Off-Grid Living in Trousdale County, Tennessee

Trousdale County is a bit of an outlier in Tennessee off-grid research: it's a consolidated city-county government (Hartsville/Trousdale County Metro), so there's no "unincorporated county" loophole here. One zoning ordinance, one building code office, and one Regional Planning Commission cover the whole county, town included.

Zoning: Unlike many rural TN counties that have never adopted zoning, Trousdale County/Hartsville has a countywide zoning ordinance administered by the joint Regional Planning Commission, under authority granted by state law (T.C.A. Title 13, Chapter 3). That means raw land here isn't a blank slate; district-based use rules apply everywhere, and you'd want to check the zoning map for your parcel before assuming you can just move onto it.

Dwellings: The county has adopted 2018 ICC residential codes, which include Appendix Q (the tiny-house provisions) at the state level. The zoning ordinance recognizes manufactured/modular homes as a dwelling category distinct from mobile homes on a chassis, but I could not confirm specific rules for RVs as permanent residences or precise placement standards for tiny homes by zoning district. Call the Building, Codes & Zoning Office to nail down specifics for your situation.

Building permits: This county has affirmatively adopted, not waived, building codes, meaning permits and inspections are expected for construction, not optional like in some no-code TN counties.

Septic: Interestingly, septic permitting here isn't handled by a county health department program, it runs through TDEC's Cookeville Environmental Field Office. The Trousdale County Health Department's listed duties cover restaurants, pools, and campgrounds, not septic systems. I found no county-specific composting toilet policy, so the state baseline likely applies, worth confirming with TDEC directly.

Greywater and rainwater: No county-level rules turned up for either. Greywater likely falls under state plumbing/TDEC septic rules, and rainwater collection appears to inherit the state's generally permissive baseline.

Wells: Private wells follow the statewide Water Well Act via TDEC. Worth noting: Hartsville/Trousdale Water & Sewer Department already serves a large share of this small county's population, so more rural parcels here may be within reach of municipal service than in bigger, more spread-out counties.

Utility disconnection: Because municipal water/sewer coverage is unusually extensive for a rural county, your odds of being "within reach" of mandatory hookup rules (if they exist for your parcel) may be higher here than elsewhere. I could not find explicit ordinance text mandating connection, so this is worth a direct call to the Water & Sewer Department.

Bottom line: Trousdale is more regulated than the stereotypical "no zoning, no codes" rural Tennessee county. Confirm everything with the offices below before making land or building decisions.