Rolling Texas Hill Country limestone hills with live oak motts, Ashe juniper, and a clear creek over white limestone cobble.
Burnet County No county building code

Barndominium Builders in Burnet County, TX

Burnet County is Highland Lakes country and the eastern edge of the Llano Uplift — granite and limestone rather than the shrink-swell clay of the I-35 corridor, over ground the county itself describes as running from 700 to 1,700 feet above sea level. About 57,000 people live here and nearly half of them, 27,531, live outside every city limit. Marble Falls is the largest town and has grown by more than a third since 2020; Burnet is the county seat. What makes building here genuinely different is not the county. It is that within 2,200 feet of Lakes Buchanan, Inks, Lyndon B. Johnson and Marble Falls the Lower Colorado River Authority, not Burnet County, is the authority that permits and inspects the septic system, under rules of its own that are stricter than the state's. Move a few hundred feet inland and the answer changes.

Burnet County at a glance

County
Burnet County
Population
57,015
Where we build
Burnet, Gillespie County, Williamson County, Travis County, Georgetown

ZIPs 78611, 78654, 78605, 78657, 78608, 78669, 78639, 76550

Site visits
Site visits across Burnet County, from the county seat to the county line
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Building conditions in Burnet County

What actually changes from one Texas jurisdiction to the next: who issues the permit, whether the residential code is enforced there at all, what the structure has to be engineered to, and what the ground is like. These are the numbers your drawings have to satisfy.

Build conditions for Burnet County , Texas . BUILD CONDITIONS BURNET COUNTY, TXBurnet CountyNO COUNTY BUILDING…ADOPTED RESIDENTIAL CODENO COUNTY BUILDING…This jurisdiction publishes no design wind speed. It is settled in writing with the authority overyour parcel before the frame is ordered.ZONING · NONE — A TEXAS COUNTY CANNOT ZONEOn plats created after 1 January 198…Local Government Code Sec. 233.153(d)(2) does not authorise acommissioners court to adopt or enforce zoning, and Burnet County…WHO ISSUES THE PERMITBurnet County Development Services…Burnet County Development Services, 133 E. Jackson Street, Room 107,Annex on the Square, Burnet, TX 78611; mail to 220 S Pierce, Burnet…
Build conditions for Burnet County, drawn from the sourced facts on this page. Every figure above is cited in the quick-facts panel below, with its source and vintage.
Near the lakes it is the LCRA, not the county, that permits your septic system
TCEQ's own authorised-agent database returns nine records for Burnet County. One of them is the Lower Colorado River Authority, whose area served is recorded as the Restricted and Water Quality Zones of Lakes Buchanan, Inks, Lyndon B. Johnson, Marble Falls and Travis. Burnet County's own record covers the unincorporated county plus Bertram and Horseshoe Bay outside LCRA jurisdiction. A river authority permitting and inspecting house septic systems is unusual anywhere in Texas, and it is the single most important thing to check before making an offer on lake-adjacent acreage.

TCEQ On-site Sewage Facility Authorized Agent search (OARS), county record for Burnet, run 1 September 2026 — https://www.tceq.texas.gov/permitting/ossf/aa_search.html

The band is 2,200 feet, and the inner 200 feet is stricter again
The LCRA's own rules draw two nested zones. The Restricted Zone is the area within 200 feet of a named contour line — 1,020 feet above sea level on Lake Buchanan, 888 on Inks, 825 on Lyndon B. Johnson, 738 on Marble Falls. The Water Quality Zone is then everything in the lakes' drainage areas within 2,000 feet of the outer edge of that. LCRA states the total in prose on its programme page: a 2,200-foot zone around the upper Highland Lakes, and a 2,000-foot zone around Lake Travis. It has regulated that band since September 1971.

LCRA On-Site Sewage Facilities Rules, effective 5 April 2010, Section 6; and the LCRA On-Site Sewage Facilities Program page — https://www.lcra.org/water/permits-contracts/on-site-sewage/

Burnet County requires a building permit, and says nobody inspects the building
The county's own permitting page opens with the words Burnet County requires building and septic permits, and then explains the order: you must have a Building Permit in order to get a Septic or OSSF Permit. There are two classes on one form. Class A, outside any flood hazard area, costs 25 dollars, and the county adds its own parenthesis — no inspections required for the structure. Class B, inside a designated flood hazard boundary, costs 400 dollars and needs an elevation certificate from a surveyor or a letter from an engineer. Before either one, you need a 911 address.

