Buying & Renovating Property in Dublin - Costs, Tips & Key Considerations
Are you thinking about buying a property in Dublin? Wondering about renovation costs, common issues like damp and subsidence, or how to maximise resale value? In this episode, Breffnie O’Kelly, a professional Buyer’s Agent, sits down with Shay Lally of Houses to Restore to share expert insights on Dublin’s property market.
📌 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
✅ The benefits of buying in the city vs the countryside
✅ Renovation costs per square metre - what to budget
✅ How to spot costly issues like subsidence, damp & rewiring needs
✅ The real cost of adding a downstairs loo or replacing windows
✅ BER ratings & why energy efficiency matters
✅ Why a home renovation assessment can save you thousands
🎙️ About Our Guest -
Shay Lally With 65,000+ followers on Instagram, Shay Lally is one of Ireland’s go-to renovation cost consultants. He provides home renovation assessments, helping buyers understand the true cost of bringing a house up to standard before they commit to a purchase. Learn more at www.housestorestore.ie.
About Breffnie O Kelly Buyer’s Agent.
I’m Breffnie, a licensed property-buying agent practising in Dublin, Ireland, where I was born and bred.
I love the process of assessing neighbourhoods and properties, looking for the features that will enhance the lives of my clients as well as the resale value of the property.
I'm a graduate of the Institute of Technology Tallaght (winning the Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers Prize for Leadership) and a prize-winning (Sheehy Skeffington Prize in French) graduate of Trinity College Dublin. I'm also an external examiner on the newly launched National Auctioneering and Property Services Apprenticeship programme.
I love what I do.
I know that finding and agreeing terms on a property can be stressful, and I relish the fact that I can offer you a road map of the journey ahead, expert knowledge and a guiding hand until you have keys to your new property in your hand.
Thank you.
Book a call with Breffnie
Breffnie O'Kelly
Hello there. Today we're going to be talking about buying a property in the city, and some of the benefits that go with buying one of many, as we know for buying a house, for example, in the countryside, very often we're buying a once off house that may not be replicated, whereas if we're buying something in the city, we're very often buying one of many houses, for example, that were built by the same builder in the same year in time period roughly to the same floor plan. So why is that useful? Well, it means that when we go to buy, we have a lot of nice benchmarks and comparables for ourselves when it comes to deciding whether you're paying the right price, when it comes to figuring out what kind of planning precedent is likely to what kind of planning has been granted here, and what kind of planning my permission might be available to you, and also how best to use the space you'll be able to walk by various different houses and have a look and see, well, how have they maximized this house and take inspiration from other people. So there's lots of good benefits attached to buying a property in the city, which is one of many. And today we're going to be talking to Shay Lally of houses to restore. And Shay is particularly useful person to you if you're just at the point of making decision about a property and you want to get a sense of how much it's going to cost you to do the work you'd like to do. And Shay provides two types of services. One is that he'll come to the property and he'll walk through it with you, and then give you a sense of what the work you plan to do is likely to cost. So that's a very useful service. And the second one is that he will actually do the work for you. So he's a very useful person to have on your team at this point in the proceedings, when you're thinking of buying and you'll find Shay over on housestorestore where he has 65,000 followers. Some of the things we talk about today are a rule of thumb in terms of cost per square meter to renovate a house, some of the quirks that attach to various locations and build types around Dublin, for example, the asbestos you might find in the Marino houses, perhaps some damp issues in Dublin eight and various other things. Again, these are just rules of thumb. So I hope you enjoy today's episode. I'm sure you're going to find it useful. And our thanks to Shay for joining us.
