Barndominium Builders in Covington, LA

Barndominium builders in Covington work in the parish seat of St. Tammany Parish, a town that sits at the fork of the Bogue Falaya and the Tchefuncte River. Those two rivers shaped the town: boats once came up the Bogue Falaya, using the Tchefuncte as the route to and from Lake Pontchartrain. Today the rivers still shape where a metal-building home can go and how high it needs to sit.

A fast-growing town and parish

Covington had 8,765 residents in 2010 and 11,564 in 2020, a 31.9 percent jump. St. Tammany Parish as a whole counted 264,570 people in 2020, the fourth-most populous parish in Louisiana, and its population has roughly quadrupled since 1970. Growth followed the interstate and the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway as New Orleans commuters moved north. For a landowner that means two things: rural acreage near Covington is in demand, and many parcels that look rural sit next to new subdivisions with their own deed restrictions.

Check the restrictions before the floor plan

Before we draw a barndominium for a Covington-area lot, we ask for the deed and any subdivision covenants. Some restrict metal exterior walls, minimum square footage or accessory buildings. If the lot is inside city limits, city zoning applies; if it is in unincorporated St. Tammany, the parish rules apply. As the parish seat, Covington is where many parish offices are based, but the right permit office depends on your exact parcel.

What the land is like

When Iberville described this area in 1699, he wrote of level ground, pine and hardwood forests and sandy soil. A lot of the land around Covington still fits that description. Sandy ground drains better than the heavy clays further south, but low spots near the rivers and their branches stay wet, and the flood map is what decides finished floor height, not how dry the lot looked in October.

Codes that apply statewide

Louisiana adopted the 2021 editions of the International Residential Code and related codes effective January 1, 2023, along with the 2020 National Electrical Code. The update added more GFCI outlets and, for the first time, inspection for energy code compliance in residential construction. For a steel or post-frame home, that puts real weight on the insulation package. We plan closed-cell or open-cell spray foam, vapor control and HVAC sizing together so the building passes inspection and does not sweat.

Septic outside the sewer lines

On acreage outside a sewer district you will need a permitted onsite system. Parish health unit sanitarians handle onsite sewage permits in Louisiana, and installers should provide a maintenance contract with a new system. Homeowners are required to maintain their system for as long as they live in the home, so we plan easy access to tanks and lids in the site layout.

Storm history north of the lake

Covington is inland, but St. Tammany Parish is not storm-free. During Hurricane Katrina in 2005, surge was estimated at 7 feet at nearby Madisonville and 16 feet at Rigolets Pass, and 48,792 housing units in the parish were damaged. That is why we design metal-building homes here with wind-rated framing, anchored connections and a slab height chosen from the flood map.

Typical Covington builds

• Barndominium homes on pine acreage
• Shop houses with a residence upstairs or to one side
• Metal building homes with porches sized for the Northshore heat
• Custom barndominium floor plans for narrow, deep lots

Call (225) 320-7298 to talk about land around Covington, or

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