Tall pines in the East Texas Piney Woods with a sandy track cutting through green understorey.
Wood County Edition set by the jurisdiction

Barndominium Builders in Wood County, TX

Wood County is the cheap-acreage half of East Texas. About 49,700 people live across 645 square miles, and 73 percent of them live outside every city limit; the largest town, Mineola, is 5,537 and Quitman, the seat, is 2,057. Fifty square miles of the county is water. That water changes who you deal with: within 2,000 feet of the project boundary of Lake Fork Reservoir the Sabine River Authority of Texas, not Wood County, is the authorised agent for your septic permit, and the county's own subdivision checklist tells you to bring a letter from the SRA. Move inland and it is the county's inspector again. The ground is Piney Woods sand over a clay subsoil that the first spade of a shovel will not show you, and down on the bottoms it is a true shrink-swell clay. Nobody in the county inspects the frame of a house.

Wood County at a glance

County
Wood County
Population
49,688
Where we build
Quitman, Smith County, Van Zandt County, Gregg County

ZIPs 75783, 75773, 75494, 75765, 75497, 75410

Site visits
Site walks arranged throughout Wood County, Quitman included
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Building conditions in Wood 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 Wood County , Texas . BUILD CONDITIONS WOOD COUNTY, TXWood CountyEDITION PER JURISDI…ADOPTED RESIDENTIAL CODEEDITION PER JURISDI…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 ZONELots platted or created after the ef…Local Government Code sec. 233.153(d)(2) does not authorise acommissioners court to adopt or enforce zoning, and Wood County has…COUNTY FLOODPLAIN DEVELOPMENT PERMIT$25.00The county's own Development Permit Application, issued by theFloodplain Administrator, valid one year from the date issued. Plan…WHO ISSUES THE PERMITWood County Commissioners Court — an…Wood County Courthouse, 100 S. Main Street, Quitman, TX 75783;switchboard 903-763-1236. Commissioners Court office and Subdivisio…
Build conditions for Wood 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 Lake Fork it is the Sabine River Authority, not the county, that permits your septic system
TCEQ's authorised-agent database returns five records for Wood County. Three of them are the Sabine River Authority of Texas, and the area served is recorded as within 2,000 feet of the project boundary of Lake Fork Reservoir, Lake Tawakoni Reservoir and Toledo Bend Reservoir. Wood County's own record covers the unincorporated county. TCEQ prints the disambiguation rule on the same page: if you live in a subdivision that contains property within 2000 feet of a lake or river, find the name of the lake under the area served column, and if the lake is not listed, contact the county. A river authority permitting house septic systems is unusual in Texas, and on Lake Fork acreage it is the first thing to establish before an offer.

TCEQ On-site Sewage Facility Authorized Agent search (OARS), county record for Wood, run 1 September 2026 — https://www.tceq.texas.gov/permitting/ossf/aa_search.html (the form posts to https://www6.tceq.texas.gov/oars/index.cfm?fuseaction=search.results)

The county says the same thing in its own subdivision checklist
Wood County's Subdivision Checklist, revised 2026, lists two septic letters side by side and treats them as alternatives. One is a letter from OSSF regarding the septic permit. The other is a letter from the SRA if located in the Lake Fork Area, which the county states is required from the SRA for septic permitting. Both demand the same package: a full Environmental Development Plan by a Registered Sanitarian or Professional Engineer, complete with a site plan, topographical map, 100-year flood plain map, soil survey, location of water wells and location of easements. Two authorities, one standard of proof, and the lake decides which desk it lands on.

Wood County Subdivision Checklist, New Subdivision / Phase to an Existing Subdivision, Revised Form 2026 — https://www.mywoodcounty.com/upload/page/0138/docs/Revised%20New%20Subdivision%20Checklist%202026.pdf

The county seat runs the 2024 IRC, and the county may run nothing at all
Quitman adopted the 2024 International Building Code, the 2024 International Residential Code, the 2024 Plumbing, Mechanical, Fuel Gas and Property Maintenance Codes and the 2023 National Electrical Code by Ordinance No. 011624(B), adopted 16 January 2024, with the code section stating that effective 1 March 2025 all building plans submitted to the city and all new construction and remodeling projects in the city shall meet or exceed those standards. Inside the city that means a building permit before anything is erected, converted, enlarged or structurally altered, doubled fees if work starts first, and a zoning ordinance with five residential districts. Outside the city limits none of it applies. That contrast is the whole reason to know which side of a line your tract sits on.

