Guides for Houston homeowners

Straight, local answers on cost, permitting, and picking the right firm — written for people building or renovating here, not for search engines.

20 guides

A warm modern living room with a white oak plank ceiling edged by a slim black linear air-supply slot, cream plaster walls, a pale limestone floor, a linen sectional around a white oak coffee table, and floor-to-ceiling black steel windows opening onto a garden with a large live oak and a pool beyond Building Science FeaturedPublished: 7 Oct 2026How big should the air conditioner be? Sizing HVAC for a Houston houseThe right size is whatever a room-by-room Manual J load calculation says, run at the standard 75°F and 50% humidity indoors, with equipment picked under Manual S to land between 95% and 115% of that load. In Houston the usual error runs one way, too big, and an oversized unit cools the air without drying it.
A two-story custom home at the wood-framing stage on a concrete slab under mature live oaks, with a sawhorse work table holding a rolled set of drawings and a tape measure and stacks of lumber on a gravel pad in the foreground, and a finished modern house in white plaster and wood with dark windows across the street Cost Published: 5 Oct 2026What a custom home costs to build in Houston, per square foot and all-inMid-range custom construction in Houston runs about $180 to $250 per square foot, and premium inner-loop work runs past $400. That number covers the house only. Land, site preparation, utility connections, design and engineering, flood elevation and a contingency all sit outside it, and on an inner-loop lot they can add as much as the house itself. Two neighbouring houses on a Houston street under live oaks, the left one a two-story wood frame with roof trusses and partial sheathing on a concrete slab with stacked lumber on a gravel lot, the right one finished in white plaster and vertical white oak with matte black steel windows, a flat-roofed entry porch and a limestone base wall Design Process Published: 2 Oct 2026How long it takes to build a custom home in Houston, from lot to keysPlan on about 2 years from the first meeting with an architect to moving in. Design takes roughly 4 to 7 months, permitting anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months depending on the jurisdiction, and construction 12 to 18 months. Historic district review, deed-restriction approvals and late selections are what usually push a Houston house past that. The side wall of a modern Texas house under construction, its left half finished in vertical white oak boards with matte black windows and its right half still in white housewrap with vertical wood furring strips and black flashing tape around a window, all above a pale limestone base, with sawhorses and lumber on gravel under a live oak Building Science Published: 30 Sep 2026Vapor barriers in Houston walls: why the rule from up north rots houses hereA Houston exterior wall should not have plastic sheeting, foil-faced board or vinyl wallpaper on its inside face. For most of the year the moisture in a Houston wall is moving inward, from humid outdoor air toward the air-conditioned room, so a barrier on the room side becomes the surface it condenses on. The wall has to drain water on the outside and be able to dry toward the inside. An unfinished open kitchen in a modern house in soft afternoon light - a long white oak island with a pale stone top and a brass faucet, white oak cabinetry and a plaster range hood, bare pendant wires hanging from the ceiling with no fixtures yet, a polished concrete floor, black steel glass doors on the left looking out to trees, and plain cardboard boxes stacked against the wall on the right Hiring Published: 28 Sep 2026Allowances in a Houston construction bid: why the lowest number is often the least finishedAn allowance is a placeholder dollar amount a builder carries for something not yet chosen, like lighting, tile or appliances. When one bid is lower than the others, the gap usually sits in allowances set below what you will actually pick, and you pay the difference later as a change order. Compare bids by listing every allowance side by side, pricing your own likely selections against them, and pushing as many items as you can into fixed scope before you sign. The base of a modern single-story house in dappled afternoon light - pale plaster walls and a tall black steel window meeting a clean band of exposed grey concrete slab, a strip of pale river gravel between the wall and a green lawn, low shrubs and a live oak to the left, and a white oak front door with a matte black pull handle on the right Construction Published: 25 Sep 2026Termites and Houston houses: why a pest contract is not a building detailA termite contract treats the soil; it does nothing about how the house lets termites in or hides them once they arrive. In Houston that gap matters, because Formosan termites are established here, gumbo clay cracks slabs and brick, and the usual advice to water the foundation keeps exactly the soil termites want wet. Leave a visible