Barndominium Builders in Liberty, SC

Barndominium builders in Liberty are working in a small city that never grew much past its mill-town footprint. Liberty is a city in Pickens County with 3,366 residents at the 2020 census, up only 3.0 percent from 3,269 in 2010, on about 4.5 square miles at an elevation of 984 feet. That slow growth inside the limits is exactly why so many people look at land just outside them: there is still room for a home with a real shop attached.

A town that grew up on the railroad

Liberty became official soon after the Charlotte-Atlanta Airline Railway came through in the early 1870s, and the city was chartered on March 2, 1876. The first cotton mill opened in 1901, a second followed in 1905, and at their peak in the 1970s the mills employed over 1,000 workers before the textile industry here declined in the 1990s. Today the 2020 census counted 1,544 housing units in the city, and 8.1 percent of residents were classed as living in rural areas. The countryside around town is where the larger tracts are.

Inside the city or out in the county?

The first question we ask is which side of the city line your parcel sits on. The City of Liberty lists its own Permits and Zoning department and runs its business from Front Street, so a lot inside the limits starts with a call to City Hall. Land outside the limits falls under Pickens County Building Codes in Pickens, which enforces the adopted International codes and county ordinances and aims to inspect within 24 hours of a request.

The Pickens County order of operations

Pickens County publishes a residential permitting package, and the order matters for a barndominium on raw land:

• Septic permit first. Apply to SC DES for an onsite system with a current recorded plat and, for a recent purchase, the purchasing document. The county says to allow at least four to five weeks.
• Then a 911 address from the county E-911 department.
• Then the building permit at Building Codes, needed for any structure of 200 square feet or more or anything with plumbing or power.
• Encroachment permit from Roads and Bridges if your drive ties into a county road, with 48 hours notice before work starts.
• Grading permit from Stormwater may apply if you disturb a quarter acre or more, which a slab, shop apron and driveway can easily reach.

Work must start within six months of permit issue, and you need a certificate of occupancy before you move in.

Owner-builders

If you plan to act as your own general contractor and hire us for the shell, Pickens County requires a recorded owner/builder affidavit and expects you to occupy the home for at least two years. We can build the steel or post-frame shell, dry it in and hand off the interior, or carry the job through to the final inspection.

Red clay under the pad

The uplands around Liberty are Piedmont country, and the USDA describes common Piedmont series such as Cecil and Pacolet as very deep, well drained soils over red clay subsoil formed from weathered igneous and metamorphic rock. Pacolet slopes run from 2 to 60 percent, commonly 15 to 25 percent. For a barndominium, that means a cut-and-fill pad, compacted in lifts, and a plan for where roof water goes. A 60-foot metal roof sheds a lot of water in one storm, and gutters or a drip-edge trench keep it off the slab edge and out of the drain field.

Water and wastewater

The City of Liberty points residents to the Pickens Regional Joint Water System, and the city's waterworks have drawn from Eighteen Mile Creek since the 1950s. Out in the county, check whether a water line runs along your road before you budget a well. For sewer, assume septic unless you are inside the system, and remember that South Carolina law requires site approval and a permit for every septic system. Without that permit, the county will not issue the building permit.

Call (864) 326-0632 or

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and tell us where your Liberty-area land is.