Quitman, Texas Code of Ordinances secs. 10-1, 10-2 and 10-25, recodification codified through Ordinance No. 021325(A) adopted 13 February 2025, read from api.municode.com (client 16039, product 17206) — https://library.municode.com/tx/quitman/codes/code_of_ordinances

One county construction permit, twenty-five dollars, and nobody looks at the building
The Wood County Floodplain Administrator issues a Development Permit Application carrying the words 25 dollars permit fee on its face. It asks whether the development is residential or non-residential, new construction or substantial improvement, and it is valid for one year from the date issued. It requires one copy of plans and specifications of the proposed construction only if in a flood plain, plus an elevation certification. The administrator's half of the form asks whether the property is in an identified flood hazard area or the floodway, the FIRM zone and panel, and the base flood elevation at the site or whether it is unavailable. What it never does is examine the building against a code edition or send an inspector to look at the frame. It is a flood and drainage instrument that happens to be a construction permit.

Wood County Floodplain Administrator, Development Permit Application — https://www.mywoodcounty.com/upload/page/0122/Floodplain%20Permit.pdf

The lot minimum is measured in usable acres, not deeded acres
Wood County's Subdivision Rules and Regulations put the state septic minimums into the county's own words and then add a qualifier the state does not have. Subdivisions of single-family dwellings platted or created after the effective date of the section, served by a public water supply and using individual OSSF, shall have lots of at least half an acre usable property, with the parenthesis no easements, right of way, save and except property. Not served by a public water supply, the figure is one acre usable property with the same parenthesis. On a long narrow tract fronting a county road with a utility easement down one side, a nominal one-acre lot can come up short once the county has taken those out.

Wood County, Texas Subdivision Rules and Regulations, Revised and Amended 2026, Land Planning and Site Evaluation (OSSF) sec. 1.A, pp. 24-25, filed with the County Clerk May 2026 — https://www.mywoodcounty.com/upload/page/0138/docs/Approved%20Revised%20and%20Ammended%20Wood%20County%20Subdivision%20Rules%20and%20Regulations%202026.pdf

Seventy-three percent of the county lives outside every city limit
Census Bureau Vintage 2025 estimates put Wood County at 49,688, against a 2020 base of 44,852, a gain of about 11 percent in five years. The balance of the county, meaning everything outside the six incorporated places, holds 36,404 of that. Mineola is the largest city at 5,537, then Winnsboro at 2,874, Quitman the county seat at 2,057, Hawkins at 1,862, Alba at 511 and Yantis at 443. The county covers 645 square miles of land and another 50 of water. Take the towns out and the unincorporated part runs about 58 people per square mile, which is what genuinely rural looks like in arithmetic rather than adjectives.

U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 county and sub-county population estimates (co-est2025-alldata.csv and sub-est2025.csv); 2025 Census Gazetteer counties and places files, GEOID 48499

Also worth knowing before you build in Wood County

The surface lies about the subsoil, and the federal survey measures it
The soil survey of Wood County maps 445,402 acres. Cuthbert fine sandy loam is the largest single map unit at 40,264 acres, and its profile reads 8.5 percent clay for the first nine inches and then 47.5 percent from nine inches to twenty-two. Freestone fine sandy loam, the second largest at 39,383 acres, reads 9.6 percent clay for eleven inches and 57.5 percent between twenty-eight and forty-four, with a linear extensibility of 12.2 percent down there. Woodtell is classified as a vertic soil with a smectitic mineralogy. A hand auger in the topsoil will tell you it is sand. The slab does not sit on the topsoil.

