Barndominium Builders in Union County, SC

Also worth knowing before you build in Union County

The road ordinance is the document that decides whether anyone will maintain your access

On a rural Union County tract the access question outlasts the build, and the county answers it in the Road Ordinance rather than in any planning document. A public road is defined as any road serving two or more separate property owners where the right-of-way has been acquired by the county, or any road connecting two other publicly maintained roads. The county road right-of-way is sixty-six feet, thirty-three either side of the centreline, and a paved county road has a minimum travel way of twenty feet exclusive of side ditches. To get a road added to the county system you must dedicate that sixty-six-foot right-of-way free of charge; the road must have been graded, drained and surfaced with six inches of pit gravel or four inches of topsoil; and there is a population test. A road half a mile or shorter needs at least two separate property owners with a minimum of two occupied year-round residences fronting it or entering directly onto it. A road longer than half a mile needs two residents per tenth of a mile beyond that first half mile. Signed easements, a certified survey of the easement and all the legal work are the applicant's responsibility, and no fewer than four members of county council must physically view the road before it is voted on. One provision works in your favour: the county road department installs one twenty-foot drainage pipe in the ditch and prepares and maintains the driveway apron to the limit of the county right-of-way, including for a new residence on a county road that did not previously have one.

Amendment to Union County Road Ordinance Number 11, FY-77-78, §§ I—IV, https://gearupunionsc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Amendment-to-Union-County-Road-Ordinance-Number-11.pdf (application/pdf, 26,344 bytes, read 6 September 2026); linked from Union County, Forms & Documents, https://gearupunionsc.com/online-forms-docs/

Sixty-one thousand acres of shallow soil, and twenty-five thousand of the expansive kind

Union County's ground is more variable than its neighbours', and both of the things that bite are worth locating before a foundation is priced. A Soil Data Access query of the SSURGO database for the Union County survey area returns 92,023 acres of Madison, 61,405 of Wilkes, 29,722 of Cecil, 23,829 of Cataula, 23,278 of Pacolet, 21,729 of Enon and 21,105 of Hiwassee. Madison, Cecil, Pacolet and Hiwassee are the well-drained kaolinitic red Piedmont soils that build normally. The other three are the ones to check for. Wilkes is classed in its official series description as shallow, with soft bedrock 10 to 20 inches below the surface and hard bedrock at 40 to more than 60 inches — 61,405 acres, about nineteen percent of the county, on which a footing trench, a septic trench and a utility run all meet rock sooner than the excavator expects. Enon and Iredell are the mafic soils that shrink and swell: 21,729 acres of Enon plus 3,574 of Iredell is more than 25,000 acres of genuinely expansive ground, and S.C. Regulation 61-56 § 200.2 provides that soils with massive or platy structure and soils identified as having substantial amounts of expansible layer clay minerals or smectites are "unsuitable for onsite wastewater systems" — unsuitable outright, not merely expensive. Cataula adds a third pattern on 23,829 acres: its series description puts a dense, partially brittle layer 15 to 40 inches down, which perches water above it. Compare Cherokee County next door, where the entire expansive exposure is 2,061 acres of Iredell and 868 of Helena. In Union the answer is per parcel, and it is worth a boring and a soil evaluation before you close rather than after.

USDA-NRCS Soil Data Access, SSURGO component-acreage query for survey area SC087 (Union County, South Carolina) with SC021 (Cherokee County) for comparison, posted to https://SDMDataAccess.sc.egov.usda.gov/Tabular/post.rest on 6 September 2026; series descriptions at https://soilseries.sc.egov.usda.gov/OSD_Docs/W/WILKES.html , https://soilseries.sc.egov.usda.gov/OSD_Docs/E/ENON.html and https://soilseries.sc.egov.usda.gov/OSD_Docs/C/CATAULA.html ; the unsuitability rule at S.C. Regulation 61-56 § 200.2, https://des.sc.gov/sites/des/files/Library/Regulations/R.61-56.pdf

Above the Fall Line the septic evaluation is dug with a backhoe, and it is a state permit

