Gently rolling Blackland Prairie grassland with deep dark cracking clay soil in the foreground and post oak along a fence line.
Dallas County 2015 IRC as adopted here

Barndominium Builders in Garland, TX

Garland is 56.9 square miles of Dallas County that filled in decades ago — about 4,400 people to the square mile, an industrial base, its own electric utility, and a street grid with very little left to subdivide. Almost nobody puts a barndominium on a Garland lot, and the honest answer is that the acreage a barndominium wants starts east of here: Rockwall County across Lake Ray Hubbard, Kaufman County about fifteen miles southeast down Highway 80, Hunt County beyond Rowlett. What makes Garland worth reading anyway is that it is a working reference point. It publishes a full, completed Table R301.2 — 115 mph wind, 6-inch frost line, a "Very Heavy" termite rating — and it sits on the 2015 IRC, which puts it in climate zone 3A while the City of Dallas next door is 2A. Cross the county line and the whole permitting picture changes again.

Garland at a glance

County
Dallas County
Population
249,625
Where we build
Garland, Dallas, Irving, Grand Prairie, Mesquite

ZIPs 75040, 75041, 75042, 75043, 75044

Site visits
On-site visits across Garland and the wider Dallas County
Start your project

Building conditions in Garland

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 Garland , Dallas County, Texas : design wind speed 115 mph. BUILD CONDITIONS GARLAND, TXDallas County2015 IRCDESIGN WIND SPEED115 mphThree-second gust (76 mph fastest mile), from the Table R301.2(1) values Garland completed in itsown IRC amendments.ZONING · AG, SF-E, SF-10, SF-7, SF-587,120 sq ft (2 acres) in AG; 30,000…AG is Garland's only acreage district and the code describes it as aholding classification for land not yet ready for development,…NEW SINGLE-FAMILY BUILDING PERMIT$0.52 per square foot of roofed area…Includes the mechanical, electrical and plumbing fees.Foundation-only permit $140; residential grading permit $70 per lot…WHO ISSUES THE PERMITCity of Garland Building Inspection…Development & Permitting Center, 800 Main Street, Garland, TX 75040(mail P.O. Box 469002, Garland, TX 75046-9002); office and…
Build conditions for Garland, drawn from the sourced facts on this page. Every figure above is cited in the quick-facts panel below, with its source and vintage.
Adopted residential code
The 2015 International Residential Code, adopted by Ordinance 6850, § 12 on 16 August 2016 and effective 19 September 2016. Garland adopts appendices A, B, C and G and does not adopt Part VIII, the electrical provisions.

City of Garland Code of Ordinances § 30.225 (Chapter 30, Article XIII); City of Garland, Building Inspection — Current Model Codes

Climate zone 3A — and Dallas next door is 2A
Garland runs the 2015 IRC and the 2015 IECC, and that pair of editions carries the pre-2021 climate-zone map, on which Dallas County is zone 3A. The City of Dallas moved to 2A only because it adopted the 2021 edition. Same county, two different insulation specs, decided entirely by which edition each city adopted.

City of Garland Code of Ordinances § 30.225 and Building Inspection — Current Model Codes; U.S. Department of Energy / PNNL-33270 climate-zone maps

Design wind speed
115 mph three-second gust, equivalent to 76 mph fastest mile. Topographic effects: no. Special wind region: no. Wind-borne debris zone: no.

City of Garland, 2015 International Residential Code Amendments, Table R301.2(1) as completed by the City

Termite hazard: Very Heavy
Garland fills the termite cell of Table R301.2(1) in as "Very Heavy" — the highest rating, and the one that shuts off the use of foam plastic below grade at the foundation. It is a published city figure, not an estimate.

City of Garland, 2015 International Residential Code Amendments, Table R301.2(1)

Sprinklers above 5,000 square feet
Garland rewrote IRC R313.2 rather than deleting it: an automatic sprinkler system is required in any structure with more than 5,000 square feet of enclosed floor area, counting connected dwelling units together regardless of fire-rated separation. Areas under patio covers and carports are excluded. A house-plus-shop building reaches that threshold easily.

City of Garland, 2015 International Residential Code Amendments, § R313.2

Minimum lot area by district
AG, the only acreage district, requires 87,120 square feet — exactly two acres — with 150 ft of width and depth and 30% maximum coverage. SF-E requires 30,000 sq ft, SF-10 requires 10,000, SF-7 requires 7,000 and SF-5 requires 5,000. AG is described in the code as a holding district for land not yet ready for development, floodplain, and newly annexed ground.

