires a permit for essentially all construction, alteration, plumbing, electrical, and sanitary disposal work, and even for converting a seasonal camp to year-round use. Owner-occupants of single-family homes can do their own electrical and plumbing if qualified, which is a nice break from towns that require licensed trades for everything.

Septic. Sandown doesn't run its own septic program; it defers to the state. NH DES's Subsurface Systems Bureau issues Construction Approval before you install a system and Operational Approval after a field inspection, before you backfill. You'll coordinate a local building permit at Town Hall alongside the state septic approval.

Composting toilets, greywater, rainwater, wells. I found no Sandown-specific ordinances on any of these in the town's official pages. Wells fall under the state's Water Well Board program by default. Composting toilets, greywater reuse, and rainwater catchment appear to be gaps in the local code, not confirmed rules, so don't assume "no ordinance" means "no oversight," ask the Building Inspector directly.

Full utility disconnection. There's no standalone rule I could confirm requiring a grid hookup, but given how hard the town leans on its dwelling-unit definition, I'd bet a fully disconnected home would get the same scrutiny as those camping cabins did. Worth a direct conversation before you commit.