Buying a Mountain House
How To Do It and What To Look For

By Micah Olsen

Introduction

OK, so you've decided that mountain living is for you. Ideally, you've rented a mountain house and lived in it for a while (though these can be tough to find), or at least read my page on Mountain Living. So now what?

I realized only after we bought our first house that we got pretty lucky. There were a lot of pitfalls that we thought to check that are unique to buying in the mountains. However, there were also a number that we missed and that could have cost us. I've put this page together to help people ask the right questions about the homes they see to help make sure they know what they're getting into and to offer tips to help them settle in after they buy. This page is especially targeted for people living in the San Francisco Bay Area who want to live in the Santa Cruz Mountains (the western mountain range) as there are a number of specific things to look out for in that area that may not be obvious if you've just lived in the valley. However, much of the page may be of use to anyone who wants to live in a mountainous area. If you're considering buying a house in the mountains somewhere, I hope this page is helpful.

Note: there is some overlap with Mountain Living, but I've tried to minimize it.

Step 1: Decide on a Neighborhood

The first thing you need to decide is the neighborhood you want to live in. Many people just think of the mountain area as a homogenous unit, but there are a lot of differences. Here are some things to consider to help decide which area(s) you want to live in.

Visit the Neighborhood

I would suggest you visit the home at least three different times:

During Commute Hours. You should make sure you drive the route you would be using to get to and from work at least once during morning and/or evening rush hour. It's important to get a feel for what it's like before you buy. How crowded do the roads get? How long does your commute take? How crazy are the drivers you encounter? Do you feel comfortable being on a windy road when lots of other cars are on it? Different mountain roads can give you different answers. I find that I don't like to go down some mountain roads during rush hour, but others are fine. Also consider what your commute would be like if your commute road got washed out. A couple of central mountain roads have gotten washed out during rainy season in the last few years, and, at best, it seems to take months for the roads to get repaired.
During the Weekend in the Middle of the Day. The weekend during the day is likely to be the noisiest time of the week. Pull over, sit for a while, and listen. How many motorcycles and other vehicles are going by and can you deal with that level of noise?
During a Cold Day or Night. You should also visit sometime when it's nippy out, especially at night or a weekend. Many mountain folk burn wood to heat their house, and if you're in a mountain valley or near many other homes, the smoke may be very strong. Make sure strong smoke isn't a problem, or is at a level you can stand.

Fog

Different sections of the Santa Cruz Mountains get vastly different amounts of fog. For example, the area near Highway 92 x Skyline Blvd. gets a lot of fog. Where we are, further south and higher up, there is much less. If you drive down Highway 280 often, you can get a rough idea of which parts of the mountains get the most fog, but you should still be careful using that as your sole guess. The 280-eyeball method will only give you a rough starting point since the fog may go around or through different sections of the mountain that you can't see.

Your best bet is to knock on some doors in the neighborhood you're considering and ask people. I want to stress this point: it's not enough to just gauge the amount of fog you would likely see by driving around the neighborhood a couple of afternoons. You really do have to ask residents because fog can vary from season to season and year to year. Some places get fog year-round every afternoon and evening, and many days, too. We got fog at times in the spring and summer (sometimes all day long), and more rarely during fall and winter. One year, though, we had fog throughout the day for most of the summer. Another year, we had almost none.

Also, be honest with yourself about how you and those who will be living with you feel about fog. I love fog, but other people hate it and get depressed if they don't get enough sun.

Kids

If you have kids, consider things from their perspective. Where can they play and will there be any friends nearby? Ideally, you should be on a side street that has other kids around. The worst location is to be located on a very busy, high-speed road with no sidewalks (like Skyline Blvd.) with few houses around. Would you want your kids walking and biking down such a road all the time just to get to a friend's house? Also, are there any areas around where they can play outside without you worrying about their falling off a cliff?

In addition, check out the school. Besides the usual questions you should ask about the quality of the school, how far away is it? How will your kids get there?

Step 2: Check Out the House

Since there are so few homes available in the mountains you will probably either have to be very patient, or find a number of neighborhoods you like and look at houses in all of them. Once you've decided on a rough location the next step is to find a house you like in the neighborhood.

