The flat short-grass High Plains of the Texas Panhandle, with a shallow playa basin holding water and pale caliche showing on a low rise.
Wichita County 2015 IRC as adopted here

Barndominium Builders in Wichita Falls, TX

Wichita Falls is a slightly shrinking city — 101,951 at the Census Bureau's 2025 estimate, down from 102,283 in 2020, across 72.2 square miles — and its zoning says plainly what it is. SF-1, the district the code itself calls large lot, takes 8,500 square feet. There is no agricultural district and no acreage minimum anywhere in the zoning appendix, so a barndominium on real land here is nearly always a project for the five-mile extraterritorial jurisdiction or for unincorporated Wichita, Archer or Clay County rather than for a city lot. Two things follow you out there. The city plats in all three counties and publishes a separate fee schedule for each. And the airport zoning in section 6400, adopted under the Airport Zoning Act, applies by its own terms inside the limits, in the extraterritorial jurisdiction, and on unincorporated land that falls in an accident potential, noise or height zone around Sheppard Air Force Base.

Wichita Falls at a glance

County
Wichita County
Population
101,951
Where we build
Wichita Falls, Wichita County, Amarillo, Abilene

ZIPs 76301, 76302, 76305, 76306, 76308, 76309, 76310

Site visits
Site walks scheduled throughout Wichita Falls and Wichita County

Building conditions in Wichita Falls

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 Wichita Falls , Wichita County, Texas . BUILD CONDITIONS WICHITA FALLS, TXWichita County2015 IRCADOPTED RESIDENTIAL CODE2015 IRCThis jurisdiction publishes no design wind speed. It is settled in writing with the authority overyour parcel before the frame is ordered.ZONING · SF-1 SINGLE-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL DISTR…SF-1: 8,500 sq ft minimum lot area f…SF-1 is the largest-lot residential district in the ordinance andthe purpose clause describes it as suitable where there are large…PUBLISHED PLANNING DIVISION FEES FOR PLATTING…Final plat up to five acres: $295.00…From the Planning Division's 2026 schedule and fees sheet, revised 5January 2026. A preliminary plat up to five acres in Wichita County…WHO ISSUES THE PERMITCity of Wichita Falls, Building and…1300 7th Street, P.O. Box 1431, Wichita Falls, TX 76307. Telephone(940) 761-7459, fax (940) 761-7461. The Planning Division, which…
Build conditions for Wichita Falls, 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
2015 International Residential Code, adopted at Section 22-700 by Ordinance 57-2015, sec. 5, on 1 December 2015 and effective 1 January 2016 — and adopted by chapter, not whole: Chapters 2 through 10, 44 and Appendices F, I and J. Still current in a code published through Ordinance No. 33-2026 of 4 August 2026

City of Wichita Falls Code of Ordinances, Ch. 22, Art. XI, Secs. 22-700 and 22-701 (eCode360, current through Ord. No. 33-2026 adopted 4 August 2026); City of Wichita Falls, Adopted Building Codes and Amendments

The city amends the residential code in four places, and one of them removes an option
The codified 2015 IRC amendments attachment to Chapter 22 runs to a single page and four sections: R302.5.1, R317.1, R703.8.3 and R703.8.3.1. The last is the one that changes a design. The model code lets masonry veneer over an opening comply with either the allowable-span table at R703.8.3.1 or the 18 ft 3 in maximum-span route at R703.8.3.2; Wichita Falls deletes the second and requires Table R703.8.3.1. R317.1 also drops the model's sills-and-sleepers item from the list of locations needing naturally durable or treated wood

City of Wichita Falls Code of Ordinances, Ch. 22 attachment, IRC 2015 Amendments (eCode360, page 22-R:1)

Sheppard Air Force Base can decide whether a house is allowed at all
The land use compatibility table at Section 6485 marks a detached single-family dwelling as not compatible in the clear zone and in Accident Potential Zone I, permitted in Accident Potential Zone II subject to note 1 — a maximum density of one to two dwelling units per acre, or lot coverage under 20 percent, whichever is greater — and not permitted above 75 dB DNL, with sound-attenuation conditions in the 65 to 75 dB bands. Section 6465 requires a permit to construct a structure in any accident potential, noise or height restriction zone, and Section 6410 applies the regulations to unincorporated areas inside those zones

City of Wichita Falls Code of Ordinances, App. B Zoning, Secs. 6410, 6465 and 6485, and the AICUZ study for Sheppard Air Force Base referenced there (Ord. 155-94 adopted 20 December 1994; Ord. 32-2001 adopted 3 April 2001; Ord. 8-2006 adopted 7 February 2006)