Hello everyone, and thank you so much for joining us today. Today, I'm delighted to be joined by Shay Lally of housestorestore.ie and you might know Shay from his enormous Instagram following where he has 65,000 followers. And Shay is a construction cost consultant, and he specialises in, well, you've got two services, as I understand it say, one is an advisory service where you will advise people, and the other is a complete from start to finish, all in one service, end to end, as you say, a done for you service. So that's a super useful person for us to be talking to, because many of my buyers are buying homes in the city. And one of the things I think is a strength about buying a home in the city is that you're usually buying one of many homes. You're buying number 16, say, and there's numbers one to 100 so this is helpful for lots of different reasons. I think, one because you can clearly see some precedent as to what other people have done with their houses, and that's kind of useful to give you information and just potential as to what will be given planning and what can this house... what what can be done with this house, and another one is in terms of resale value, because if you're going to put some money into your house, you want to get a sense of okay, it might be good for my lifestyle, but will I get this money back? What are the chances of me getting my money back when I go to sell it? And one of the advantages of having lots of other comparables all around you, of similar properties all in different stages of repair is that you can usually see what a well done house has gone for versus a not well done house, and that usually gives you some comfort when thinking of spending some money on your house. So it's really useful to talk to you, Shay, because you're in and out of Dublin houses, I imagine all the time. Some, most of my clients are not first time buyers, I have to say. But I would like to talk about them to start off with. And for example, I have a client at the moment who sale agreed on something in Dublin eight. They're buying it in in the early five hundreds, and we can clearly see that. We're buying a house that has been done up to some extent, and that's been comforting for us. But if we'd been looking at a house that wasn't done up, I know my client would be trying to get a sense of, Well, what should I budget? This house is 70 square meters I'd like to rent. It doesn't have a decent bathroom, it doesn't have a decent floor plan. It feels like it needs everything done. How should I even start considering this house in terms of budget?
Shay Lally 5:27
Yeah, yeah, that's and that's a huge thing at the moment, because things are so expensive. So that's where I suppose people would get me in to do if you'd like a kind of feasibility assessment, or like a home renovation assessment, and I'd walk through the property with them, we'd review what sort of condition the house was in, what sort of work it needed, and then what the requirements were. And essentially, I take measurements, I'd use up to date unit rates and stuff like that, and I'd put a high level cost plan together and say, Look, if you were to renovate this house, and if you were to extend it and do all of the things you'd like to do, it's likely to cost you 100,000 euro, or 150,000 euro, or whatever the case may be. And then they have an idea of how much it's going to cost them. And that can be great for some people, because it's reassuring, because they know, okay, this is achievable and this is within budget. Or likewise, they might say, yikes, we can't stretch to that. It's too much. That might start a different conversation. Is it possible to do this work in phases? Are there some elements of this house we could take out? So for example, let's just say there was a utility room going in. They might necessarily fit the utility room presses on day one, but if they're putting the extension in, they'll have to stood partition and the layout and the electrical sockets exactly as they need them. And then in time, in a year two or three, when the budget allows, they'll get the utility units fitted. So you can kind of have those conversations then as well around the budget, to see how you can actually make it achievable for that particular person and their particular needs.
Breffnie O'Kelly 6:47
Perfect. So let's just say we we are looking at a first time buyer, and they're going out to a house it needs significant work. You provide the service, and I presume you do this at a cost. Are you happy to share the kind of cost you would charge to go out and look at a property with someone and go back and give them some when you say top line costs, do you mean slightly itemised, or an overall ballpark figure
Shay Lally 7:12
So it will be itemised, but it's kind of high level, in the sense that, like you're putting things like, say, PC sum, so that's like a budget amount. So you might say, for example, PC sum of 15,000 euro for a kitchen. So if it was more granular, you'd be going off to the kitchen company and saying, This is the exact kitchen we want. Can you price this up, please? And then you might realize, okay, it's actually 14,122 euro, you know. So you're dealing with budget sums for certain things. So that's just where I suppose the high the high level piece comes in. And often, when you're walking through these houses, there's no architectural plans done at that point. So again, you're doing it off the assumption. Well, if you were to put in, for argument's sake, like a single story flat roof extension to the rear, like a three meter wide slide or whatever, this is what it's likely to cost you. But then when the drawings are done up, that layout might change, and then, as a result, the costs are going to change. So that's, that's, I guess, how the costs would work out. And then, regarding my fee, I charge 750 Euro. So essentially, what that involves is me going to the property, meeting with the client for maybe, like, somewhere in between an hour and an hour and a half is typically what it takes. Um, we'll chat through the things that I've mentioned. We'll walk the house, see what kind of condition it's in. There'll be a questionnaire, like an information gathering questionnaire to complete, and then I'll measure up, I'll take my notes, and then within about a fortnight, I'll return to them the spreadsheet, and we'll follow up, and we'll do a zoom, and we'll run through those numbers on the Zoom, and essentially, then kind of put manners on it all for themselves. They're clear on what I've included. There might be some things that I've excluded. There might be a reason why they're excluded. And then they come away with that budget, knowing where they stand. And for that answer, it's 750 Euro.