A common piece of advice heard when buying a home is to hold out for the perfect house. After all, if you find a house you kind of like, there are so many homes in every neighborhood that you should soon be able to find a home for sale that's a better fit. Do not assume this situation is the case in the mountains; there are too few homes around. Instead, make sure that if the home isn't exactly what you want, the parts you don't like can be changed.

Here a few things to consider about your future dream home. Most of these items apply equally well if you're buying a lot and will custom build your home.

Sun

Much more so than in the valley, you need to think about how much sun you want around your house. It's very common to have houses surrounded by tall redwood trees, which means you will be living in an area that is cold, dark, and damp. If you see such a house, make sure that there's enough light in the house for you. Skylights can make a dramatic difference. Visit the house in the daytime, and walk through the house with the lights off.

In other places, the homes are built in fields with no trees around. Here, you will have non-stop sun beating down on you every day. The house will get a lot hotter in the summer, and might be very bright. Especially if you're a late riser or sensitive to light and heat, you should check where the bedrooms are located relative to the rising sun.

Think twice before buying a house built on a Northern slope.

Insulation

Regardless of the amount of sun your house gets, it will need more insulation than a valley house. Summers can be much colder or hotter, and winters can be much colder. Depending on your elevation, you may have to deal with ice and snow occasionally in the winter. Unfortunately, some architects don't realize they should account for these temperature differences, and design as if they're building for the mild valley weather.

There are a number of tests you can do to figure out if the house is properly insulated. First, ask to see a year or two's worth of heating bills. Make sure to ask how much of the house was heated, how often, and with what. For example, many people aren't home on workdays, and thus don't heat the house during the day. Some people use space heaters during the day or night to only heat a portion of the house. Some people use a lot of firewood. Also, try feeling the walls on a cold/hot day to guess how well they keep the heat in/out. Look under the house to see how much insulation there is under the floor. Look at the topology of the house: large open spaces with tall beam ceilings mean large drafty spaces to heat.

Check the windows, too. Many homes have old single-pane windows and metal frames. If the home has a lot of windows and sliding glass doors with this older design, the home will be very drafty. Heavy curtains can help.

Window Directions

Check which way the rooms face. Do they have a view? If so, hopefully the view is in rooms you'll use a lot. Do they face towards a road? If so, and if the road is busy, you'll get a lot of noise. Do the rooms face south? They'll get more sun if they do. If the master bedroom faces south or east, then, depending on tree placement, you may get a lot more sun and heat in the mornings than you want (again, especially if you're a late riser).

Nowadays, you may also want to see if the property has a clear view of the southeast sky. You'll need one if you want to install one of the new digital satellite dishes. Many mountain homes don't have cable, and those that do are more likely to have more problems with service and fewer stations than people in the valley.

Propane Usage

Homes in the mountains will usually not have natural gas delivered to them, but they should have a propane tank and appliances. The more appliances that use propane the better: it's a lot cheaper. At minimum, you should have a propane furnace and water heater. (If they are electric, watch out: your electric bill may be astronomical.) The home may also have other propane appliances such as a propane dryer, stove, and room heater. Again, the more appliances that use propane, the better.

You should also look at the efficiency of the appliances, especially for the furnace. Older appliances will be less efficient. If your furnace is inefficient, you'll pay very high heating bills. The ideal is to have a new 90%+ efficiency furnace, but these require a more complicated installation with extra pipes for a drain and vent, and are more expensive.

Also, the power goes out in the mountains much more than in the valley and for much longer periods of time, so you should find out what propane appliances can be used without electricity. Your furnace is probably not going to be available, but propane burners can be lit with a match, propane water heaters will still work if they use a pilot light instead of electronic ignition, and some propane room heaters are designed to work without electricity.

If you do use propane (or natural gas), having a carbon monoxide detector is a must.

Earthquakes

I'm not a structural engineer, but I have to say that an awful lot of the homes I've seen don't look like they would be safe in an earthquake. Many home up in the mountains are built on steep slopes, and often the supports for them don't look at all sturdy to me. If you consider buying such a home, be sure to have a structural engineer look at it first.