Burnet County Development Services, On-Site Sewage Facilities (OSSF) and Development Permits — https://www.burnetcountytexas.org/1239/On-Site-Sewage-Facilities-OSSF-Developme

The Edwards Aquifer permit does not reach Burnet County
This matters because two of Burnet's neighbours are covered and a buyer comparing parcels across that line will assume it is covered too. TCEQ names the counties where construction over the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone is regulated, and there are eight: Williamson, Travis, Hays, Comal, Bexar, Medina, Uvalde and Kinney. Its rule definitions describe the aquifer and the contributing zone by reference to those same eight counties. Burnet is in neither list. So there is no Water Pollution Abatement Plan and no Contributing Zone Plan on a Burnet parcel. The ground here is the Llano Uplift, not the Balcones Fault Zone.

TCEQ Edwards Aquifer Protection Program — https://www.tceq.texas.gov/permitting/eapp; and TCEQ's Edwards Aquifer GIS metadata quoting 30 Texas Administrative Code secs. 213.3(8) and 213.22(2) — https://www.tceq.texas.gov/gis/metadata/edwards_met.html

An emergency services district adopted the 2018 Fire Code, with stop-work power
In a county with no residential building code, Burnet County Emergency Services District No. 2 adopted the 2018 International Fire Code and appendices B, C, D, E, F, G and I by Ordinance 05-15-2025-01, effective 15 May 2025, under Health and Safety Code sec. 775.036. Its Fire Code Official may review plans, conduct inspections and issue stop work orders, backed by a Class C misdemeanor and a civil penalty of 2,000 dollars a day. The district amended the model code to require fire apparatus access roads at least 25 feet wide with 13 feet 6 inches of clearance, and provides that a single security gate serving two-way traffic across such a road shall be 25 feet in clear open width — for new and existing gates alike. Ask the district whether and how it applies to a detached house before you set your driveway.

Burnet County Emergency Services District No. 2, Ordinance No. 05-15-2025-01, published by the county — https://www.burnetcountytexas.org/DocumentCenter/View/2348

Three different minimum tract sizes for the same water well
The Central Texas Groundwater Conservation District covers Burnet County and nothing else — its boundaries are the county's. For the smallest well class, 17.36 gallons a minute or less, spacing is always 100 feet from another well site and 50 feet from the property line. The minimum tract size is not always the same. It is 1 acre over the Hickory, Ellenburger-San Saba, Marble Falls, Welge-Lion Mountain and Granite aquifers, 2 acres over the Trinity, and 10 acres over the Trinity inside the Northeast Burnet County Trinity Aquifer Management Zone for a tract platted after 23 January 2026. The rock under the parcel changes the answer.

Central Texas Groundwater Conservation District, District Rules as revised 25 August 2026, Appendix A — https://centraltexasgcd.org/groundwater-management/district-rules/

Also worth knowing before you build in Burnet County

Ten acres buys you nothing here, and the county explains why
Burnet County's On-Site Sewage Facility Order lists its stricter-than-state rules and the first one is this: Burnet County will permit and inspect all on-site systems regardless of the size of the tract of land the on-site system is situated upon. The order gives its own reason — with the rapid development of property occurring in the county and the abundance of streams, creeks and ponds, it is in the best interest for public health. The LCRA rules say the same thing for their own band: regardless of the lot or tract size, a permit is required prior to construction or installation.

Order Adopting Rules of Burnet County, Texas for On-Site Sewage Facilities, sec. 10(A) — https://www.burnetcountytexas.org/DocumentCenter/View/1151; LCRA On-Site Sewage Facilities Rules sec. 10.05(b)

Inside the LCRA band, a heated loft is a bedroom
TCEQ sizes a system off bedrooms or living area, whichever gives the higher figure. The LCRA's own order then defines the word: a bedroom is a room which serves, or could serve, for overnight sleeping and which is heated and/or cooled and has adequate size, privacy, and a closet — and a room that serves for overnight sleeping or contains a bed is a bedroom regardless of the presence or absence of a closet. On a barndominium that reaches a conditioned bonus room over the shop bay whether or not anyone calls it a bedroom. Burnet County's own order does not carry that definition, so the answer differs on either side of the line.