Onsite wastewater in Union County is permitted by the South Carolina Department of Environmental Services under Regulation 61-56, not by the county, and with no county minimum lot size in force outside the flood ordinance it is the septic evaluation rather than any local rule that decides how small a workable tract can be. The Upstate method is specific: § 104.1(5) requires backhoe pits above the Fall Line separating the Piedmont from the Coastal Plain as defined by the South Carolina Geological Survey, and the whole of Union County is above it, so the evaluation is a machine digging pits on your land rather than a hand auger. Section 104.1(6) requires the site to be ready before the evaluator arrives: property boundary lines and corners cleared and marked, an identification marker at the front centre of the lot, the corners of the proposed building staked, the stub-out, tank and drainfield areas marked, the well location identified and a site sketch filed with the application. Space is the constraint a wide building runs into: § 200.6 keeps no part of the system within five feet of a building or a property line, 75 feet of a private well, 100 feet of a public well or 25 feet of a drainage ditch, and § 200.7(1) requires a usable repair area equal to at least fifty percent of the size of the original system. The evaluation can be done by certified Department staff or by a licensed Professional Soil Classifier you hire directly. On a Union County parcel with Enon or Iredell in the map unit, that report can come back saying no — which is the reason to get it before you close.

S.C. Regulation 61-56, Onsite Wastewater Systems, §§ 104.1(5), 104.1(6), 200.2, 200.6 and 200.7(1), https://des.sc.gov/sites/des/files/Library/Regulations/R.61-56.pdf ; SC Department of Environmental Services, Professional Soil Classifiers, https://des.sc.gov/permits-regulations/septic-tanks/professional-soil-classifiers

A barndominium is never a farm structure, and this county publishes no affidavit for one

S.C. Code § 6-9-65(B) prevents a local government enforcing a nationally recognised building code against a farm structure, which is where the confusion starts. Subsection (A) settles it: a farm structure is one built on a farm "other than a residence or a structure attached to it." A barndominium is a residence, so it is outside the exemption from the first day, and the shop half of a shouse is outside it too because it is attached to a residence. There is no square-footage test and no percentage-of-use test to argue with, subsection (C) makes the exemption conditional on an affidavit filed with the local building official before construction, and the definition expressly excludes any structure that originally qualified "but later converted to another use." Several South Carolina counties publish that affidavit as a downloadable form — Oconee, Colleton and Sumter do, and Spartanburg next door makes the owner swear its version before a notary. Union County publishes no agricultural building statement at all: its Building Safety forms page lists residential, commercial, mechanical, plumbing, electrical, mobile home, fire alarm and fire sprinkler applications, a mobile home information packet, Ordinance No. 248 and the homeowner disclosure, and nothing agricultural. The nearest thing in the county's own law to a definition of an agricultural building is in the flood ordinance, and it is instructive about what the term actually covers: § 9-75 limits an agricultural-structure flood variance to pole frame buildings used exclusively for storing farm machinery and equipment, steel grain bins and corncribs, and general purpose barns open on at least one side for temporarily feeding livestock. A dwelling is not on that list. What Union County does require of an owner-builder is the State License Exemption Homeowners Disclosure Statement, sworn before a notary and filed as a matter of public record with the register of deeds indexed under the owner's name — with the same two-year warning the statute carries, that selling or renting within two years of completion raises a presumption the building was built for sale or rent.

S.C. Code § 6-9-65, https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t06c009.php (served in full, 60,174 bytes, read 6 September 2026); Union County Code § 9-75 (Agricultural structures), https://library.municode.com/sc/union_county/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=PTITHCO_CH9DRERFLCOOTLASTAC ; the complete published forms list at Union County Building Safety & Floodplain Management, https://gearupunionsc.com/departments/building-maintenance/ (read 6 September 2026, no agricultural building statement listed); Union County Department of Building Safety, "State License Exemption Homeowners Disclosure Statement", https://gearupunionsc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Disclosure-Statement.pdf

Fifty-two percent of the county's parcels are undeveloped, and a fifth is national forest

The Comprehensive Plan 2031 describes the land market better than any listing site does. "Union County is a rural county with an abundance of protected open space, natural resources, and undeveloped land. Over half of the parcels in Union County, 52%, are undeveloped, and 21% are protected open space. Most of the protected open space land is located within the proclaimed boundary of the Sumter National Forest and is maintained by the U.S. Forest Service or held in conservation easements. Approximately a quarter of the remaining parcels are categorized as underdeveloped, developed, or agricultural lands." The plan's Future Land Use map puts 58 percent of the county in a Farmland/Rural Residential category intended to preserve agricultural land and protect rural living, and 37 percent in Preserved Open Space, most of it the Sumter National Forest in the southern and south-eastern part of the county. The county is bounded by rivers on three sides — the Pacolet to the north, the Broad to the east, and the Enoree and Tyger to the south, the Enoree being one of the longest free-flowing rivers in the State — and development is concentrated in the City of Union, Jonesville, Lockhart and Carlisle, with smaller pockets at Bonham, Buffalo, Cross Keys, Kelly Kelton, Monarch, Neal Shoals, Philippi, Rose Hill, Santuc, Sardis, Southside and Whitmire. The plan's own summary of density is the line that explains the price: "Except for a portion of the City of Union, all areas of Union County have a population of less than one household per acre." One thing to note before assuming isolation: Union County is one of the two counties in the Spartanburg, SC metropolitan statistical area, so a Spartanburg job and a Union County tract are the same labour market.