Weathering

Many mountain homes are designed so that you will usually only walk around the front of the house and rarely walk to the side or back of the house. Thus, sellers often will fix up the front of the house and neglect the back and sides. They may even power wash the front of the house so that the siding looks a lot newer and in better shape than it really is. Before you buy a house, circle it and examine the state of the siding, especially the direction that the weather comes from (which is usually from the west on the West coast). Ask whether they have power washed the house recently or applied any weather proofing. If you know when the sellers last cleaned up the outside of the house (or when the house was built if they never did something), you can gauge how much the weather affects the house. As a buyer, it's preferable if they didn't clean up the siding recently so you can make this gauge. For example, we saw one home that was three years old, but the wood siding looked about 10 times that old due to heavy fog and rain. I decided not to bid on a house that would require so much external maintenance just to keep it from rotting away in only a few years.

Another part of the house to closely examine for rot is the decks. Look above and below to see how well the decks have lasted. Think about whether rain runoff would drain quickly or accumulate in corners. If the decks are covered with something, peel off a corner or two, and check the wood underneath. If the decks are partially or completely new, especially if the house isn't that old, be suspicious and ask about it.

Also check the gutters. Run a hose on the roof to make sure that the drainpipes haven't rotted through. Also look in them to see if water is standing in them, which might indicate they are clogged or weren't installed correctly. Standing water will attract mosquitoes and rot the pipes. If the roof has a lot of debris on it or many redwood trees near it, the pipes will likely clog every year with vegetable matter.

Step 3: Check for and Get Rid of Critters

Before you buy your house, you need to make sure that you won't be sharing your house with other creatures. After you buy your house, you need to make sure you don't get any new residents, and, if you want to grow anything, you also need to make sure that what you grow doesn't get eaten down to stubs. Here are the common critters you need to watch out for.

Wood-Destroying Pests

There are a number of wood-destroying pests that are in abundance up here. It's vitally important to get annual termite inspections and detect problems early. The few hundred dollars you spend on inspections every year to detect these pests early could save you many, many times that amount if you let the problem grow before detection. Our annual inspections always detect a few new problems even though we've tried to be careful. Here's what your inspectors will be looking for and what you can do to make your home inhospitable to these pests.

Dampwood Destroying Pests: Dampwood Termites, Fungus, Moss, and Dry Rot. There's plenty of dead wood up here, and it's all damp. Thus, it all has dampwood termites, fungus, moss, and dry rot; and they're all looking at your house as a place to expand colonies. The key way to discourage these pests is to make your house as dry as possible. You can do this by making every outside part of your house is set up to drain water quickly (especially decks), put water sealer on any outside wood (again, especially decks), make sure none of your pipes leak (especially check under bathtubs and sinks), and get a dehumidifier.
If there is moss on the roof, check it closely. Moss will eventually destroy a roof and allow it to leak. You can kill moss by scattering Tide detergent -- it must be Tide, not any other brand -- on the roof.
By the way, late September and October is dampwood swarming season. The woods are filled with swarming dampwood termites flying around at dusk and at night looking for new places to start a colony, especially if it's not raining and the night is warm. They're attracted to light and will converge on any house in the area as a result. You should ask the current owner if he ever sees them in the house. Also, check for any gaps in the walls (between the wall and the window, between sliding windows, between the walls and beam ceilings, etc.). If there are any gaps -- even if they're tiny gaps -- the termites will get through and into the house. These gaps should be sealed inside and out to keep them out. A dehumidifier will help here, too, as it will cause any that get in the house to die very quickly.
Carpenter Ants. Carpenter ants are the next most common wood-destroying pests. We get a new colony at least once a year. Carpenter ants are less destructive than termites because they just use the wood to live in, not to eat. But over time, they, too can cause major damage. Unfortunately, they seem very tough to get rid of. We've tried spraying, boric acid, and putting out poison, but none of these tactics worked. In our experience, the only thing that does is fumigating. The only bright side is that you only need to fumigate the areas they live in, you don't have tent the whole house.
Drywood and Subterranean Termites. Drywood and subterranean termites seem less common, but they are around. I don't know of any special precautions to get rid of drywood termites (we only had them once, when we were buying the house). However you can do a couple of simple things to keep subterranean termites away. First and most importantly, make sure no wooden portion of your house is touching dirt. Second, to keep colonies away, make sure that as little dead wood as possible touches the ground near your house (i.e., firewood, building scraps, fallen trees and stumps, etc.).