band of slab between soil and anything wood, keep leaks and irrigation away from the walls, and make sure every part of the house can actually be inspected. The side yard of a modern single-story house at dawn on a frosty winter morning - pale plaster walls over a cut limestone base, a standing seam metal roof with a light dusting of frost, oak soffits and black-framed windows glowing with warm interior light - with a matte black slatted equipment enclosure and black insulated pipes entering the stone wall behind a frost-covered boxwood hedge, a white-frosted lawn in the foreground and bare trees against a pale sunrise sky Building Science Published: 23 Sep 2026Freeze-proofing a Houston house: what Winter Storm Uri showed about where the pipes areMost Houston houses that flooded from inside in February 2021 did not fail because of cold alone. They failed because water lines ran through places that were never meant to be heated, like vented attics, exterior walls, crawlspaces and outdoor equipment, and then the power went out. Move or protect those lines, know where your main shutoff is, and plan how the house stays above freezing without the grid. A single-story red brick ranch house with black-framed windows and an open carport, with a new second story being framed on top of it - pale wood studs and roof trusses, walls part-sheathed in plywood and part-wrapped in white house wrap, black-framed upper windows already set - behind a mature live oak and a green front lawn, with a stack of lumber and a plastic-wrapped pallet on the concrete driveway, in clear late-morning sun Remodeling Published: 21 Sep 2026Adding a second story to a Houston house: what to check before anyone draws the upstairsMost Houston houses can physically carry a second story once an engineer has strengthened the foundation and walls under it, but whether you are allowed to build one is decided first by deed restrictions, city height rules, historic district review and the floodplain. Check those 4, in that order, before paying anyone to design the upstairs. A row of 3 attached three-story townhouses faced in pale limestone and white plaster, each with a tall black-framed window stacked over a warm wood garage door, black steel downspouts between the units, rooftop terraces edged with black horizontal-bar steel railings and small covered stair enclosures with potted plants, young trees and planted beds along short concrete drives, in low late-afternoon sun with live oak branches at the top of the frame Buying Published: 18 Sep 2026Buying a Houston 3-story townhouse: what to check on each floor, from the slab to the roof deckMost of what goes wrong in a Houston 3-story townhouse shows up in 4 places, in this order of cost - water at the roof deck and windows, a third floor the air conditioning cannot keep dry, a ground floor that sits lowest on a lot that may now be mapped floodplain, and the recorded agreements covering the shared drive. A general home inspection catches some of it; the rest you have to go and read. A white architectural study model of a two-story house with a deep porch and low hipped roof on a white oak worktable, beside a block of pale limestone, a white plaster sample, a white oak flooring offcut and a black steel strip, with rolled drawings, a scale ruler and a black task lamp, in front of tall black-framed windows looking onto live oaks in afternoon sun Hiring Published: 16 Sep 20269 questions to ask a Houston architect before you sign, and the answers that should worry youBefore you sign with an architect in Houston, find out who will actually draw the house, what each phase of the fee covers, who engineers the foundation, which permit offices the firm has filed with, and whether anyone from the firm will be on site during construction. A vague answer to any of those costs more later than a higher fee costs now. A two-story white plaster house with a dark standing seam metal roof and black-framed windows, its floor raised several feet above grade on a pale limestone base, with a wide flight of stone steps and two black steel handrails leading up to a white oak front door, air-conditioning condensers on a raised stone platform at the side, a rock-lined drainage swale through the planted front yard, live oaks overhead and a wet street in the foreground after rain Flood Risk Published: 14 Sep 2026Building in a Houston floodplain: the 50% rule, and what the post-Harvey maps changedIf any part of a Houston house sits in a mapped floodplain, its lowest floor has to be built above the flood elevation the local jurisdiction sets, and a remodel costing 50% or more of the building's market value is treated as new construction and must meet the same rule. Inner-loop, where the land is worth more than the house, that 50% line arrives far sooner than owners expect. A floored attic with cream spray foam insulation covering the underside of the roof deck between the wood rafters, silver insulated flexible ducts strapped along both sides, and an air handler on a raised wooden platform with a white condensate line, seen from above an open attic