Breffnie O'Kelly 8:52
Perfect. That's a very good service. You'll go out, you'll talk to them, you'll go back, you'll get some detailed costings, and then you'll have a further follow up, Zoom call to go to it all for 750 including that, that's a really useful service for people to know about. And I know, obviously they do know about it. But honestly, I think you could talk about that a bit more in your Instagram posts, because you give a lot of information away. So you want people to know you're there doing it.
Shay Lally 9:15
Yeah? Oh yeah, no. 100% the only challenge is, is that there's only so many hours in a day, yeah? So I just have to be conscious that, you know, and I like if I'm dealing with people, to be able to give them time. So I'm just conscious that if I put it out there to the masses all of the time, I just won't be able to keep up with it. And that's, it's not a good thing, you know? You need to have balance.
Breffnie O'Kelly 9:35
Yeah, that's very true. So in general, Shay, would you think it's a fair enough approach to put a cost per square meter on doing up renovations? And the reason I ask is I had clients recently, we were looking at a house, and it needed everything, you know... the floor plan didn't work, and everything needed upgrading. So it was a big job. So in. In my world, before we're having this conversation, I would typically go to sites like the SCSI for cost per square meter to renovate. Now, I know it's a very rough cost, but the kind of cost I would be thinking of putting on a renovation, and by renovation I mean we want to knock down walls, we want to put in new windows, new floors, new heating, basically new everything. The kind of figure that I have been seeing is roughly 1800 to 2500 per square metre. Is that a cost you would consider? How do you respond to that kind of a number? Or do you find it useful as a way of considering things?
Shay Lally 10:48
Yeah, but it's some houses where that'd be too high. You know, it ultimately depends on the house. So it depends on what condition the house is in. If you're renovating something that was maybe built in the 1990s um, like, depending on the fixtures and fitness they choose, that would be too high being realistic for a house like that, and then for a house that was built maybe in the 1800s like a Victorian terrace house that was built like in 1890 and that has rising damp an just all sorts of issues with joists, roof, etc, etc. But then they're more realistic numbers. So the challenge is, with a number like that. It suits a house type, but it doesn't suit every house type. So typically, what I'd say to people is that, like, anywhere between 1000 euro and 2500 euro, because if you have a two bed apartment, and there is 70 square meters in the apartment, and if you put 70,000 euro into an apartment like it will be immaculate at the end, to be completely fair, you know, it will, you'll do a really good job for 70,000 euro on a two bed apartment. And so that's the other side of it. So if you say to someone, well, it's 1800 euro is the starting point that's going to alienate that person who might be looking at, say, a two bed apartment that needs to be renovated. You know, because it comes back to what you said about, you know, what the what the apartment next door, the apartment upstairs, went for. And then you realise, well, hang on a second, like, this is way out. I'll never see this money back. And if that's a first time buyer, that's worrying, because, as you say, they probably want to trade up. They want to come to someone like you to find them a property. And they kind of want to feel like, well, look, I'm after spending x amount on buying the apartment, I'm going to spend more renovating it. I want to see that money back when the point comes to sell.
Breffnie O'Kelly 12:20
Okay, fair enough, and that's really good to get your feedback on that. So tell me if you had a friend or a sister going off to buy a house and they're babes in the wood and they don't really know anything about looking at houses, are there things you would typically say to people to watch out for?
Shay Lally 12:40
Yeah, the big thing is subsidence. I just tell everyone to run a mile from subsidence. So it's always a worry for me, you know, because no matter what you do to rectify it, there's no guarantee that it's not going to come back. And so that's always a worry for me. So it's like...
Breffnie O'Kelly 12:54
You might explain subsidence a bit, say, just to...
Shay Lally 12:57
Yeah, it's essentially like, we're a section of the house, I suppose, has the ground level underneath, has basically dropped, in some sense of the house and move. You've had substantial movement in the in the in the foundations, you know, and it could be caused for different reasons. Like some houses, it's caused because they put the Dublin tunnel, or that the port tunnel underneath the house. Others, maybe, you know, you might have had an issue with drainage over the years, and there's a collapse drain, and that's what caused it. And then there's other houses that are just built on on land thats soft, and as a result, they've moved substantially over over, over time.
Breffnie O'Kelly 13:31
We saw a sink hole appearing in Sandymount yesterday.
Shay Lally 13:35
I saw that actually, I think there was another one last, last week, or maybe two weeks ago. Was there?