Besides the above, there are wood-boring beetles and bees, but we've been lucky and haven't gotten them yet, and I don't know much about them. There are so many things that attack wood around here and protecting it is so high maintenance that if you're building a house in the woods, I'd recommend using as little wood as possible. Consider using a steel rather than a wooden frame. Also consider using stucco or some other material instead of wooden shingles for the outside of your house. A shake roof is just asking for trouble. An additional benefit of minimizing the amount of wood you use is that it will improve the odds that your house survives a forest fire.

Rodents

Mice and rats are another pair of creatures that abound in the woods, and they would love to live in your house. Mice only need a 1/4" hole to get in your house; rats, 1/2". They are capable of digging several feet down underground to get under your foundation (but, thankfully, they are unlikely to go to that much trouble). Once in, they will chew through electrical and phone wiring, chew up anything you store in your attic and garage, and burl and rip up your insulation. They will usually avoid going in the areas of the house that you frequent, unless they get very hungry.

Poison is not an adequate long-term solution, they soon figure out it's poison and stop eating it. However, it is a good idea to put out poison a few weeks before you try to seal the house to lower the population and soften up the problem.

We initially tried hiring "experts" to plug up our house, but we were not happy with the results even though there was a "guarantee". It's probably too much work and too tricky for anyone you hire to be as thorough as is required, unless the person is very dedicated. Thus, I suggest you plan on handling this task yourself.

If you work on the house yourself, you must seal any possible entrance with fine chicken wire and/or concrete; they may chew through anything less. Here are some tricky things to be aware of in your search to seal your house from rodents:

Look for gaps not only below the foundation but between the foundation and the frame. There may be spaces, especially at the corners of the house.
Put chicken wire over the ends of all drainpipes, especially if they are on the ground or underground for part of their length. Rodents will enter them, chew through the middle of the pipe, and dig a hole under your foundation. The result being a very hard-to-find hole.
Check to see if there are any gaps between the garage door and the garage wall. Use chicken wire to close any gaps. Do the same for doors to your foundation.
Rodents love to build holes starting at the base of trees and tree stumps around your house, and continuing under your foundation. Check for this, and fill any tunnels with stones and/or cement.
Rodent droppings are your secret weapon. Look around for clusters of them. If you find a lot of them in a small area, there's likely to be a hole or holes nearby.
Check all your vents. They should all be screened. If they're not, do so. Also check to see if there are any gaps around the vents, and take care of them.
Check all your external outlets to make sure that there are no missing plugs at the bottom of any outlet. If there are, mice will get in and short the plug out.
If you have a front or back porch next to the foundation, carefully check to see if there are any holes that go under the porch. From there, they probably continue under the foundation.
Look carefully at your walls for any possible hole. For example, a couple feet above our foundation, under an elevated back porch, we have 2 long beams that span our outside wall with about a 1/2" gap between them. We thought there were shingles and a wall behind the beams, but this turned out not to be the case in parts. We used chicken wire and wood putty to close the gaps.
Clear away all underbrush next to your house. Besides getting rid of a fire hazard, rodents are less likely to build or re-build tunnels if there is no cover for them to use while they are doing so.
Rodents are quite capable of climbing sheer walls, especially if you have wooden shingles. As a result, you need to check for your roofline and attic for holes, too.

Once you think you've eliminated all the holes you can check your work later by (1) looking to see if fresh droppings appear (easiest to see if you have cleared areas earlier), and (2) putting out poison 3-6 months later and seeing if any of it gets eaten (rodents either forget or the next generation isn't taught).

We first hired a company that put in a lot of work, but couldn't find all the holes. We then spent several long sessions ourselves searching for holes and sealing them. Each time, we thought and found them all, and each time, the rodents proved adept at exploiting what we missed. Since our last long session, I've seen no sign of them, and it looks like we have finally succeeded.

By the way, the rats around here look like slightly bigger mice, not like the huge, nasty sewer rats you see in all the movies.

