Barndominium Builders in Tyler, TX

Barndominium builders working around Tyler are usually looking at a very different piece of ground than buyers in Central or West Texas. Tyler is the county seat of Smith County, sits at about 499 feet, and calls itself the Rose Capital of America. Outside town, much of the land is wooded, rolling and laced with creeks, and the soil under the leaf litter has a story of its own. That story matters more to a barndominium than the floor plan does, so we start there.

The soil was first described here

The Kirvin soil series, a common upland soil of the Southern Coastal Plain, has its official type location in Smith County. The USDA description gives it a brown to pale brown very fine sandy loam surface over a red clay subsoil, with the clay layer starting anywhere from 3 to 20 inches down. Below that sit stratified red sandstone and gray shale. Kirvin is well drained, and runoff turns high on slopes between 5 and 15 percent.

In plain terms: the sandy top few inches are not what your slab sits on. Once the pad is cut, the building rests on clay, so we plan the foundation and the pad for that clay, not for the sand you see when you walk the lot.

Trees, stumps and the pad

The same USDA record lists shortleaf, slash and loblolly pine, red oak and sweetgum as typical forest on Kirvin land. That is the timber you will be clearing. A good pad on a wooded Smith County lot usually means:

• Clearing well past the building footprint so roots and shade do not crowd the walls
• Pulling stumps and large roots out of the pad area, not burying them
• Bringing in and compacting select fill where the ground has been disturbed
• Shaping the site so runoff from the slope goes around the building, not under it

On a sloped lot, a long metal building can need more cut and fill than a compact house, so we lay the barndo out along the contour where the land allows it.

Lake country around town

Lake Tyler, Lake Palestine and Lake Bellwood are all in the Tyler area, and Smith County has about 28 square miles of water out of 950. Lakefront and creekside tracts are some of the most wanted land around here. They also bring flood map questions, shoreline rules from whoever controls the lake, and longer septic setbacks. We check those items before anyone draws a slab.

Who you deal with for permits

Inside Tyler, Lindale, Whitehouse, Bullard or another Smith County city, the city's permits and codes apply, and a city's building code also controls in its extraterritorial jurisdiction. In the unincorporated county, Texas Local Government Code Section 233.153 sets a version of the International Residential Code as the standard for new single-family homes in covered counties. The same section says counties do not have to approve construction ahead of time and gives county commissioners no zoning power. That shifts the real checklist to septic, floodplain, driveway access and any deed restrictions on the tract.

Septic in red clay

Most rural Smith County acreage is off sewer, so the home needs an on-site sewage facility. TCEQ runs the statewide OSSF program and lists the authorized agent that issues septic permits in each county. Because Kirvin and similar soils turn to clay within the top foot or two, the site evaluation decides a lot: how much room the drain field needs and whether a conventional system works. We place the barndominium after that answer, not before.

Weather a metal home has to handle

Tyler averages about 47.66 inches of precipitation a year. Its record high is 115 degrees F, set in 2011, and its record low is minus 6, reached on February 16, 2021. Severe thunderstorms, hail, damaging wind and tornadoes all occur, mostly in spring and summer. For a barndo, that adds up to a roof and gutters sized for heavy rain, strong anchorage from frame to slab, closed-cell spray foam to stop condensation on the steel, and HVAC sized for both a humid summer and a hard freeze.

Growth between Tyler and Longview

Smith County grew from 209,714 people in 2010 to 233,479 in 2020. Tyler itself went from 96,900 to 105,995. Interstate 20 runs along the city's north edge, Loop 323 circles it and Loop 49 forms an outer loop, so tracts in Lindale, Winona, Arp or Troup are an easy drive from town. About 64.9 percent of occupied homes in the county are owner-occupied.

Have a wooded tract in Smith County or a lot near one of the lakes? Call (254) 401-5175 or

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and tell us where it is.