LCRA On-Site Sewage Facilities Rules, effective 5 April 2010, sec. 10.16 — https://www.lcra.org/water/permits-contracts/on-site-sewage/

Thin soil over rock is what forces the aerobic system
There is no percolation test in Texas; soil is classified by texture. What decides the system here is depth to rock. The LCRA's rules say that in the Restricted Zones of Buchanan, Inks, Lyndon B. Johnson and Marble Falls a discharge more than 75 feet from the top of the normal operating range is lawful only into a facility generating secondary quality effluent — an aerobic treatment unit, an intermittently pressure dosed sand filter or another TCEQ approved method — and that three feet of suitable soil may be substituted with a low pressure dosing system. Its published guidance is blunter: where the evaluator finds a restrictive horizon less than 2 feet below the bottom of the proposed drain field, a conventional soil absorption system cannot be used.

LCRA On-Site Sewage Facilities Rules secs. 10.02(a)(1) and 10.15(b)(1)(B); LCRA on-site sewage frequently asked questions — https://www.lcra.org/water/permits-contracts/on-site-sewage/faqs/

A second LCRA permit covers the Colorado River watershed in this county
The Highland Lakes Watershed Ordinance is a stormwater and land-disturbance instrument, separate from the septic programme, and the LCRA states that it applies to land modification activity within the Colorado River watershed in Burnet County. Anyone doing development, quarry or mine activity, or utility construction must notify the LCRA before beginning work. A development permit is required if impervious cover will exceed 10,000 square feet or land disturbance will exceed 1 acre. Buffer zones along creeks must stay free of development. The LCRA has interlocal agreements with the City of Burnet, Marble Falls, Horseshoe Bay and Sunrise Beach Village among others, so check with the local government first. Ask the LCRA where the boundary runs on your tract.

LCRA Highland Lakes Watershed Ordinance — https://www.lcra.org/water/permits-contracts/watershed-management-ordinance/

One foot above the base flood elevation, and the order cites the Water Code
The Burnet County Flood Damage Prevention Order was passed and became effective on 8 October 2019. Its opening section names its authority: the Flood Control Insurance Act, Texas Water Code, Section 16.315. For residential construction it requires the lowest floor, including any basement, to be elevated to a minimum of one foot above the base flood elevation, with a certification submitted to the Floodplain Administrator by a registered professional engineer, architect or land surveyor. Service equipment must sit one foot above the base flood elevation in an AE Zone and two feet in an A Zone. Repairs or improvements worth 50 percent or more of market value are treated as new construction.

Burnet County Flood Damage Prevention Order, Articles I and 5, adopted 8 October 2019 — https://www.burnetcountytexas.org/DocumentCenter/View/2009

Nearly half the county lives outside every city limit
The Census Bureau's Vintage 2025 estimates put Burnet County at 57,015, against a 2020 base of 49,125 — a gain of 7,890, or about 16 percent, in five years. The balance of the county, meaning everything outside the nine incorporated places, holds 27,531 of that, or 48 percent. Marble Falls is the largest city at 9,633 and has grown more than a third since 2020; Burnet, the county seat, is 6,939, Granite Shoals 5,498 and Bertram 2,142. The county covers 995 square miles of land, so the unincorporated half is where the acreage is.

U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 county and sub-county population estimates (co-est2025-alldata and sub-est2025); 2025 Census Gazetteer counties file

A permitted septic system dies with a change of use
Inside the LCRA band, a permit to operate terminates automatically if the system is not inspected and approved for continued use when the property changes hands, if the structure is enlarged over the size for which the system was approved, if the property is subdivided, or if the property is used for a purpose other than that described in the original application. At transfer of ownership, and regardless of location, the facility must undergo an approval for continued use inspection — and the LCRA inspects the interior as needed to confirm the floor plan is the same as was previously approved. That last clause is worth reading twice if a guest suite or a let is anywhere in your plans.

LCRA On-Site Sewage Facilities Rules secs. 10.08, 10.09 and 10.10 — https://www.lcra.org/water/permits-contracts/on-site-sewage/

The county taxes short-term lets in the unincorporated area
Burnet County collects a hotel occupancy tax on short-term rentals in the unincorporated area, filed quarterly with payment due by 30 April, 31 July, 31 October and 31 January. The county's own compliance sheet carries the warning that catches people out: AirBnB and VRBO collect state taxes, but not county or city taxes. This is a tax obligation, not a building code — the county was not found to route rental or income-producing residential through any commercial construction track — but it is a real filing that arrives with the first booking.