Deer

If you ever want to have a garden, you'll find that the deer around here are easily the most destructive force you'll encounter. The deer must have ancestors in common with goats; if they ever find almost anything you grow, even if it's native, they'll strip it completely very quickly. (Their attitude seems to be that if you planted it, it must be better than the usual junk they eat.) There are only three ways I've found to deter them:

Put on deer repellent. It's easy to make your own deer repellent: just blend one rotten egg, 1 tablespoon of hot sauce, and a quart of water. The hard part is being able to use the repellent effectively. You must spray it on every week, and after every rain. Since it can rain for days at a time in the winter, this means they'll be times when your garden becomes a tasty damp salad no matter how often you spray. Also, if you forget to spray, you can be sure the deer won't forget to eat.
Grow things they hate. It's hard to find plants deer won't eat, but in general, if the leaves have a strong taste, they usually won't eat much of it. Herb plants and trees, for example, are a good bet. To find deer-resistant plants, go to your local mountain nursery and ask one of the employees. Some local nurseries even label such plants.
Put up a fence. The only way to insure that you stay deer free is to put up a fence. If you put up a single fence, it must be 8-feet high, or they'll jump it! You can put up a shorter fence if the deer can't see the other side; deer won't jump blind. You can also put up a shorter fence if you build a double fence.

There's a population explosion of deer now, since the deer have no predators left. Maybe as we get more mountain lions, this problem will be taken care of.

Step 4: Post-Buying Purchases

After you buy your home, there a few things you may want to buy to ensure you are set up well. Some of these items are expensive, and if you decide you want them, you should factor in their costs before you buy the house.

By the way, if you hire anyone to install any of these items, expect any handyman to charge you more than you would pay in the valley, assuming they're even willing to come to your house. Because of the cost and because some jobs are trickier up in the mountains, it's even more important than in the valley to get competitive quotes and to check references. A web site that lists some of the businesses that operate up in the Bay Area mountains (but is by no means exhaustive) is The Santa Cruz Mountain Resources Page.

Coping without Power

Power is much less reliable in the mountains, and when the power goes out, it stays out longer. Our record so far is to be out of power for 5 days, but we're usually without power for 2 days at a time at least once each year. Brown outs and second-long losses of power are common. To cope with this situation, you should consider the following purchases.

Surge Protectors. Every outlet that has solid-state electronics -- and nowadays that will be most every outlet -- should have a surge protector. Even ovens come with solid-state electronics today. Buying a few extra surge protectors is a lot cheaper than replacing appliances.
Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS's). If you have a computer, you must have a UPS. Imagine working for hours on something, and then losing it all when the power goes out for a second. Small UPS's can be bought for around $100, but make sure you buy one that can handle the power load of your computer. For example, don't connect a printer to your UPS unless it can output 1400 watts. We even got decedent and bought a small UPS for our VCR because I got tired of reprogramming it after the extended power outages we get every couple of months or so.
Propane Appliances. If you're out of power for days at a time in the winter, it's nice to still have basic necessities, like heat and hot water. As long as your hot water heater has a pilot light instead of electronic ignition, you should be OK. You can also get propane room heaters that don't use electricity. These are useful not only for power outages, but for allowing you to heat only one room in your house at night more cheaply than by using electric space heaters. Propane burners are nice, too, so you can cook something without power. The tradeoff of having propane vs. electric burners are that propane burners take a little longer to heat things. (Caution: if you use the burners, make sure the room has adequate ventilation.) By the way, even if your oven uses propane, it won't work if the power's out: all modern propane ovens turn on via electronic ignition.
Wood Stove or Fireplace Insert. Wood stoves or fireplace inserts are another alternative to making sure you can still get heat without power, and provide another cheaper alternative to electric heat. If you get a wood stove or fireplace insert and want it to be usable during power outages, check for this capability before your buy: some devices need electricity to operate (pellet stoves, for example). The common open fireplaces most homes have are not a good way to heat your house as they generate a net loss of heat in your home.
Candles, Matches, and Flashlights. Candles and flashlights are great for having light in emergencies. Coleman sells nice electric lanterns, too, that use 6V batteries and last a long time. Never use kerosene lanterns or stoves inside the house.
Emergency Nightlights. You can buy special nightlights that automatically turn on a bright light when the power goes out. We have these in our hallways.
Generator. If you want to make sure you still have electricity when the power goes out, you can get a generator. Assuming you install one big enough, having one will insure the food in your refrigerator doesn't spoil, your furnace still works, and you have a couple of lights. They're a bit expensive and can be high maintenance.