Union County Comprehensive Plan 2031, adopted 12 October 2021 — Chapter 4 Land Use planning context and Future Land Use Plan, and the county profile in Chapter 1, https://gearupunionsc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Union-County-Comprehensive-Plan-2031-ADOPTED-10.12.2021.pdf (application/pdf, downloaded 6 September 2026 and read as text extracted with pdftotext in both layout and reading-order modes); metropolitan statistical area composition recorded in research/statewide/geography-and-population.md

Where you permit, and the inspections the county actually calls for

Building permits for unincorporated Union County come from the county Department of Building Safety and Floodplain Management at 1246 S. Duncan Bypass, Suite B, Union, with permitting and inspections both from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm and applications accepted by email. The City of Union runs its own; the Code Enforcement Division's own description is a useful map of the split, since it enforces property maintenance "on all properties in the County of Union, including the Town of Jonesville, the Town of Lockhart and the Town of Carlisle" — the three smaller towns, but not the city. The county's published Residential Inspection Procedures list fifteen inspections and a few requirements worth building into a schedule: a 24-hour notice for every inspection; the permit posted at the site and protected from weather; the address posted where it can be seen from the street; sanitary facilities available on site. The footing inspection wants ditches at least twelve inches deep with squared bottoms bearing on undisturbed earth, free of loose dirt, mud, water, roots and vegetation, with grade markings and any reinforcing steel in place — and it notes that "poor soil conditions may require soil to be tested by approved soil testing firm," which on a Wilkes or Enon map unit is a live possibility. Proof of termite treatment must be on site at the foundation inspection, which fits the county's own design table classing the termite hazard as Very Heavy. At framing, "if any trusses or engineered beams are used, the engineered plans, drawings, and/or specifications shall be on site" — the point at which the wind and seismic values you agreed with the building official have to appear on paper. The insulation inspection verifies R-30 in the ceiling, R-19 in the floor, R-13 in exterior wood-framed walls, R-8.0 for duct in unconditioned space and a 0.65 U-factor on windows, with a permanent certificate posted on or in the electrical panel. Power and meter release comes only once the structure is weathertight and drywall is installed.

Union County Building Safety & Floodplain Management, https://gearupunionsc.com/departments/building-maintenance/ and "Residential Inspection Procedures", https://gearupunionsc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/InspectionProcedures.pdf (application/pdf, 26,402 bytes, read 6 September 2026); Union County Code Enforcement, https://gearupunionsc.com/departments/code-enforcement/ ; the termite designation from Table R301.2(1) at Union County Code § 7-6, https://library.municode.com/sc/union_county/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=PTITHCO_CH7BUCOTECO

In a special flood hazard area the development permit comes before the building permit

The one part of Union County where a county land-use rule really does bite is the floodplain, and the county's flood ordinance is a full one. Chapter 9, Article II applies to all areas of special flood hazard within the county's jurisdiction as identified in FEMA's flood insurance study dated 2 August 2011, with the accompanying maps adopted by reference. Section 9-25 is short and absolute: "A development permit shall be required in conformance with the provisions of this article prior to the commencement of any development activities." Section 9-51 appoints the building official as local administrator, so the same office handles it. With rivers on three sides of the county — the Pacolet, the Broad, the Enoree and the Tyger — and the bottomland that goes with them, a cheap riverside tract is exactly the kind of parcel where this applies, and a wide slab-on-grade building is exactly the kind that is awkward to elevate afterwards. Check the flood map before you make an offer, not after. The ordinance also carries an appeal board, a variance route with conditions at § 9-79, and a narrow agricultural-structure variance at § 9-75 that a dwelling cannot use.

Union County Code §§ 9-24, 9-25, 9-51, 9-71 and 9-75 (Ord. No. 259, Arts. I—VI, adopted 12 July 2011), Chapter 9 — Drainage; Erosion and Flood Control; and Other Land-Disturbing Activities, https://library.municode.com/sc/union_county/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=PTITHCO_CH9DRERFLCOOTLASTAC (read 6 September 2026)