Does Your Rural Property Have Access To Electricity?

If you are looking at buying property in the country to build a new custom home one thing that most people don't consider is if their is access to electricity.

That's right access to electricity. 

In rural Ontario there are still some places that do not have easy access to the electricity grid.

In fact as more and more land gets bought up for people to live on people are being forced to look at less desirable places. These places have many problems from excess ground water to conservation protected lands, these things restrict building or can outright ban it. 

These things are all easily found out when doing your do diligence from looking at maps and talking to municipal building departments, what you won't find is if there is electricity available.

Now the easiest way to tell if there is electricity at the road is to look for power lines and poles. Now even if you don't see power lines and poles there is a chance that the power is buried underground, but in rural Ontario almost nowhere do they actually put the power underground. That usually only happens in a more settled area with denser populations.

To find out where the nearest power supply is you will need to drive in every direction from the property until you can find the nearest electrical poles. This will help you identify how far the power will have to be extended.

Doing this is called a line extension. 

A line extension is not free and in a lot of cases the cost is very high. You have to pay for the entire line extension project even if you are putting it past other properties that will benefit from you extending the electrical grid. 

That's right the electrical supplier is under no obligation to help cover the costs of bringing you power. Its entirely on your shoulders.

How do you find the costs out? You have to call the electrical supplier and engage them in a line extension layout. This will cost you money, they will then be able to give you an accurate cost estimate on how much the poles will cost and also how much the tree cutting will cost also.

What do you do about it?

Well before you start the planning and building process you need to engage a general contractor and hire him to build your custom home. Your general contractor can then get you the costing for the electricity and advise you if you should pay for the installation of it or look into other alternatives.

What are the alternatives?

Well one alternative is to sell the property and move on to a property that doesn't require a line extension for you to have electricity. But a lot of people don't have that option.

The other alternative is to go off the grid with solar and or wind.

There are pro's and con's to going off the grid. I won't get into them here, but having an off the grid house is not as simple as most people believe it to be. 

They most reliable source of energy is to be hooked to the power grid.

So when you start looking for that perfect place in the country to build your dream custom home stop and look around for the electricity supply, if you have doubts then call a contractor, it might just save you more money then the cost of the electricity.

Rob

Village Builders Inc.