Barndominium Builders in Sanger, TX

Barndominium builders working around Sanger spend a lot of time thinking about dirt. Sanger is a Denton County city of 8,839 people as of 2020, up from 6,916 in 2010, sitting at about 673 feet on roughly 11.8 square miles. The USDA also has a soil series called Sanger, with its type location in Denton County. Whether or not your lot is mapped in that exact series, the clay it describes is common enough in this part of the Grand Prairie that the foundation deserves first attention.

We design and build barndominiums, metal building homes and shop houses on rural and edge-of-town parcels around Sanger. This page walks through the ground, the permits and the building itself in that order, because that is the order the decisions get made.

Reading the Sanger soil

The official series description lists Sanger as a clay formed in calcareous marine sediments of Lower Cretaceous formations, on uplands with slopes mostly 1 to 5 percent. The details that matter to a builder:

• High shrink-swell potential
• Cracks 1 to 3 inches wide that run more than 20 inches deep when the soil dries
• Slickensides starting 16 to 24 inches down, and gilgai microrelief in undisturbed areas
• Very slow permeability once wet, even though water pours into the cracks when dry

In plain terms: the ground swells when wet, shrinks and cracks when dry, and moves a slab if the slab is not designed for it.

What that means for your slab

On expansive clay, we start with a geotechnical soil report for the actual building pad. That report drives pad preparation, moisture conditioning, select fill and the foundation design itself. Grading that sheds water away from the slab, gutters that discharge well clear of the foundation, and keeping trees back from the house all help keep moisture even. A barndo has long walls and large door openings, so a slab that heaves at one corner shows up fast in doors that bind and panels that rack.

What it means for septic

Very slow permeability is a septic issue as well as a foundation issue. In unincorporated Denton County, septic permits are issued by the Environmental Health Division of Denton County Public Health. The site evaluation must be done by a professional engineer or a Registered Sanitarian site evaluator and include soil textural classification. Tight clay may push the design toward a system other than a conventional field. If the design uses an aerobic unit, the county requires a signed maintenance contract kept current.

County permits outside town

In the unincorporated county, Denton County Development Services requires a Development Permit for any development, and grading, excavation and filling all count. Since a clay pad usually involves cutting, filling and compacting, that permit is part of the plan. A new drive onto a county-maintained road needs a culvert permit, and the same department handles floodplain permitting under the National Flood Insurance Program. Inside Sanger city limits, the city's own rules apply instead.

The building on top

Once the ground is handled, the barndo itself is the fun part. Around Sanger we build:

• Steel-frame barndominiums with clear-span shops for trucks, trailers and equipment
• Post-frame homes with porches and lofts
• Shop houses with a small apartment beside a large work bay
• Interior finish-out with spray foam insulation, framed walls and HVAC sized for a metal building

The Sanger area has hot, humid summers and mild to cool winters, so condensation control and properly sized cooling are part of every design.

Call (469) 310-8310 or

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