Burnet County Tourism, Short-Term Rental HOT Compliance Overview — https://www.burnetcountytexas.org/DocumentCenter/View/2431

Ten acres is the line for the well too, but not the way people think
The Central Texas Groundwater Conservation District requires every well in the county to be registered. A new house well on more than ten acres is exempt from permitting, provided it is equipped so that it cannot produce more than 25,000 gallons in 24 hours and it meets the spacing rules. On ten acres or less, the well is not exempt — but the district permits it by rule, so no individual permit is needed, provided it meets spacing, is not part of an aggregate system, and, for a well drilled after 27 March 2024, is equipped so that it cannot produce more than 10,000 gallons a day. The cap on the smaller tract is less than half.

Central Texas Groundwater Conservation District, District Rules as revised 25 August 2026, secs. 3.40 and 3.67 — https://centraltexasgcd.org/groundwater-management/district-rules/

The northeast corner of the county has its own well rules since January 2026
The district created the Northeast Burnet County Trinity Aquifer Management Zone under Water Code sec. 36.116(d), running from the county line along US 281 and Ranch to Market Road 2340 to the North Fork of the San Gabriel River. It reaches only wells completed in the Trinity Aquifer, expressly not the Hickory, Ellenburger-San Saba, Marble Falls, Welge-Lion Mountain or Granite aquifers. Since 23 January 2026 a tract of ten acres or less in the zone may have no more than one Trinity well on it, regardless of when the tract was created. The district's stated reason is low transmissivity, modest to low well productivity, minimal available drawdown and, in places, water quality that may degrade further under increased drawdown.

Central Texas Groundwater Conservation District, District Rules as revised 25 August 2026, Rule 4.05 — https://centraltexasgcd.org/groundwater-management/district-rules/

More than ten acres and no streets means no plat
Burnet County adopted Local Government Code Chapter 232, Subchapter E for its unincorporated area by order of the Commissioners Court on 11 January 2011. Its regulations then carry the statutory exemptions: a division of land outside a municipality is exempt from platting if all the lots are more than 10 acres and the owner lays out no streets, alleys, squares or parks for public or purchaser use. Transfers among people related within the third degree by consanguinity or affinity are also exempt — but the regulations state the clawback plainly, that if any lot goes to someone unrelated, the platting requirements apply.

Burnet County Subdivision Regulations, order adopting Chapter 232 Subchapter E dated 11 January 2011, and the platting exemptions article — https://www.burnetcountytexas.org/DocumentCenter/View/430

A licensed plumber is required whatever the county does
The rural exemption in the Plumbing License Law expressly does not reach plumbing performed in conjunction with new construction. A Texas-licensed plumber is required on a new house on unincorporated land regardless of the county's building-code position, and regardless of the fact that no county inspector is coming to look at the frame. Inside the LCRA band there is a related trap: the LCRA's rules require low-flow fixtures in all new building construction as part of the on-site sewage facility design, so the plumbing specification is enforced through the septic permit.

Texas Occupations Code sec. 1301.052 — https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/OC/htm/OC.1301.htm; LCRA On-Site Sewage Facilities Rules sec. 10.13(a)

The state energy code reaches this land anyway
Health and Safety Code sec. 388.004 obliges a builder outside any municipality to certify that a new single-family house complies with the energy standard and to keep that certification for three years. It applies to unincorporated Burnet County whether or not the county has a building code. Burnet County is climate zone 3A on both the pre-2021 and the 2021 International Residential Code county tables, so the insulation zone here does not depend on which edition anyone adopted — unlike Travis and Williamson Counties next door, which are 2A.

Texas Health and Safety Code ch. 388 secs. 388.003 and 388.004 — https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/HS/htm/HS.388.htm; International Residential Code Chapter 11 [RE] Texas county tables, compared across editions; Burnet County FIPS 48053

A culvert is a site meeting with your county commissioner
Burnet County's Road Access Permit Application does not let you pick a pipe. Culvert location, length and diameter will be specified by the precinct commissioner or their designee during a site meeting. The applicant supplies all materials, labour, equipment and installation to county specification, maintains the culvert afterwards, and may not erect any sign or permanent structure on the right of way — the mail receptacle location is decided at the same meeting. The building permit application asks twice whether the property needs an entrance onto a county road.