USDA-NRCS Soil Data Access, SQL query over SSURGO survey area TX499 (Wood County, Texas), tables mapunit, component and chorizon, run 1 September 2026 — https://SDMDataAccess.sc.egov.usda.gov/Tabular/post.rest

A site here can fail for draining too fast as easily as too slow
Two of the county's largest map units sit at opposite ends of the septic problem. Darco fine sand covers 41,495 acres across its two slope classes and is classified as somewhat excessively drained, running 90 percent sand and 9 percent clay from three inches all the way down to fifty-six. Gladewater clay covers 12,812 acres on the bottoms, is 50 percent clay at the surface and 66 percent between seventeen and forty-eight inches, and is classified as a smectitic Epiaquert. There is no percolation test in Texas; soil is classified by texture, and TCEQ's own rules say that Class Ia soils do not provide adequate treatment of wastewater through soil contact. Deep sand and heavy clay are both a problem, for opposite reasons, in the same county.

USDA-NRCS Soil Data Access, SSURGO survey area TX499, component and chorizon tables, run 1 September 2026 — https://SDMDataAccess.sc.egov.usda.gov/Tabular/post.rest; 30 Texas Administrative Code sec. 285.33(b)(4)(D)

Eight ways out of platting, and none of them costs you your septic permit
Appendix A of the county's subdivision regulations lists eight Wood County exceptions. A plat is not required where a public road divides a tract and the remainders are under ten acres; where two adjacent owners adjust a common boundary and the same number of tracts and owners exist after as before; where a smaller tract is surveyed out solely to obtain financing with ownership remaining unified; on a legitimate lien foreclosure or a court-ordered partition, neither of which excuses a sham transaction; where an owner of two or more distinct adjacent tracts with a history of separate use sells one; where a tract is split in two and both lots are more than ten acres and no streets are laid out; and for a public water supply reservoir purchase. Some Texas counties attach a penalty to their exemptions and make the exempt land ineligible for an address or a septic permit. Wood County's list attaches no such penalty to any of the eight.

Wood County, Texas Subdivision Rules and Regulations, Revised and Amended 2026, Appendix A — Wood County Exceptions, pp. 41-42 — https://www.mywoodcounty.com/upload/page/0138/docs/Approved%20Revised%20and%20Ammended%20Wood%20County%20Subdivision%20Rules%20and%20Regulations%202026.pdf

Dividing the land carries a stiffer offence than building on it
The county's subdivision regulations reproduce Local Government Code sec. 232.005 in full: the county attorney may sue to enjoin a violation or recover damages adequate for the county to undertake the construction necessary to bring about compliance, and a person who knowingly or intentionally violates a requirement commits a Class B misdemeanor. The regulations close in capitals: subject to the exceptions set out, no land in Wood County shall be divided, sold or conveyed until the owner, subdivider or developer shall first have the final subdivision plat approved by the Commissioners Court and filed with the County Clerk in the map records. By contrast, a violation of a county residential building standard under Chapter 233 is only a Class C. In this county the law's teeth are on how you divide the land, not on how you build the house.

Wood County, Texas Subdivision Rules and Regulations, Revised and Amended 2026, Penalties, p. 16, and Appendix A closing paragraph, p. 42 — https://www.mywoodcounty.com/upload/page/0138/docs/Approved%20Revised%20and%20Ammended%20Wood%20County%20Subdivision%20Rules%20and%20Regulations%202026.pdf; Texas Local Government Code secs. 232.005 and 233.157(b)

The county fire-code bracket turns on the census, and the census says no
Local Government Code sec. 233.061(a) lets a commissioners court adopt a fire code if the county has more than 250,000 people or is adjacent to one that does. Wood County adjoins Smith County. The 2020 decennial census put Smith County at 233,479; the Census Bureau's Vintage 2025 estimate puts it at 252,549. Government Code sec. 311.005(3) defines population, for statutory purposes, as the population shown by the most recent federal decennial census. On that measure the bracket is not met and there is no county fire-code power to exercise. The Wood County Fire Marshal's own page describes the office as operating in accordance with Chapter 352 of the Local Government Code, county fire protection, and names no adopted code edition anywhere.