The shop setback is the height of the shop
Section 6516 sets accessory building setbacks at five feet minimum from a common rear property line for a building over 150 square feet and five feet on an interior side — except that when the wall height exceeds eight feet or the total height exceeds 15 feet, the setback shall be equal to the total height. A shop bay tall enough for an overhead door crosses both limbs, so the building's own height becomes its clearance to the line. Section 6516 also lets the Commission grant an exception where the accessory building is of the same or similar style, uses materials that resemble, and has the same detailing as the primary structure

City of Wichita Falls Code of Ordinances, App. B Zoning, Secs. 6515 and 6516 (Ordinance 24-2003, sec. 1, adopted 1 April 2003)

What the ground does under a Wichita County slab
Kamay silt loam is the county's single largest map unit at 50,493 acres, and USDA soil survey data give it 20 percent clay with a plasticity index of 13 for the first 25 centimetres, then 42.5 percent clay and a plasticity index of 29 for the two metres below. Tillman clay loam, the second largest at 41,165 acres, does not wait: 28 percent clay and a plasticity index of 22 at the surface, rising to 30. Vernon and Knoco read 50 percent clay and a plasticity index of 23 to 31 from the surface down. This is not caliche country and it is not sand

USDA-NRCS Soil Data Access (SSURGO), survey area TX485 Wichita County, map units 373360, 373387, 373335 and 373395, queried 1 September 2026

One foot of freeboard, and a fill rule named for the river
Section 54-92(1) requires new construction and substantial improvement of a residential structure to have the lowest floor, including basement, elevated one foot or more above the base flood elevation, certified by a registered professional engineer, architect or land surveyor. The maps are the FEMA Flood Insurance Study and flood insurance rate map effective 3 February 2010. A floodplain development permit is required, and Section 54-64(b)(11) makes the floodplain administrator weigh the effect of any additional or accumulative fill on the 100-year floodplain of the Wichita River, with compensatory storage possible to offset it

City of Wichita Falls Code of Ordinances, Ch. 54, Art. II, Secs. 54-31, 54-63, 54-64 and 54-92 (Ordinance 16-2022 adopted 17 May 2022)

Also worth knowing before you build in Wichita Falls

The district the code calls large lot is 8,500 square feet
SF-1 Single-Family Residential District (Large Lot) takes a minimum lot area of 8,500 square feet, 60 feet of lot width, a 35-foot height limit, 50 percent maximum building coverage and one primary dwelling unit per lot. It is the largest-lot residential district in the ordinance. There is no agricultural district, no estate district and no district measured in acres anywhere in Appendix B — so acreage here means the extraterritorial jurisdiction or the unincorporated county, not a city lot

City of Wichita Falls Code of Ordinances, App. B Zoning, Secs. 3050, 3060 and 3080 (Ordinance 30-2022 adopted 16 August 2022)

Storm shelters — what the adopted code actually says
Section R323 of the 2015 IRC is adopted and unamended. It does not require a storm shelter. It is a scope provision: it applies to the construction of storm shelters built as separate detached buildings or as safe rooms within buildings, and where one is built it must be constructed in accordance with ICC/NSSA-500. The one mandate in the adopted code books is in the building code, at Section 423.4, and it reaches Group E occupancies — schools — not dwellings. Separately, the Wichita Falls Fire Department runs a voluntary online storm shelter registration so responders know where shelters are

City of Wichita Falls Code of Ordinances, Ch. 22 attachment, IRC 2015 Amendments; City of Wichita Falls, Adopted Building Codes and Amendments (2015 IBC Sec. 423.4); City of Wichita Falls Fire Department, Storm Shelter Registration

Residential fire sprinklers
Wichita Falls did not delete IRC Section R313, so on the face of the adopted code the 2015 edition's R313.2 stands as written. The state statute is what answers the question: Occupations Code Section 1301.551(i) provides that after 1 January 2009 a municipality may not enact an ordinance, bylaw, order, building code or rule requiring the installation of a fire sprinkler protection system in a new or existing one- or two-family dwelling, while allowing a city to let a contractor offer one for a fee. Because the city wrote nothing local either way, ask Building and Code Administration how it applies to your plan set

City of Wichita Falls Code of Ordinances, Ch. 22, Sec. 22-701 and the Ch. 22 IRC 2015 Amendments attachment; Texas Occupations Code Sec. 1301.551(i)