A couple of tips: if the power goes out when you're away and you want to know if it's come back on, a quick way to find out is to call up your house and see if the answering machine is back on and picks up. Also, if you buy an electric mechanical clock (which are getting increasingly hard to find…), when the power goes out when you're not around or asleep, you can look at it to determine when the outage started. If the power comes on before you're able to check, you can tell, by how far off the clock's time is from the current time, how long the power was out. (Mod 12 or 24 hours, of course.)

Preparing for Emergencies

What would you do in an emergency if the nearest help is a half-hour or more away? You should prepare for problems ahead of time with a few purchases. Many of these purchases should be in every home, but it's even more important to have them in the mountains.

First Aid Kit. Of course the obvious thing you should have is a first aid kit. Make sure you take first aid and CPR classes, too. Keep a first aid book and/or quick-guide pamphlet around, too. (Drug stores sometimes sell laminated first-aid quick-guide pamphlets.)
Fire Extinguishers. About the only service you are likely to have nearby is a fire station. Nonetheless, it's helpful to have a few fire extinguishers around to make sure you can handle the small fires before they get out of hand. At the very least, you should have one in the kitchen and garage. Check them every once in a while to make sure they still have pressure.
Ax or Chain Saw. Trees fall down in big storms, and often it will be a while before someone gets around to clearing your back road or driveway. It's nice to be able to handle it yourself. You'll likely want an ax or chain saw anyway at times to clear parts of your yard.

For Your Car

Mountain drivers need special items in their car, especially if they commute.

Emergency Car Supplies. Jumper cables, flares, first aid kit, flashlight, blanket, pocket knife, simple tools (screwdriver, adjustable wrench), ax or chain saw. Most of these items should be in any car.
Insulated Delivery Bag. Of course, there's no way anyone will deliver takeout to your house. If you ever want to have takeout and still want it warm by the time you get home, you need an insulated delivery bag. It makes a big difference, and should hold pizza or any other takeout food. Some of the big warehouse stores sell them.
Changes of Clothes. Although mountain weather on average is cooler than the valley weather, that in no way is a certainty from day to day. Where we live, especially in the fall, it can be warm and sunny at our house in the morning, while it's cold, damp, and cloudy in the valley. In the spring and summer, the opposite is common. If your house does not have a view of the valley (we look over the ocean), you need to be prepared. I've often gotten fooled and dressed completely inappropriately for valley weather. By carrying a change of summer and winter clothes and a jacket in my car, I can make a quick change instead of suffering all day.
Cellular Phone. In the mountains, you can have a breakdown or an accident far from a phone and help. A cellular phone can be a lifesaver. If you get one, make sure the service you get doesn't have many dead spots along your mountain commute route. Also, the phones are a distraction; limit using them on twisty mountain roads to avoid being a danger to others. (I have personal experience with said dangers: my mother got hit from behind at a stop sign near our house because someone was using a cellular phone and wasn't paying attention.)

Winterizing

As I've mentioned multiple times, the weather is much rougher in the mountains. Prepare for it.

Insulated Windows. Your windows should be double paned and the frames should not be metal. Otherwise, you'll lose a lot of heat and get drafts. As I mentioned before, if you have old windows and can't afford to replace them (or even if you can), heavy curtains can help further insulate your house and cut the drafts.
Caulking. Check the house for holes and leaks, especially after a storm to determine what needs sealing. You should pay special attention to the side of the house that winds typically come from (usually the west). If you ever replace your windows, do so near or during rainy season so you can quickly check that there are no leaks around them in bad conditions.
Wood Sealing. You should buy wood sealers and coat every external portion of your house that is made of non-pressure-treated wood. It's expensive, but doing so will add years to the life of your house. Before you seal the wood, if it's gray or spotty, you should clean it. You should re-seal the wood every few years, especially wooden decks with high traffic. The quick way to tell if you need to re-seal is to wet the wood and see what happens to the water. If the water beads up, you're OK. If the wood absorbs the water, you need to re-seal it.)
Roof. Roofs can wear out much quicker in mountain conditions. If you need to replace a roof, you'll save money and hassle in the long run by paying for a highly durable one.
Insulation. Many homes -- especially older homes -- have little insulation. Home builders are too used to building valley homes that don't need very much insulation. If your heating bill gets very high, check if your insulation is adequate and look into adding more.