Garland Development Code, Chapter 2, Attachment 2, Table 2-3 (Single-Family Residential District Standards) and § 2.35

Also worth knowing before you build in Garland

The rest of Garland's Table R301.2(1)
Ground snow load 5 lb/ft². Frost line depth 6 inches. Weathering moderate. Seismic design category A. Winter design temperature 22°F. Ice barrier underlayment: no. Air freezing index 69. Mean annual temperature 64.6°F. Flood hazards: local code. These are Garland's own numbers — the air freezing index and mean annual temperature differ from the City of Dallas's published values.

City of Garland, 2015 International Residential Code Amendments, Table R301.2(1)

Published permit fee
A new single-family permit is charged at $0.52 per square foot of roofed area with an $800 minimum, and that figure already includes the mechanical, electrical and plumbing fees. Foundation-only is $140 per building, a residential grading permit $70 per lot, a reinspection $70, and plan revision or restamping $44 an hour. Because the fee keys off roofed area, a large shop bay is charged the same way as living space.

City of Garland Master Fee and Rate Schedule, Code of Ordinances § 10.85, Chapter 30 building inspection schedule

A bare metal skin is not permitted
Garland's building chapter states that unpainted materials such as wood, tin, plain concrete block or similar materials shall not be used as exterior wall or roof covering on residential or commercial buildings. A mill-finish metal exterior does not comply; a finished, coated panel system does.

City of Garland Code of Ordinances § 30.05 (Exterior materials)

Contractor registration is a precondition of the permit
Garland makes it unlawful for anyone not registered with the City as a general contractor to obtain a building permit, and separately requires building, electrical, mechanical, roofing, irrigation, fire sprinkler and plumbing contractors to register with the Building Inspection Department. A homeowner may pull permits for work on a residence they own without hiring a registered general contractor.

City of Garland Code of Ordinances § 30.07; City of Garland, 2015 IRC Amendments, § R105.10

Engineered foundations — where Garland actually requires one
Garland does not require an engineer for every foundation. Its amendments require a Texas-licensed professional structural engineer to design any post-tensioned foundation, and any foundation repair, with construction certified by a special inspector or the designing engineer. The Building Official may also accept an engineer-designed alternative in place of the prescriptive rules. Separately, Texas law removes the engineering exemption for a slab on expansive soil, and Garland sits on Blackland Prairie clay.

City of Garland, 2015 IRC Amendments, §§ R401.1, 401.2.1 and R401.2.2; Texas Occupations Code § 1001.056(c)(2)

Kaufman County is the fastest-growing county in the DFW ring
Kaufman County, roughly fifteen miles southeast of Garland, grew from 147,165 in 2020 to 209,235 in 2025 — up 42.2%. Rockwall County, immediately east across Lake Ray Hubbard, rose 28.9% to 140,738 and Hunt County to the northeast 23.0% to 123,336. Dallas County over the same five years grew 1.9%, and Garland itself 1.3%.

U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 county and sub-county population estimates

Cross into unincorporated Kaufman County and the regime changes
Kaufman County's Commissioners Court adopted an order requiring Subchapter F of Chapter 233 of the Local Government Code in its unincorporated area, recorded 24 March 2022, with new residential construction to comply with the International Residential Code in use by the City of Kaufman. Subchapter F is a code without a counter: no county building permit, no county fee and no county inspector. The builder arranges the three required inspections privately, from a licensed engineer, registered architect, TREC professional inspector, municipal plumbing inspector, political-subdivision building inspector or ICC residential combination inspector.

Order of the Commissioners Court of Kaufman County requiring the application of Subchapter F of Chapter 233, Kaufman County Clerk instrument 2022-0011386, filed 24 March 2022; Texas Local Government Code §§ 233.153 and 233.154

Garland is built out, and the numbers say so
56.857 square miles of land and 249,625 people — about 4,390 to the square mile — with population up 1.3% over five years. Garland also crosses into Collin and Rockwall counties, not just Dallas County.

U.S. Census Bureau 2025 Gazetteer place file and Vintage 2025 population estimates; U.S. Census Bureau 2020 place-by-county reference file

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 Garland

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 Dallas 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.

See what we build

What a build looks like

Three stages every Garland 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 Dallas 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 Dallas County. Tell us what you want to build and we will draw it to them.

Start your project

Where we build around Garland

Dallas 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 Garland service area, covering Dallas 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 Garland allows.

Barndominium Cost Guide

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

Read it

Is It Legal in Texas?

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

Read it

How Long Does It Take?

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

Read it

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.