A five-mile extraterritorial jurisdiction that crosses three counties
At 101,951 people the city falls in the top bracket of Local Government Code Section 42.021(a), which gives a five-mile extraterritorial jurisdiction. The Planning Division's own 2026 fee sheet proves where that reaches: it publishes plat fees in three columns — Wichita County, Archer County and Clay County — with a final plat up to five acres at $295.00 in Wichita and Archer and $523.00 in Clay. A city cannot enforce its building code in the extraterritorial jurisdiction, but it does plat there

Texas Local Government Code Sec. 42.021(a); City of Wichita Falls Planning Division, 2026 Schedule and Fees, revised 5 January 2026; U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 subcounty population estimates, GEOID 4879000

The city registers contractors — and that is not a state licence
Building and Code Administration issues a contractor registration that expires one year from the date issued, on a form that has the applicant acknowledge it is unlawful to start work requiring a permit before the permit is issued, or to occupy a new structure before the building, electrical, gas, plumbing, mechanical and fire protection systems are inspected and a certificate of occupancy is issued. Code compliance bonds of $25,000, $50,000 and $100,000 are separate forms. Texas has no state licence for a residential building contractor at all, so a city registration is exactly what it says and nothing more

City of Wichita Falls Building and Code Administration, Application for Contractors Registration; City of Wichita Falls, Building Forms, Fees and Applications

Climate zone 3A, and an energy chapter the city did not adopt
Wichita County is climate zone 3A on both the pre-2021 and the 2021 and 2024 maps, so the zone does not shift with the edition quoted — unlike eight Texas counties where it does. The city's own adoption stops at IRC Chapter 10, leaving out Chapter 11, the energy efficiency chapter, and its adopted codes list names a 2006 IECC. Health and Safety Code Section 388.003(a) is the governing rule for a house: the energy efficiency chapter of the IRC as it existed on 1 May 2015, effective 1 September 2016

U.S. Department of Energy / PNNL climate zone assignments for Wichita County, FIPS 48485; City of Wichita Falls Code of Ordinances Sec. 22-700; City of Wichita Falls, Adopted Building Codes and Amendments; Texas Health and Safety Code Sec. 388.003(a)

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 Wichita Falls

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 Wichita 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 Wichita Falls 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 Wichita 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 Wichita County. Tell us what you want to build and we will draw it to them.

Where we build around Wichita Falls

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

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.