Texas Local Government Code sec. 233.061 and Government Code sec. 311.005(3); U.S. Census Bureau 2020 Census centre-of-population file CenPop2020_Mean_CO48.txt and Vintage 2025 county estimates; Wood County Fire Marshal and Office of Emergency Management — https://www.mywoodcounty.com/page/emc

There is no published base flood elevation over much of this county
FEMA's Community Status Book lists Wood County as a community participating in the National Flood Insurance Program under CID 481055, alongside Hawkins, Mineola, Quitman and Yantis, with Alba and Winnsboro listed under their split counties. The county's entry carries the report's (M) flag, which the report's own legend defines as no elevation determined, all Zone A, C and X. That is why the county's permit form has a blank reading base flood elevation at the site is blank feet NGVD or is unavailable, and why it asks the applicant for an elevation certification. On a Zone A parcel with no published elevation, somebody has to survey it before the paperwork can be finished.

FEMA, Community Status Book Report — Texas, Communities Participating in the National Flood Program — https://www.fema.gov/cis/TX.pdf; Wood County Floodplain Administrator Development Permit Application — https://www.mywoodcounty.com/upload/page/0122/Floodplain%20Permit.pdf

Leasing spaces puts the county at your electric meter
Wood County has adopted Infrastructure Development Standards for Manufactured Home, Mobile Home, Tiny Home, and RV Rental Communities under Local Government Code sec. 232.007, and the Commissioners Court states in them that it finds it necessary to regulate lodging and recreational vehicle parks in the unincorporated areas. An Infrastructure Development Plan must be approved before construction begins; the county performs periodic inspections and a final inspection, then issues a Certificate of Compliance within five business days. And then the rule with teeth: a utility may not provide utility services, including water, sewer, gas and electric services, to a community subject to a plan, or to a home in it, unless the owner provides the utility with a copy of that certificate. It binds municipalities, public utilities, nonprofit water supply corporations, the county and special districts alike. None of this reaches a single house you build to live in.

Wood County, Texas Infrastructure Development Standards for Manufactured Home, Mobile Home, Tiny Home, and RV Rental Communities, Revised and Amended 2026, secs. 1 and 2 — https://www.mywoodcounty.com/upload/page/0138/docs/Approved%20Revised%20and%20Amended%20Wood%20County%20Infrastructure%20Rules%20and%20Regulations%202026.pdf

The county taxes cabins and lake lodging at seven percent
The Wood County Tax Assessor-Collector collects a county hotel and motel occupancy tax at seven percent of the room charge, less a one percent administrative reimbursement the operator may retain if payment is on time, due the twentieth of the month following the reporting period. The county's own questions and answers sheet names the establishments it reaches: hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts, marina lodging and cabins in the county. Failure to collect the tax, failure to file a return, filing a false return or failing to remit on time is described as a criminal misdemeanor offence, with a five percent penalty, a further five percent after thirty days, and ten percent interest after sixty. This is a tax obligation and not a building code, but it arrives with the first booking.

Wood County Tax Assessor / Collector, Wood County Hotel/Motel Occupancy Tax — Typical Questions and Answers — https://www.woodcountytx.com/images/docs/LodgingTaxQandA.pdf

A licensed plumber is required whatever the county turns out to do
The rural exemption in the Texas Plumbing License Law expressly does not reach plumbing performed in conjunction with new construction. So a Texas-licensed plumber is required on a new house on unincorporated land here regardless of the county's building-code position and regardless of the fact that no county inspector is coming to look at the frame. It is the clearest example of the point that no county building code is not the same sentence as no rules, and the plumbing board that issues the licence runs to 1 September 2033.