Burnet County Road Access Permit Application — https://www.burnetcountytexas.org/DocumentCenter/View/2282; Burnet County Building Permit Application — https://www.burnetcountytexas.org/DocumentCenter/View/1150

An excavator grading a compacted building pad on a cleared lot, with survey stakes and a drainage swale visible.
Below the slab

The expensive surprises are in the ground, not the building

What moves a Texas budget is usually below grade, and it is soil rather than rock: shrink-swell clay. The Blackland Prairie and the Gulf Coast clays move enough between a wet season and a dry one to drive the foundation design across the state's largest markets, which is why several DFW cities require an engineer's seal on the foundation of every new house. Those are the same conditions that decide whether a septic field passes its soil and site evaluation, so the grading plan, the foundation and the drainfield get resolved together rather than one at a time. We price the dirt before we price the building.

What we build in Burnet County

All nine of our services — kits, custom plans, post-frame and steel construction, site preparation, permitting and engineering, through to turnkey builds — are available across Burnet County. What a project costs depends far more on the parcel than on square footage, so we work from your land rather than from a rate card.

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What a build looks like

Three stages every Burnet County project passes through, from a raw parcel to a finished home. Site work first, because that is where the budget is decided.

Aerial view of an undeveloped rural lot with cleared grass, a live oak and cedar elm treeline, and a pale gravel access track.
Stage one

The parcel

Zoning, setbacks, flood zone and utility access get checked before anything is drawn.

An excavator grading a compacted building pad on a cleared lot, with survey stakes and a drainage swale visible.
Stage two

Pad and permit

Clearing, grading and a compacted pad, while the submittal works through Burnet County.

A finished barndominium at dusk with warm interior lighting glowing through its large windows.
Stage three

Frame to finish

Shell erected and dried in, then systems, insulation and interior finish through to CO.

Those are the rules for Burnet County. Tell us what you want to build and we will draw it to them.

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Where we build around Burnet County

Burnet County and the rural land around it. The buildable acreage for a project this size usually sits outside the city limits, which is frequently what changes who issues your permit.

Our Burnet County service area, covering Burnet County and the surrounding rural acreage. This map marks the territory we serve, not a branch location.

Keep reading

The questions that usually come next once you know what Burnet County allows.

Barndominium Cost Guide

Sourced per-square-foot ranges by tier and by size, with a calculator built on the same figures.

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Is It Legal in Texas?

Classification, zoning, the HOA gate, and why "nonresidential farm building" does not cover a home.

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How Long Does It Take?

Census build-duration data, and what actually sets the permit clock where you are building.

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Nearby areas we build in

Others we cover in this part of Texas. The permitting authority, the adopted design criteria and the zoning can all differ from one to the next.

Gillespie County

Gillespie County
Williamson County

Williamson County
Travis County

Travis County
Georgetown

Williamson County

Building in Burnet County: common questions

10 questions we get asked most often about building in Burnet County. If yours is not on the list, ask it directly.