Building in Wichita Falls: common questions

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

What building code does Wichita Falls use, and has the city changed it?
The 2015 International Residential Code, adopted at Section 22-700 of the Code of Ordinances by Ordinance 57-2015, section 5, on 1 December 2015, with an effective date of 1 January 2016. Read the adopting sentence carefully, because it adopts by chapter rather than whole: Chapters 2 through 10, 44 and Appendices F, I and J. It is still the current edition — the published code runs through Ordinance No. 33-2026 adopted 4 August 2026 and Article XI has not moved, and a council agenda of 15 November 2022 shows the city amending portions of the 2015 Mechanical and Residential Codes rather than replacing them. The local changes are unusually few. Section 22-701 puts them in an attachment to Chapter 22, and that attachment is one page long: R302.5.1, R317.1, R703.8.3 and R703.8.3.1. Everything else in the adopted chapters stands as the 2015 IRC wrote it.
Which of those four amendments actually changes a drawing?
R703.8.3 and R703.8.3.1, and it takes something away. In the model code, masonry veneer above an opening can be built to either the allowable-span table at R703.8.3.1 or the alternative at R703.8.3.2, which permits spans up to 18 feet 3 inches using a steel angle, double-wire joint reinforcement and seven days of shoring. Wichita Falls deletes that alternative and requires compliance with Table R703.8.3.1. A wide masonry-veneered opening — a long porch face or a wide garage front — has one fewer compliance route here than under the unamended code. R317.1 is the other one worth knowing: it drops the model's item for sills and sleepers on a slab in direct contact with the ground from the list of places that need naturally durable or preservative-treated wood, and renumbers the rest. R302.5.1 removes the self-closing device from the garage door requirement while keeping the door rating.
Wichita Falls had one of the worst tornadoes in American history. Does the building code require a storm shelter?
No, and it is worth being exact about why. Section R323 of the 2015 IRC is adopted and the city did not amend it, but R323 is a scope provision rather than a mandate: it applies to the construction of storm shelters when they are built as separate detached buildings or as safe rooms within buildings, and it requires that any shelter so built be constructed in accordance with ICC/NSSA-500. It does not require anyone to build one. The only shelter mandate in the city's adopted code books is in the building code, at Section 423.4, and it reaches Group E occupancies — schools with an aggregate occupant load of 50 or more — not dwellings. If you want a shelter, the published standards to design to are ICC 500 and FEMA P-361, and the design belongs to a Texas-licensed engineer, not to a builder. The city does run a voluntary storm shelter registration through the Fire Department so responders know where shelters are after an event.
What actually happened here in 1979, and what did the engineers conclude?
The National Weather Service office in Norman publishes a detailed account of the Red River Valley outbreak of 10 April 1979. The Wichita Falls tornado formed several miles southwest of the city in Archer County at 5:55 p.m., crossed roughly eight miles of the southern and eastern city after 6:00 p.m., and ended near Waurika, Oklahoma after 47 miles. There were 42 tornado fatalities in Wichita Falls, of which 25 were vehicle-related; reported injuries approached 1,800; more than 3,000 homes were destroyed and about 1,000 more damaged. Damage surveys by Texas Tech's Institute for Disaster Research and the University of Chicago led Dr Ted Fujita to rate it a strong F4, with F4 damage approaching half a mile wide near Faith Village. The Weather Service's own stated lessons are that well-built modern houses gave fairly good protection and that vehicles gave very poor protection — and that complete protection comes only from a purpose-built shelter. We are not in a position to tell you what any building will do in a violent tornado, and we will not.
Can I build a barndominium on acreage inside the Wichita Falls city limits?
Almost certainly not, and the zoning ordinance is candid about it. SF-1 is the district the code itself calls Large Lot, and its minimum lot area is 8,500 square feet — under a fifth of an acre — with 60 feet of width, a 35-foot height limit, 50 percent maximum building coverage and one primary dwelling unit per lot. SF-2, the standard lot district, is smaller again. There is no agricultural district, no estate district and no district measured in acres anywhere in Appendix B. So if what you want is a house with a shop on land, the search is in the five-mile extraterritorial jurisdiction or in unincorporated Wichita, Archer or Clay County, not on a city lot. That is not a knock on the city; it is simply what the ordinance provides, and it changes where you should be looking before you spend money on a survey.
How big a shop can I put beside the house, and how far from the property line?
Inside the city, the binding rule is Section 6516, and it is a height rule wearing a setback's clothes. An accessory building over 150 square feet takes a five-foot minimum from a common rear property line and five feet on an interior side — except that when the wall height exceeds eight feet or the total height exceeds 15 feet, the setback shall be equal to the total height. A shop bay tall enough for a real overhead door crosses both limbs, so a 20-foot building needs 20 feet of clearance to the line, which a 60-foot-wide SF-1 lot cannot easily give. Two things soften it. Section 6516 lets the Commission grant a setback exception where the accessory building is of the same or similar style, uses materials that resemble, and has the same detailing as the primary structure — which is a straightforward argument for a matched metal shop beside a matched metal house. And Section 6515(E) allows a single accessory dwelling unit where the principal use is single-family on a lot over 10,000 square feet.
What does Sheppard Air Force Base mean for land I am looking at outside town?
