Bison Pods — custom backyard pods, built in Uvalde, Texas

Design preview — sizes, lead times and contact details shown are sample content to demonstrate layout.

A pod is forty feet away
and entirely yours.

Not the corner of a bedroom, not half the garage. A building with its own door, its own light and its own quiet — commissioned one at a time in Uvalde, delivered finished to San Antonio, and light enough on the ground that it comes with you when you move.

Gym

Rubber floor, height for a bar overhead, and a door you can leave open in July. Rated to 125 lb per square foot, so a rack and plates are not a question you have to ask first.

The pod as delivered

Office

Insulated and wired for real work — ten outlets, data, and enough quiet that a call does not have to wait for the house to settle down.

Lit for the evening

Studio

For the work that needs a door: recording, painting, teaching, making. Acoustic wall panels, an upgraded door seal and blackout glazing, specified per build.

The entry, after dark

Sanctuary

Somewhere to be quiet. A chair, a lamp, a door that shuts and no screen unless you carry one in. The shortest brief we get, and the pod people end up using most.

The quiet corner

And when you move

It comes
with you

A pod sits on a level pad rather than in a foundation, which is what makes it portable. It stays a pod you own, not an improvement you hand to whoever buys the house — lifted, trailered and set again in the new yard.

UvaldeSan AntonioYour yard

Materials

Choose what
it is made of

Every pod is specified per build. What follows is what Bison Pods fits most often — the roof panels, the siding and the interior finishes that come up again and again. They are where a build starts, not a catalogue. If there is a product you want, Zach will source it; if you find it yourself, he will build with it. Windows and doors are Pella.

Roofing

NS-100 Nail Strip

Sixteen inches of cover, and the panel carries its own nailing flange so it goes down without clips. The simpler of the two to fit, and the one most pods leave on.

Siding

LP SmartSide

Engineered wood — a treated strand substrate with a pressed cedar grain, so it reads as timber and handles like a board. This is the siding on the pod in the photographs above.

Interior

Wood shiplap

Real wood boards on the inside wall, run vertical or horizontal. Painted, or left to be wood. It is the one finish people change their mind about in the shop, so it is left until late.

These are the options that come up most, not a catalogue. Every pod is built to order, and the list is open: name a product you want and Zach will source it, or find it yourself and he will build with it. The answer to “can you do …” is almost always yes — ask.

From $200
per square foot

Buildings start at $200 per square foot. What that comes to depends on the size you settle on, and the size depends on what the room is for — so the honest answer to “how much” begins with a conversation rather than a calculator.

Every pod is framed in 2×6 stud walls — not the 2×4 a shed is built from. The deeper wall is what carries the insulation, the wiring, and whatever you decide to hang on it.

There is a range to start from, and past that it is yours. Size, openings, cladding, finish, what the room is for: it is drawn to suit rather than picked off a list, and a completely custom build is the normal thing here rather than the exception.

The
builder

A pod is not an extension and it is not a shed. It is a room of your own, forty feet from the back door, with its own light, its own door and its own quiet — and because it sits on a pad rather than a foundation, it is not something you leave behind. When the house changes, the pod is lifted, trailered and set down again in the new yard.

Bison Pods is Zach Unruh, and every pod is his own build. Commissioning one means buying a single person’s standard rather than a production line’s tolerance — twelve years framing and finishing custom homes before the first pod went up in his own back yard, and still a two-man shop in Uvalde turning out four to six a year with no subcontracted finish work.

“If I would not put it in my own back yard, it does not leave the shop.”

Inquire

Tell us what
the pod is for

(830) 900-0052
Built in Uvalde, Texas · Serving San Antonio, within 120 miles

A pod is forty feet awayand entirely yours.

Gym