ladder that looks down into a bright hallway with oak floors Building Science Published: 11 Sep 2026Spray-foaming the attic of an existing Houston house: when it pays, and the step that decides itFoaming the underside of the roof deck in an existing Houston house is worth it when the ductwork and air handler live in the attic, the roof deck is sound, and you are keeping the house for years. It goes wrong when the air conditioner is not re-sized afterwards, because an already oversized unit becomes more oversized and the house gets clammier, not drier. A new stone and plaster house on a wide flat lot outside Houston, with a grass drainage ditch and concrete culvert running along the road in the foreground and a water tower on the horizon Land Published: 9 Sep 2026Unincorporated Harris County and MUD districts: what actually governs your buildOutside city limits there is no city building department, but there is no shortage of rules either. A build in unincorporated Harris County answers to county floodplain and platting review, privately enforced deed restrictions, an HOA architectural control committee, and usually a Municipal Utility District that shows up on the tax bill for decades. The design constraints often come from the ACC, not the county. Dry cracked clay soil in the foreground of a Houston residential lot, with the exposed concrete slab edge and lower wall of a warm modern house behind it Construction Published: 7 Sep 2026Gumbo clay: why Houston houses move, and what it changes about your projectMost of Houston sits on expansive clay that swells when wet and shrinks when dry, and it moves houses vertically through the year. That is why post-tension slabs are the regional default, why foundation movement is the most common finding on inner-loop inspections, and why the same remodel costs different money on a slab house than on a pier-and-beam one. A quiet residential street of single-storey brick and timber houses under mature live oaks in Houston, with a newly built two-storey modern house set among them Permits Published: 4 Sep 2026Houston has no zoning. Deed restrictions are what actually stop you buildingHouston is the largest US city without conventional zoning, but that does not mean a lot is unregulated. Private deed restrictions recorded against the property control use, size, setbacks and often materials, they are enforced by neighbours and by the City itself, and two lots on the same block can carry completely different rules. A 1950s single-storey Houston house with its interior stripped to bare wall studs and ceiling joists, seen from the front lawn beside a newly framed two-storey house on the neighbouring lot Design Process Published: 2 Sep 2026Remodel or tear down and rebuild? How the math actually breaks in HoustonInner-loop Houston is one of the few markets where the lot is often worth more than the house on it, which is what pushes so many projects to a teardown. The deciding factors are usually the foundation, the floodplain, and a rule that caps what you are allowed to spend on a remodel. A 1920s Houston Heights bungalow with a deep front porch, wood siding and tapered porch columns, seen in warm late-afternoon light with a live oak overhead Permits Published: 31 Aug 2026The Heights remodel mistake: designing before you check the historic districtInside a City of Houston historic district, exterior work needs a Certificate of Appropriateness before a building permit, and applications are due at noon 22 days before a commission that meets once a month. Owners who design first and check later lose a month per revision. A large-format set of architectural drawings unrolled on the wood subfloor of a house under construction, weighted with a tape measure and a stone block, exposed framing and a stone exterior wall behind it Design Process Published: 29 Aug 2026What is actually in an architect's drawing set, sheet by sheetA permit set for a Houston house is usually 20 to 45 sheets, and most owners have never seen one. Here is what each sheet does, which ones the permit counter reads first, and where a thin set costs you money during construction. A two-storey Houston house under construction, framing exposed, seen from the street on an overcast afternoon Hiring Published: 26 Aug 2026Texas does not license general contractors. Here is what to check insteadTexas issues no state licence to residential general contractors. Anyone can print business cards tomorrow. Electricians and plumbers are licensed, architects are registered — and that gap is where most homeowner trouble starts. A vacant residential lot in a Houston neighbourhood with survey stakes and string lines marking the building setbacks, an older single-storey house and a newer two-storey custom home standing side by side beyond it Permits Published: 21 Aug 2026Four Houston addresses, four different permit processesHouston has no zoning, but your lot still answers to someone. Which authority that is changes your drawings, your review, and your schedule more than any other early decision.

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