More than most people expect, and this is the single most important thing to check here before you buy. Section 6400 of the zoning appendix is airport zoning adopted under the Airport Zoning Act, Local Government Code chapter 241, covering Sheppard Air Force Base / Wichita Falls Regional Airport and Kickapoo Downtown Airport. Section 6410 applies it to the incorporated area and to unincorporated areas located in an accident potential zone, noise zone or height restriction zone; Section 6455(C) states the regulations apply within the corporate limits and the extraterritorial jurisdiction. Section 241.013 is the grant that allows a city over 45,000 to zone outside itself for this purpose, and Section 241.902 provides that where an airport compatible land use regulation conflicts with another regulation, the airport regulation controls. The land use compatibility table at Section 6485 marks a detached single-family dwelling as not compatible in the clear zone or Accident Potential Zone I, permitted in APZ II at a maximum of one to two dwelling units per acre or under 20 percent lot coverage, and not permitted above 75 dB DNL. One more limb is worth knowing because it has no height threshold at all: Section 6455(A) provides that no use shall be made of land within any of these zones in a manner that makes it difficult for pilots to distinguish between airport lights and others, results in glare in the eyes of pilots using the airport, impairs visibility in the vicinity, creates bird strike hazards or interferes with electronic navigation. The ordinance sets no numeric glare or reflectance test behind that sentence, so how it is applied to yard lighting or to a large roof plane is a question for staff rather than for a table. Ask the Planning Division on (940) 761-7451 which zone a tract is in before anything else.
Is there a permit for that, and who decides?
Yes. Section 6465 requires a permit to construct a structure in any accident potential zone, noise zone or height restriction zone established by the provision, with the application showing location, height and use in enough detail to determine conformity. Section 6415 makes the city's Commission the Airport Zoning Board — Wichita Falls did not form a joint airport zoning board with the county, it exercises the power unilaterally under Section 241.013 — and Section 6480 establishes a separate Airport Board of Adjustment for variances and appeals. That board is a live body, not a paper one: the Planning Division's 2026 schedule lists a monthly Airport Board of Adjustment meeting at 1:30 p.m. in Council Chambers, sets an application deadline for each, publishes a $210.00 fee for an airport zoning variance and the same for an administrative appeal, and says staff post signs on the property at least 15 days before the hearing. Section 6455(B) adds a separate check on anything that would penetrate a 100-to-1 slope from any point on a runway out to the edge of the extraterritorial jurisdiction.
What changes when my land is outside the city limits?
The building code stops and three other things do not. Texas is clear that a city cannot enforce its building code in its extraterritorial jurisdiction, and the Texas Supreme Court said so in Town of Lakewood Village v. Bizios in 2016. What follows you out is, first, platting: the city plats in its five-mile extraterritorial jurisdiction and publishes separate plat fee columns for Wichita County, Archer County and Clay County, with a final plat up to five acres at $295.00 in Wichita and Archer and $523.00 in Clay. Second, the airport zoning above, which by its own terms reaches unincorporated land in the mapped zones. Third, the state rules that never depended on a city at all: a licensed plumber under Occupations Code Section 1301.052, a TDLR-licensed water well driller, and the energy certification a builder outside any municipality must make and keep for three years under Health and Safety Code Section 388.004. Septic is a county permit either way, administered through the Wichita Falls-Wichita County Public Health District under the Wichita County order TCEQ approved on 6 December 2018.
What is the ground like, and will the slab need an engineer?
This is the Rolling Plains, not the Blackland Prairie and not the Piney Woods, and the soils behave differently from either. USDA soil survey data for Wichita County put Kamay silt loam first at 50,493 acres, reading 20 percent clay with a plasticity index of 13 for the top 25 centimetres and then 42.5 percent clay with a plasticity index of 29 for the two metres beneath — the surface understates it. Tillman clay loam, second at 41,165 acres, is already at 28 percent clay and a plasticity index of 22 at the surface. Vernon and Knoco read 50 percent clay and a plasticity index of 23 to 31 from the top down. On the legal side, be careful with the statute people quote. Occupations Code Section 1001.056(c)(2) removes the private-dwelling engineering exemption for a residential dwelling slab located on expansive soil, but both of its limbs are conditioned on the IRC as applied in the jurisdiction — so inside the Wichita Falls city limits, where the 2015 IRC is applied and R403.1.8 is unamended, it has a referent, and on unincorporated land with no adopted code it has none. Either way the practical answer is the same: a geotechnical report on the parcel and a Texas-licensed engineer.
Is there a groundwater district, and what does a well involve?
Wichita County sits inside Texas Water Development Board Groundwater Management Area 6, and the five groundwater conservation districts in that management area are Clear Fork, Mesquite, Gateway, Rolling Plains and Upper Trinity — none of them named for or based in Wichita County, and the board's 2021 modelled-available-groundwater table for the management area lists no Wichita County row. Whether any district boundary reaches a particular tract is a question for the Texas Water Development Board on (512) 463-7847, and it is worth settling before you count on a well, because the answer changes the rules. Where a district does apply, Water Code Section 36.117 is the frame: a domestic well on a tract over ten acres that cannot produce more than 25,000 gallons a day is exempt from permitting, but Section 36.117(h) still requires it to be registered and cased to district rules, and spacing rules still reach it. Registered is not the same as unregulated, and it is not the same as permitted. What does not vary is the driller: a TDLR-licensed water well driller and pump installer is required anywhere in Texas.
Does Wichita Falls license builders, and should I be checking one?
The city registers them; nobody in Texas licenses them. Building and Code Administration issues a contractor registration valid for one year from the date issued, on a form where the applicant acknowledges that it is unlawful to start permitted work before the permit is issued or to occupy a new structure before the building, electrical, gas, plumbing, mechanical and fire protection systems have been inspected and a certificate of occupancy issued. Separate code compliance bonds of $25,000, $50,000 and $100,000 exist as their own forms. What that registration is not is a state licence, because Texas has no licence for a residential building contractor — the Texas Residential Construction Commission was abolished in 2009 and nothing replaced it. Anyone advertising a Texas builder's licence is describing something that does not exist. The trades are different: plumbers, electricians, well drillers and engineers all hold real state licences, and those are the credentials worth asking to see.

Building in Wichita Falls?

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