Dallas

Dallas County
Mesquite

Dallas County
Richardson

Dallas County
Kaufman County

Kaufman County

Building in Garland: common questions

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

Start your project
Can you actually build a barndominium in Garland?
Inside the city limits, rarely — and we would rather say so. Garland is 56.9 square miles carrying about 4,390 people per square mile, and its residential districts are sized for houses: 5,000 to 30,000 square feet a lot. The one acreage district, AG, has a two-acre minimum but the code itself describes AG as a holding classification for land not yet ready for development, floodplain and other undevelopable ground, and newly annexed land. And since 1 September 2025 a previously unplatted tract of five acres or more is developed to a 3,000 square foot minimum lot, which is a subdivision standard, not an acreage one. Where Garland does work is on an existing large lot, a replacement build, or a shop-and-living-space structure on ground you already own. For a barndominium on land, look east.
Which code does Garland enforce, and what climate zone does that put me in?
The 2015 International Residential Code, adopted by Ordinance 6850 and effective 19 September 2016, codified at § 30.225. Garland deletes the IRC's own energy chapter and points compliance at the 2015 International Energy Conservation Code, so structural and insulation requirements come from the same edition year. That matters more than it sounds: the 2015 editions carry the pre-2021 climate-zone map, on which Dallas County is zone 3A. The City of Dallas is zone 2A because it adopted the 2021 edition. Two cities, one county, two insulation specs. An envelope designed to a 2A table is not a Garland envelope.
Will my building need fire sprinklers?
If it encloses more than 5,000 square feet, yes. Garland did not delete the residential sprinkler section the way several Texas cities have — it rewrote R313.2 to require an automatic sprinkler system in any structure with more than 5,000 square feet of enclosed floor area, and it counts physically connected dwelling units together regardless of fire-rated separation. Areas under patio covers and carports are excluded. For a barndominium that is the threshold to design around from the first sketch, because the shop bay counts. It also interacts with the permit fee, which Garland charges per square foot of roofed area.
What changes if I buy land in unincorporated Kaufman County instead?
Almost everything about how the build is policed. Kaufman County's Commissioners Court adopted an order in March 2022 requiring Subchapter F of Chapter 233 of the Local Government Code in the unincorporated county, with new residential construction complying with the International Residential Code in use by the City of Kaufman. Subchapter F is deliberately toothless: the county cannot require prior approval before construction starts, cannot charge a fee to enforce it, and employs no residential building inspector. You arrange the three required inspections yourself — foundation before concrete, framing and mechanical before covering, and completion — from a licensed engineer, a registered architect, a TREC professional inspector, a municipal plumbing inspector, a political-subdivision building inspector, or an ICC residential combination inspector. There is no zoning either. Kaufman also grew 42.2% between 2020 and 2025, which is why the land is being cut up in the first place.
So outside a city there are no rules?
No, and that misreading costs people money. Four things still bind on rural land east of Garland. The county issues the on-site sewage facility permit and the system has to be installed by a TCEQ-licensed installer — in Texas capacity is sized off living area, not the whole footprint, and there is no percolation test. Floodplain development is regulated by county order regardless of any building code. Plumbing on a new residence must be done by a state-licensed plumber; that requirement survives the county code vacuum entirely. And the state energy code reaches unincorporated Texas even where a county building code does not, with a certification required at completion. Add private deed restrictions, which Texas courts enforce and which are frequently stricter about metal buildings than any city ordinance.
Does Garland require an engineer for the foundation?
Not for every foundation — Garland is not Arlington on this point. Its amendments require a Texas-licensed professional structural engineer for any post-tensioned foundation and for any foundation repair, with the finished work certified by a special inspector or by the designing engineer, and they let the Building Official accept an engineer-designed alternative in place of the prescriptive rules. That said, most slabs here end up engineered anyway: Garland sits on Blackland Prairie clay, and Texas law removes the residential engineering exemption for a slab on expansive soil. The IRC reaches the same place through its expansive-soil provisions. Budget for a soils report and an engineered slab and you will rarely be wrong.
Can the building have a bare galvanized metal exterior?
Not in Garland. The city's building chapter states that unpainted materials such as wood, tin, plain concrete block or similar materials shall not be used as exterior wall or roof covering on residential or commercial buildings. A mill-finish or bare galvanized panel is out; a factory-finished, coated metal panel system is a different product and is a normal way to satisfy this. Roof covering is separately limited to Class A, B or C materials. This is a city ordinance rather than an IRC provision, so it is exactly the kind of rule that disappears the moment you cross into unincorporated county land — where a private deed restriction may reimpose something similar.
Who issues the permit in Garland and what does it cost?
The Building Inspection Department at the Development & Permitting Center, 800 Main Street, on (972) 205-2300. A new single-family permit is charged at $0.52 per square foot of roofed area with an $800 minimum, and that already covers the mechanical, electrical and plumbing fees; foundation-only is $140, a residential grading permit $70 per lot, a reinspection $70. Water and roadway impact fees are assessed separately by the Planning Department. Before a permit is released the general contractor must hold a current City of Garland contractor registration, as must the electrical, mechanical, plumbing, roofing, irrigation and fire sprinkler contractors — a homeowner may permit work on a home they own without one. A permit lapses two years after issue if no progress is made.

Building in Garland?

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

Start your project