Off-Grid Living in Coffee County, Tennessee

I've been digging into what it actually takes to live off-grid in Coffee County, Tennessee, and the first thing I want to flag is that this is not one of those "no zoning" rural Tennessee counties people love to talk about. Coffee County runs a countywide Planning Commission and a Codes Department, and that office enforces zoning and building codes everywhere outside the city limits of Manchester and Tullahoma, which each run their own separate planning/codes departments. So step one for anyone eyeing land here is figuring out exactly which jurisdiction, county or city, actually covers that parcel, because the rules genuinely differ.

On zoning, the county has an active A-1 agricultural zoning designation and is, as of recent Planning Commission activity, revisiting minimum lot sizes and fire-flow rules that affect rural subdivisions. That tells me zoning here is a living, changing thing, not a static rulebook, so I'd call the Coffee County Codes Department before assuming anything about what you can do with raw land.

On dwellings, tiny homes, and RVs, I couldn't find a Coffee County ordinance specifically addressing tiny houses or RVs as permanent residences. What I did find is that the county has formally adopted ICC residential and building codes (moving toward 2018-era standards) with some local amendments, like keeping the 2009 Energy Code, which still allows 2x4 wall construction. Whether tiny homes under Appendix Q or RVs as permanent dwellings get separate treatment isn't confirmed anywhere official, so that's a direct question for the Codes Department.

Building permits are required countywide. Unlike some Tennessee counties that opt out of code enforcement entirely, Coffee County opts in and actively enforces its adopted ICC codes through its Codes Department and Building Inspector, with a fee schedule maintained by that office.

Septic and composting toilets fall under state law, not county discretion. Tennessee Code Title 68, Chapter 221, Part 4 governs subsurface sewage disposal statewide, administered by TDEC's Division of Water Resources, and TDEC has actually centralized septic permitting online rather than letting local health departments process applications. I found no Coffee County dry-cabin exemption, so plan for standard septic permitting if you're not on a sewer connection.

Greywater and rainwater harvesting have no Coffee-County-specific rules that I could confirm, meaning both default to the Tennessee state baseline: rainwater collection is unrestricted, and greywater reuse is allowed under the state plumbing code's conditions.

Private wells are permitted and common in the county, governed by the state's Water Well Act requiring a licensed driller. I didn't find county-level well permitting layered on top of that. Utility disconnection is where it gets local: several utility districts, including a countywide water/wastewater authority and Tullahoma Utilities Authority, serve parts of the county, and properties inside those service footprints may face mandatory-connection expectations typical of Tennessee utility districts. Outside those footprints, going off-grid for water and sewer is workable, subject to septic permitting.