Texas Occupations Code secs. 1301.052 and 1301.003 — https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/OC/htm/OC.1301.htm

What the county actually asks for before it will approve a plat
The 2026 checklist is specific and most of it is other people's paperwork. An original certified tax certificate with a raised embossed seal. A lienholder acknowledgment with a copy of the deed of trust. The septic letter, from the county or from the SRA. A stormwater pollution prevention plan if one acre or more will be cleared or disturbed. Will-serve letters from both the water supply corporation and the electric supplier, stating availability for the number of lots. An ETJ letter from the city if the land is within one mile of city limits. A TxDOT driveway application if the entrance is on a US, state or farm-to-market road. Groundwater certification from TCEQ if wells will supply the subdivision. A preliminary plat by email for review before the final. One mylar and three signed and notarised paper copies, no larger than 18 by 24 inches. Fees run 400 dollars for 1 to 10 lots, 800 for 11 to 20 and 1,200 for 21 or more.

Wood County Subdivision Checklist, Revised Form 2026 — https://www.mywoodcounty.com/upload/page/0138/docs/Revised%20New%20Subdivision%20Checklist%202026.pdf; Wood County Subdivision Application Form — https://www.mywoodcounty.com/upload/page/0138/docs/APPLICATION%20SUBDIVISION.pdf

Your driveway is a numbered item on a Commissioners Court agenda
Wood County approves road permits one at a time in open court. The agenda for 7 July 2026 carries the item consider and approve Road Permit number 2320 located within Precinct 4, on the consent agenda alongside the Treasurer's report and the Environmental Officer's reports. Each of the four precincts runs its own Road and Bridge yard with its own number, so the conversation about where your entrance goes and what pipe it needs starts with your precinct commissioner rather than with a central office. Where the entrance is on a US, state or farm-to-market road, TxDOT issues the permit instead.

Wood County Commissioners Court, Agenda, Regular Session, 7 July 2026, items 6 and 7 — https://www.mywoodcounty.com/upload/page/0088/AGENDA%2007-07-2026%20AT%209%20AM.pdf; Wood County Directory — https://www.mywoodcounty.com/page/county.directory

A new emergency services district is being formed right now
On 23 June 2026 the Commissioners Court recorded the County Judge's acceptance of a petition in proper form for the creation of Wood County Emergency Services District No. 2, directed that it be filed with the County Clerk under Health and Safety Code sec. 775.015, and set a public hearing for 17 July 2026. This is worth watching rather than worrying about. An emergency services district in Texas can adopt and enforce a fire code under sec. 775.036, with a fire code official who reviews plans and can issue stop-work orders, and a district in another Texas county has done exactly that in a county with no residential building code. Whether this one will is not settled. The Fire Marshal's office on 903-763-2356 will know before anyone else.

Wood County Commissioners Court, Agenda, Regular Session, 23 June 2026, item 12 — https://www.mywoodcounty.com/upload/page/0088/AGENDA%2006-23-2026%20AT%209%20AM.pdf; Texas Health and Safety Code secs. 775.015 and 775.036

What the county says about your water well
Wood County's subdivision regulations dispose of the individual well in one line: all water wells must meet TCEQ standards as stated in the Texas Administrative Code 76.001 and 290.41. Separately, and only where a plat draws its water supply from groundwater, Local Government Code sec. 232.0032 requires a report by a licensed engineer or licensed geoscientist certifying that adequate groundwater is available, conforming to TCEQ guidelines, with the information transmitted to any affected groundwater conservation district and to TCEQ. That conditional wording matters on a county page: ask the Subdivision Coordinator on 903-760-1007 whether a district reaches your tract before you assume either way, because the answer changes what a driller may do.

Wood County, Texas Subdivision Rules and Regulations, Revised and Amended 2026, Use of Groundwater and Land Planning and Site Evaluation sec. 3, pp. 24-25 — https://www.mywoodcounty.com/upload/page/0138/docs/Approved%20Revised%20and%20Ammended%20Wood%20County%20Subdivision%20Rules%20and%20Regulations%202026.pdf; Texas Local Government Code sec. 232.0032

The septic authority's own area stops at the city limit
TCEQ records Wood County's authorised-agent area as the unincorporated county, not the entire county, and no city in Wood County holds an authorised-agent record of its own. TCEQ's results page then prints the fallback rule in its own words: if the city is not listed, contact the county. So a buyer inside Quitman, Mineola, Winnsboro, Hawkins, Alba or Yantis is sent back to the county even though the county's recorded area is the part outside those limits. It is the kind of gap that only shows up when you ring the wrong desk, and the county number for it is 903-763-5308.

