Service area · Kentucky
Metal buildings in Kentucky.
We supply shops, barns, barndominiums, commercial buildings and more across Kentucky. Our work reaches from Paducah to Lexington, and anywhere else you’re building. Kentucky has one mandatory building code for the whole state, and farm buildings outside city limits are exempt from it.
State residential code
Built on the 2015 IRC
State building code
Built on the 2015 IBC
Local code changes
Not allowed for homes
Farm buildings
Exempt outside city limits
Cities and counties enforce the state code. Zoning, setbacks and floodplain rules are still set locally, and we check them for every address.
What matters for metal buildings in Kentucky?
Kentucky is one of the few states with a single mandatory code everywhere, so the big question is usually whether your building falls under it at all.
Who writes the code
The Department of Housing, Buildings and Construction writes one code for the whole state. Cities and counties enforce it, and for homes they can’t adopt anything stricter or looser.
Shops and garages
A shop or garage that goes with a house follows the Kentucky Residential Code. Commercial buildings follow the Kentucky Building Code.
Farm buildings
Buildings that serve the operation of a farm are exempt from the state code if they sit outside city limits. The exemption doesn’t cover retail buildings, regular workplaces for ten or more people, or timber storage and processing.
The farmhouse too
The exemption covers farm dwellings as well as barns, which matters for a barndominium on a working farm. Some counties ask for an affidavit first. Boyle County’s requires a farm registered with the county PVA and at least ten acres.
Exempt from the code doesn’t mean exempt from the loads. A farm building still has to carry the wind and snow at its address, and western Kentucky sits near the New Madrid fault, where seismic loads can shape a design. We engineer every building to its address, exempt or not.
Which frame fits
The building decides the frame, and the same rules hold in Kentucky as anywhere else we work.
Shops & farm buildings
Tubular is hard to beat up to sixty feet wide, as long as you aren’t drywalling it. Insulating it doesn’t change the answer.
Barndominiums
Steel truss lands on two-foot centers, so drywall screws straight to the frame. There’s no wood wall to build inside the steel.
Seen from the road
Cold-formed brings a closed eave, fascia, gutters and downspouts as standard.
Wide & tall
Past eighty feet wide, red iron is the only sensible answer.
Local guides for Kentucky
We deliver and install anywhere in Kentucky. These guides cover the permit rules around the state’s larger towns, and we check the rules for every other address the same way.
Western Kentucky
Bowling Green & Owensboro
Louisville metro
Lexington & the Bluegrass
Building somewhere that isn’t listed? Tell us the address and we’ll confirm who permits it and what applies. See Tennessee, Illinois or our whole service area.
Start with a conversation
Let’s talk about your Kentucky project.
Tell us what you’re planning and where you’re building. We’ll help you work out the next steps.
- Tell us what and whereSend us the size, how you’ll use the building and the address.
- We check the siteWe confirm who permits the address and which code and loads apply.
- You get a clear recommendationWe recommend the frame that fits and price it against the alternatives.
Or call
417-218-8348