Gardening

Many mountain homes tend to be surrounded by redwoods, and have much cooler growing seasons than surrounding areas. Thus, if you want to garden, you need to think about what is suitable for your climate.

Plants that need a lot of sun and heat are probably not a good bet. However, the weather here is strange enough that it's worth experimenting. If you want to try such things, make sure you get kinds that have a shorter growing season and are "indeterminate" (meaning the plants don't require a set amount of sun before flowering).

For best results, look around and see what grows well wild, and try to plant similar plants. Based on this criterion, I suspect that the best fruit, vegetables, and herbs to grow include berry bushes, strawberries, peas, sage, bay trees, and maybe nut trees.

There are two mail order nurseries I like for getting things that grow well in our area:

Raintree Nursery. Excellent selection of high-quality fruit and nut trees and bushes. They cater specifically to finding items that grow well in the west coast, and their catalog provides helpful suggestions for what might grow well in your area based on the growing zone you're in. (They provide maps and descriptions to help you determine your growing zone.)
Territorial Seed Company. Excellent selection of high-quality seeds and starter plants for herbs, flowers, and, especially, vegetables; as well as a good selection of gardening supplies. They carry seeds for many, many more varieties than you'll find locally, including a lot of heirloom species. The descriptions are often good enough to make a good guess as to how well the plants will do in your area.

There's also a Santa-Cruz-Mountain gardening mailing list. You can subscribe by mailing to scmg-request@nocturne.boulder-creek.ca.us and post to scmg-l@nocturne.boulder-creek.ca.us.

Miscellaneous

There are several other miscellaneous items you should consider purchasing, if your house doesn't already come with them, that you may not think of right away.

Propane Tank. Don't rent a propane tank from a propane company; buy one! It's much more expensive in the long run to rent, and it locks you into getting propane from the rental company. Since propane companies have a tendency to jack up the propane costs substantially over time once they have you as a customer, you need the flexibility of being able to switch companies. I cynically suspect that propane companies price their propane higher to renters since these people are more locked in.
TV Antenna and/or Satellite Dish. Many homes don't come with cable, and reception is often not good in the mountains. An outside TV antenna may or may not help. To check if it does, walk down the street and see if any neighbors have outside antennas. If no one does, it probably wouldn't help. If someone does, ask to see what kind of reception they get, and compare it with yours. An indoor, amplified antenna may serve nearly as well. Also, the new, small satellite dishes are very popular in the mountains, and, for many, are the only way to get clear signals and cable stations.
Burglar Alarm. Crime is rare in the mountains (but see below). However, you are isolated, and may wonder about bumps in the night. For peace of mind, it's worthwhile to consider getting a home burglar-alarm system. Also, the cost of having central monitoring may be partially or totally offset by the decrease in your home-insurance cost; check with your insurance company.
Locking Mailbox. I have no idea why, but the one exception to the low crime problem is mail theft. It seems as though every year or so, we hear warnings to watch out for people taking mail out of mailboxes, presumably searching for checks and cash. Save yourself a lot of hassle and buy a locking mailbox.
Dehumidifier. Since the mountain area you live in will tend to be damp, so will your house. A dehumidifier can help keep your house dry and comfy. Having a dehumidifier running will eliminate mustiness, discouraging mildew from growing, extend the life of any books or papers you have, and kill swarming dampwood termites quickly. It's hard to find a dehumidifier for sale in the Bay Area, but Sears sells a decent model. To save your having to dump a gallon or two of water every day, install a drain from your dehumidifier to the outside.
Air Conditioning. Although the mountains are usually quite cool, there are heat spells that occur every summer. When they occur, it often stays hot even at night. It's worthwhile to get room air conditioners for the most-used bedrooms, or the part of your house that gets the hottest (i.e., the top floor).
House Plans. Go down to your county government and get the plans to your house. I was told by one of the inspectors we used that the plans for houses in some counties have a tendency to mysteriously disappear a few years after the house gets built. Getting the plans can help you if you ever remodel, or if there's ever a problem with your house and you have questions about how it was constructed. If it ever comes to taking legal action, having the plans and being able to show discrepancies can help your case a lot.

Though there's a lot to consider when buying a mountain home, it's best when you know what you're getting into. Enjoy the experience, and enjoy living in your new home. Good luck!

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Buying a Mountain House How To Do It and What To Look For