TCEQ On-site Sewage Facility Authorized Agent search (OARS), county record for Wood, run 1 September 2026 — https://www.tceq.texas.gov/permitting/ossf/aa_search.html; Wood County Directory, on-site sewage facility inspector — https://www.mywoodcounty.com/page/county.directory

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

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Where we build around Wood County

Wood 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 Wood County service area, covering Wood 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 Wood County 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.

Smith County

Smith County
Van Zandt County

Van Zandt County
Gregg County

Gregg County

Building in Wood County: common questions

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

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Does Wood County have a building code, and will anyone inspect my barndominium?
On the inspection, the answer is clear: nobody from the county comes to look at the frame of a house. There is no building department in the county's own list of departments, no permit application for a structure, no code edition named on any county page, and no inspector list. The only county construction permit is a 25-dollar floodplain development permit from the Floodplain Administrator, and it asks for plans only if the parcel is in a flood plain. On whether a code exists on paper, the honest answer is that it cannot be established from what the county publishes, and the reason is specific. A Texas county has no residential building-code power unless its commissioners court adopted Chapter 233, Subchapter F of the Local Government Code. That statute took effect on 1 September 2009, and the confirmed adoptions elsewhere in Texas are dated from October 2009 to September 2012. Wood County's published minutes archive begins in 2017 and its agenda archive in 2019, so the window simply is not in the record. There is also no codified county code to search, because the county publishes none. Everything visible points away from an adopted code, but an opted-in county has no permit, no fee and no inspector either, so the two look identical from outside. Ring the Commissioners Court office on 903-760-1007 and ask them directly before you rely on it.
Who permits my septic system out on Lake Fork — the county or the river authority?
It depends on how close you are to the water, and it is the first thing to settle. TCEQ's authorised-agent database returns five records for Wood County. Three of them are the Sabine River Authority of Texas, whose recorded area is within 2,000 feet of the project boundary of Lake Fork Reservoir, Lake Tawakoni and Toledo Bend. The fourth is Wood County itself, whose recorded area is the unincorporated county. The fifth is TCEQ's own Tyler regional office. Wood County's subdivision checklist says the same thing from the other side: a letter from OSSF regarding the septic permit, or a letter from the SRA if located in the Lake Fork Area, which the county states is required from the SRA for septic permitting. Either way the package is the same — a full environmental development plan by a Registered Sanitarian or Professional Engineer, with a site plan, topographic map, 100-year flood plain map, soil survey and well locations. TCEQ prints the tiebreak rule on its own results page: if you are in a subdivision containing property within 2000 feet of a lake or river, find the lake under the area served column, and if the lake is not listed, contact the county. Practically, ring the SRA's Lake Fork Division on 903-878-2262 with your legal description before you do anything else, because their office is in Quitman and they will tell you which side of the line you are on.
Does having ten acres get me out of the septic permit?
Do not count on it, and do not let anyone tell you the standards go away. TCEQ said so itself when it amended its rules in 2023: the old wording had been misinterpreted by homeowners, installers, authorized agents and other stakeholders as meaning that single-family dwellings on ten acres or more were exempt from the entirety of the septic rules. Even where the relief applies it relieves a tract of the paperwork and the inspection. It never relieved anyone of the standards, and the system still has to be designed and built to them. Several Texas counties settle the question by writing into their own septic order that they permit and inspect every system regardless of the size of the tract. Wood County does not publish its septic order at all, so we cannot tell you whether it carries that sentence. What the county does publish, inside its subdivision regulations, contains no such wording either way. The number to ask is the county's on-site sewage facility inspector, 903-763-5308 — and if your land is within 2,000 feet of Lake Fork, ask the Sabine River Authority instead.
The land is cheap and rural. What is most likely to catch me out?