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Does Burnet County have a building code, and do I need a permit?
Those are two different questions and they get different answers. On the permit, yes: the county's own page says Burnet County requires building and septic permits, and the building permit comes first — you must have it in order to get the septic permit. A Class A permit, for land outside any flood hazard area, is 25 dollars and needs nothing but the one-page application and payment. A Class B permit, inside a designated flood hazard boundary, is 400 dollars and needs an elevation certificate from your surveyor or a letter from your engineer. On the code, the honest answer is that we could not establish one. A Texas county has no general building-code power in its unincorporated area unless its commissioners court adopted Chapter 233, Subchapter F of the Local Government Code, and Burnet County publishes no searchable minutes archive in which to look. Everything the county does publish points the other way — no edition named anywhere, no inspector list, no construction-notice forms, and the county's own note against the Class A permit saying no inspections are required for the structure. Call Development Services on 512-715-5260 and ask them directly.
Who permits my septic system — the county or the LCRA?
It depends on how close you are to the water, and it is the first thing to check. TCEQ's authorised-agent database returns nine records for Burnet County, and one of them is the Lower Colorado River Authority, whose area covers the Restricted and Water Quality Zones of Lakes Buchanan, Inks, Lyndon B. Johnson, Marble Falls and Travis. The county's own order steps back from it: its rules apply to all the area lying in Burnet County except for the area regulated under an existing Rule and the areas within incorporated cities. Its subdivision regulations go further and name the LCRA outright, telling developments wholly or partly inside the LCRA water quality zone to use the LCRA's requirements for lot sizing and to comply with the LCRA's on-site sewage facility regulations. Geometrically, the LCRA's Restricted Zone runs 200 feet from a named contour on each lake, and the Water Quality Zone another 2,000 feet beyond that — 2,200 feet in total on the upper Highland Lakes, as the LCRA states on its own programme page. Inside a city limit the answer may change again: Marble Falls, Burnet, Cottonwood Shores and Granite Shoals each have their own record. The LCRA publishes a jurisdiction map and Burnet County itself links to it. Look at your parcel on that map before you do anything else.
Does having more than ten acres get me out of the septic permit?
Not in this county, and both authorities say so in their own text. The Burnet County On-Site Sewage Facility Order lists exactly three rules that are stricter than the state's, and the first is that Burnet County will permit and inspect all on-site systems regardless of the size of the tract of land the on-site system is situated upon — with the county's own reason given, the rapid development of property and the abundance of streams, creeks and ponds. The LCRA rules say the same for their own band: regardless of the lot or tract size, a permit is required prior to construction or installation. The wider misconception is worth clearing up too. TCEQ said in its own 2023 rulemaking that the old ten-acre wording had been misinterpreted as meaning single-family dwellings on ten acres or more were exempt from the entirety of the septic rules. Even where it applies, it relieves a tract of the paperwork and the inspection. It never relieved anyone of the standards.
The ground here is rock, not clay. What does that do to the septic system?
It changes which system you can have, and there is no percolation test in Texas to argue with — soil is classified by texture and the depth to a restrictive horizon does the rest. The LCRA's published guidance puts the test plainly: where the site evaluator or engineer finds unsuitable soils, groundwater, or a restrictive horizon less than two feet below the bottom of the proposed drain field, a conventional soil absorption system cannot be used. Its rules then set the standard inside the Restricted Zones of Buchanan, Inks, Lyndon B. Johnson and Marble Falls, where a discharge more than 75 feet from the top of the normal operating range is lawful only into something generating secondary quality effluent — an aerobic unit, an intermittently pressure dosed sand filter or another approved method — with three feet of suitable soil allowed as a substitute alongside a low pressure dosing system. Surface irrigation areas in those zones need at least one foot of Class Ib, II or III soil above a restrictive horizon. Practically: get the site evaluation early, expect the profile holes to be dug with a backhoe, and budget for an engineered or aerobic system as the likely answer rather than the exception.
I want the shop bay conditioned. Does that make my drainfield bigger?
Inside the LCRA band it very well might, and this is one of the few places in Texas where the answer is written down. Sizing keys off bedrooms or living area, whichever gives the higher figure. The LCRA's order then defines a bedroom as a room which serves, or could serve, for overnight sleeping and which is heated and/or cooled and has adequate size, privacy, and a closet — and adds that a room which serves for overnight sleeping or contains a bed is a bedroom regardless of the presence or absence of a closet. Read that against a barndominium with a heated and cooled bonus room over the shop and you can see the problem: it could serve for overnight sleeping, so it counts, whatever you call it on the plan. Burnet County's own order does not carry that definition, and lists its departures from the state rules exhaustively, so on the county side of the line the state approach applies. Two answers in one county, decided by which side of the 2,200-foot line your tract falls on. The LCRA requires floor plans with the application and inspects the interior at transfer of ownership to confirm the floor plan is the same as was previously approved, so this is not a paper distinction.