How the tract was created, not how you build on it. Wood County's regulations end in capitals: subject to the exceptions listed, no land in the county shall be divided, sold or conveyed until the final plat has been approved by the Commissioners Court and filed with the County Clerk, and a knowing violation is a Class B misdemeanor under Local Government Code sec. 232.005. That is a stiffer offence than the Class C that attaches to a county residential building standard. There are eight Wood County exceptions and they are worth reading before you sign anything: a public road splitting a tract into remainders under ten acres; a boundary adjustment between two adjacent owners with the same number of tracts and owners after as before; a survey taken out solely to obtain financing with ownership unified; a legitimate lien foreclosure or a court partition, neither of which excuses a sham; the sale of one of two or more distinct adjacent tracts with a history of separate use; a two-way split where both lots exceed ten acres and no streets are laid out; and a reservoir purchase by a governmental entity. Some Texas counties make exempt land ineligible for an address or a septic permit; Wood County's list attaches no such penalty. The second trap is the lot minimum, which the county measures in usable acres after easements, rights of way and save-and-except land come out. Call the Subdivision Coordinator on 903-760-1007 and describe the split before money moves.
Is the ground here sand or clay, and what does that mean for the slab?
Both, often on the same tract, and the top of the hole will mislead you. The federal soil survey maps 445,402 acres in Wood County. The largest map unit, Cuthbert fine sandy loam at 40,264 acres, runs 8.5 percent clay for the first nine inches and then 47.5 percent from nine to twenty-two. The second largest, Freestone fine sandy loam at 39,383 acres, runs 9.6 percent clay for eleven inches and 57.5 percent between twenty-eight and forty-four, with a linear extensibility of 12.2 percent at that depth. Woodtell is classified as a vertic soil with smectitic clay mineralogy. Down on the bottoms, Gladewater clay is 50 percent clay at the surface and 66 percent below it and is classified as a true Vertisol. And at the other extreme, Darco fine sand covers more than forty thousand acres, is somewhat excessively drained, and is 90 percent sand from three inches to fifty-six. The practical answer is that a shrink-swell subsoil is common here even where the surface is sand, so a geotechnical report on your actual building envelope and an engineer-sealed foundation design are the sensible default rather than an upgrade. Texas law removes the engineering exemption for a residential slab on expansive soil, but both limbs of that provision are written by reference to the International Residential Code as applied in the jurisdiction, and on unincorporated land where no code is established as applying there is no local referent for it. That is a reason to get the soil report, not a reason to skip the engineer.
Do I need the county's floodplain permit, and how much is it?
The form is a Development Permit Application issued by the Wood County Floodplain Administrator and it carries 25 dollars permit fee on its face. It is valid for one year from the date issued and must be renewed if the work is not finished. It asks whether the development is residential or non-residential and whether it is new construction or a substantial improvement to an existing structure, and it requires one copy of plans and specifications of the proposed construction if in a flood plain plus an elevation certification. The administrator's half of the form determines whether the property is in an identified flood hazard area or the floodway, records the FIRM zone, panel and date, and records the base flood elevation at the site or that it is unavailable. That last option is not a formality here: FEMA's Community Status Book flags Wood County's mapping with the code its own legend defines as no elevation determined, all Zone A, C and X, so on a good deal of this ground there is no published elevation to read off a map and somebody has to survey it. Whether the county requires the permit for every structure or only inside the special flood hazard area is a question for the Floodplain Administrator, who is also the Fire Marshal and Emergency Management Coordinator, on 903-763-2356. The county does not publish its flood damage prevention order, so ask them for the freeboard requirement in writing rather than assuming a figure.
Does renting it out change anything?
Not which code applies, because there is no county commercial construction track to be routed into. Wood County has no permitting or building department, and its single construction form handles residential and non-residential on the same page with a line for the name and type of business. There is no county fire code either: Local Government Code sec. 233.061 lets a county adopt one if it exceeds 250,000 people or adjoins a county that does, and although the Census Bureau's 2025 estimate puts neighbouring Smith County at 252,549, the 2020 decennial census figure that statutory population brackets run on is 233,479. What letting can cost you is the owner-builder defence at sec. 233.157(c), which requires the owner to intend the building as their own primary residence — and that only bites if the county turns out to have opted into Subchapter F. Two other things do change. The county collects a hotel and motel occupancy tax at seven percent of the room charge, and its own guidance names bed and breakfasts, marina lodging and cabins among the establishments it reaches, with a criminal misdemeanor offence for failing to collect or file. And if you are leasing spaces rather than letting one house — manufactured homes, tiny homes or RVs — you are in an entirely different regime, described below.
I want to put several rental cabins or RV spaces on my land. Is that the same as building one house?
No, and the difference is large. Wood County has adopted Infrastructure Development Standards for Manufactured Home, Mobile Home, Tiny Home, and RV Rental Communities under Local Government Code sec. 232.007, and the Commissioners Court states in them that it finds it necessary to regulate lodging and recreational vehicle parks in the unincorporated areas, singling out RV parks for their transitory nature, close proximity of guests and high-density occupation. An Infrastructure Development Plan goes to the Subdivision Coordinator for approval by the Commissioners Court, and construction may not begin before that approval. The plan set includes a soils analysis certified by a qualified site evaluator as defined by 30 Texas Administrative Code Chapter 285, engineering design plans for fire and emergency vehicle access to each rental space, and drainage designed on a ten-year storm. The development needs 60 feet of frontage on a dedicated public road, no space may contain more than one single-family residential unit, and no common driveway is allowed. The county then inspects periodically, inspects finally within two business days of written notice, and issues a Certificate of Compliance within five. And the enforcement point is the meter: a utility may not provide water, sewer, gas or electric service to a community subject to a plan unless the owner hands it a copy of that certificate. So a county that will not inspect the house you live in will inspect the infrastructure of the cabins you rent.
Quitman runs the 2024 code. Does that reach my land outside town?
Not directly, but it is worth understanding why anyone asks. Quitman adopted the 2024 International Building and Residential Codes, the 2024 Plumbing, Mechanical, Fuel Gas and Property Maintenance Codes and the 2023 National Electrical Code by Ordinance No. 011624(B) on 16 January 2024, effective for plans and projects from 1 March 2025, and inside the city that comes with a building permit before anything is erected or structurally altered, doubled fees if work starts first, a certificate of occupancy from the fire marshal for non-residential use, and a zoning ordinance with five residential districts. Outside the city limits none of that applies of its own force. The reason the seat's edition matters at all is a quirk in the state statute: if a county has opted into Chapter 233, Subchapter F, its rule is that new residential construction shall conform to the version of the International Residential Code published as of 1 May 2008, or the version applicable in the county seat. Those two limbs are eighteen years apart here, the statute does not say who elects between them, no Texas court has construed it, and it only arises at all if Wood County opted in, which is unsettled. What the statute does say is that the builder names the version in the pre-construction notice. Treat it as a question to ask, not an answer to assume.
So if the county does not inspect the house, what actually does get checked?
Several things, none of them a building inspector. The septic permit is the one that looks hardest at the building, because sizing keys off bedrooms or living area, whichever gives the higher figure, and the application package runs to a site plan, topographic map, floodplain map, soil survey and well locations prepared by a Registered Sanitarian or Professional Engineer. Near Lake Fork that review is the Sabine River Authority's rather than the county's. The floodplain permit checks elevation and drainage. The plat, if your tract needs one, brings will-serve letters from the water supply corporation and the electric supplier, a stormwater pollution prevention plan if an acre or more is disturbed, and a TxDOT driveway application where the entrance is on a highway. Your driveway onto a county road is a numbered road permit approved in open court by the Commissioners. A Texas-licensed plumber is required by state law on new construction regardless of anything the county does. The state energy code reaches unincorporated land through Health and Safety Code sec. 388.004, which makes the builder certify compliance and keep the certification for three years, and Wood County is climate zone 3A on both the older and newer code maps so that answer does not move. And on top of all of it sit whatever restrictions are recorded against your own tract, which on lake acreage and in the county's older subdivisions are frequently the only thing that actually controls what you may build.

Building in Wood County?

Start with the plan. Tell us what you want to build and we will draw it, then confirm what Wood 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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