Is Burnet County over the Edwards Aquifer? Do I need a TCEQ plan?
No, and that is worth knowing precisely because two of Burnet's neighbours are. TCEQ names the counties where construction over the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone is regulated and there are eight of them: Williamson, Travis, Hays, Comal, Bexar, Medina, Uvalde and Kinney. Its rule definitions describe both the aquifer itself and the contributing zone by reference to that same list. Burnet is not on it. So there is no Water Pollution Abatement Plan and no Contributing Zone Plan on a Burnet parcel, and no Chapter 213 approval to obtain. The geology is different here — this is the eastern edge of the Llano Uplift, and the district that regulates wells in the county names five aquifers under it, the Hickory, Ellenburger-San Saba, Marble Falls, Welge-Lion Mountain and Granite, alongside the Trinity. What does apply near the lakes, and is easy to confuse with the Edwards programme, is the LCRA's Highland Lakes Watershed Ordinance.
What about the water well?
Every well in the county must be registered with the Central Texas Groundwater Conservation District, whose boundaries are exactly Burnet County's. Beyond registration, a house well usually escapes an individual permit. On more than ten acres it is exempt from permitting outright, provided it is equipped so that it cannot produce more than 25,000 gallons in 24 hours and meets the spacing rules. On ten acres or less it is technically not exempt, but the district permits it by rule so no individual permit is needed — provided it meets spacing, is not part of an aggregate system, and, if drilled after 27 March 2024, is equipped so that it cannot produce more than 10,000 gallons a day. Where the district really bites is minimum tract size, and it varies by aquifer: 1 acre over the Hickory, Ellenburger-San Saba, Marble Falls, Welge-Lion Mountain and Granite aquifers, 2 acres over the Trinity, and 10 acres over the Trinity inside the Northeast Burnet County Trinity Aquifer Management Zone for a tract platted after 23 January 2026. In that zone, a tract of ten acres or less may now have only one Trinity well on it. Register the well and ask the district which aquifer your driller is aiming at.
So if there is no building code, is there anything that inspects the build?
Several things, and none of them is a building inspector. The septic permit is the one that looks hardest at the house — the LCRA requires floor plans of the proposed structures, a survey, a soil analysis, a floodplain compliance letter from the floodplain administrator, and profile holes dug and clean before the site visit, then inspects the installation in stages. The floodplain order requires a professional engineer, architect or land surveyor to certify the lowest floor elevation on anything built in a special flood hazard area. The Highland Lakes Watershed Ordinance requires notification before any land-disturbing work, and a development permit once impervious cover passes 10,000 square feet or disturbance passes an acre. Burnet County Emergency Services District No. 2 has adopted the 2018 International Fire Code with a fire code official who can review plans and issue stop work orders, and its amendments reach access roads and even gates — ask the district how it applies to a house. Your driveway culvert is specified by your precinct commissioner at a site meeting. And on top of all of it sit the restrictions recorded against your own tract, which on Hill Country acreage are frequently the only thing that actually stops a build.
Does renting it out change anything?
Not the building code, as far as we could establish — Burnet County was not found to route rental or income-producing residential through a separate commercial construction track, unlike some Texas counties. But two real things change. First, the county collects a hotel occupancy tax on short-term rentals in the unincorporated area, filed quarterly, with the county's own compliance sheet warning that AirBnB and VRBO collect state taxes but not county or city taxes. Second, and more serious, if your septic system sits inside the LCRA band its permit to operate terminates automatically if the property is used for a purpose other than that described in the original application, or if the structure is enlarged over the size for which the system was approved. If a guest house, a let or an eventual income use is anywhere in your thinking, say so at the septic application stage rather than after.
Is this the shrink-swell clay everyone warns about around Waco and Dallas?
No, and porting that story here would be wrong. The expansive Blackland Prairie clay that removes the engineering exemption for a slab along the I-35 corridor is a different soil belt, and the federal soil survey names Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, San Marcos, Temple and Waco as sitting in it. Burnet County does not. This is the Llano Uplift and the eastern edge of the Edwards Plateau — granite and limestone, thin soil over rock, with the county describing its own terrain as rolling hills with local deep and dense dissections at 700 to 1,700 feet above sea level. That does not make foundation design a non-question; it makes it a different one, and one that is answered tract by tract by a geotechnical investigation rather than county-wide. Shallow bedrock brings its own costs, in rock excavation for footings and trenches rather than in slab movement. The parcel-level source anyone can check for themselves is the NRCS Web Soil Survey, and an engineer-sealed foundation design remains the sensible default on any barndominium slab whatever the report says.

Building in Burnet County?

Start with the plan. Tell us what you want to build and we will draw it, then confirm what Burnet County will actually let you put on the parcel and what wind load it has to meet. That conversation costs nothing.

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