Breffnie O'Kelly 13:39
Yeah. Amazing.
Shay Lally 13:42
Yeah. So, just that sort of thing, you know.
Breffnie O'Kelly 13:44
So how could people spot subsidence?
Shay Lally 13:47
Yeah, you have large cracks like so if you got a two euro coin, you should be able to fit a two euro coin into the crack. And that'd be a bit of an indication of, Okay, hang on, something isn't quite right here. And likewise, let's just say the floor and the ceiling, if they're not parallel, that'd be another thing that would raise my suspicions. Or even the two corner walls, they also need to be parallel with each other. And if you notice that those things aren't parallel again, that'd be a worry. Um, like...
Breffnie O'Kelly 14:12
It would probably take a trained eye to spot that, though, wouldn't you think?
Shay Lally 14:17
Yeah, like, sometimes it's very obvious, like, there was a property for sale in Griffith Avenue, like, last year, and I'd say three dozen people, like, three dozen friends, I'd say, sent it to me on WhatsApp, looking for my opinion. And it was blatantly obvious it had subsidence, and most people copped it, because it was very, very obvious. There was another property. Interestingly, you mentioned Sandymount. There was another property in Sandymount, and that had it as well, and that was up for sale. And a lot of people came to me looking for info on it, you know, to see what the story was. But again, it was very obvious there. And I suppose the price point or the asking price was too good to be true, and that's what made people suspicious. So I think that property in Griffith Avenue is up for something like 650 or not. Sorry, 350 and typically, a house like that might be up for 6 or 7 you know. And so it's just way too good to be true. So that's, that's one telltale sign. But like, even if you're walking in the house and you feel like the floor levels are really dipping down in certain places and you notice large cracks, things aren't parallel, they're all more telltale signs. That's something to play here.
Breffnie O'Kelly 15:21
Lovely. So, okay, our two euro coin is something useful to bring to a viewing then, or at least have in your hand
Shay Lally 15:26
if you can, if you can slot it into the wall, you're in trouble.
Breffnie O'Kelly 15:29
We're in trouble. Okay, um, tell us anything else? Shay,
Shay Lally 15:34
um, so that'll be a big one. Rising damp is another one. Um, I'd be sussing out to see if the like, the rising damp, for people who are listening like, it's essentially like the house doesn't have any DPC, or the DPC that's been there has been pretty...
Breffnie O'Kelly 15:48
DPC, you might explain a DP, sorry, you just did.
Shay Lally 15:51
Yeah, so Damp Proof Course. So nowadays, essentially, like, they put in a layer of plastic, and they've been doing that since around the 70s. But in the past, they haven't, like, they've done it in various different ways over the years and as methods of construction have changed, but essentially it prevents moisture from getting into your house. And without one, the moisture is going to come into your house. So if your ground is high moisture levels, it's going to be even worse, you know. So areas in Dublin eight would have high moisture moisture levels, you know. And a lot of the houses there would need DPC. So there's companies that would come in and do that. So essentially, it needs to be treated. And you'd essentially rip the whole house out, the walls, floor, all that sort of stuff. And you can get a coated, like with a kind of waterproof coating, and the walls and the floor and stuff can be injected. Or likewise, you can take out the complete slab or the sub floor in the house, take that out completely and put in a new insulated sub floor, which has a DPC, so it depends on, I suppose, how bad it is and how much somebody wants to spend.
Breffnie O'Kelly 16:47
Sure. Okay, so I'm going in to look at a house, and I, I'm, I now I know I should be aware of damp. How would you spot it?
Shay Lally 16:56
So on the walls and on the window walls. If you look, say, like a metre up from the ground, you might kind of notice, like a yellow ish, kind of coloured mapping sort of effect. If you imagine, like the outline of a country on a map, and you'll see that on the wall, it'll kind of wave up and down and typically colour like a yellowish it's like, as if you spilled a cup of tea, maybe on carpet, or something like that. It would kind of have that look on the wall. And likewise, if there's a wallpaper, which there often is in these older houses that might have been painted over, you'll see the wallpaper peeling off the bottoms of the walls. And if it's really bad, you'll see the skirt boards could even be rotten from the moisture content. So it's kind of a case of, like, having a good look. And I was in a house the other day, I was looking at, I mean, I was actually looking at it for myself, to be honest. And like, there was definitely rising damp in it and it was quite bad, to be honest. And so it's definitely something that you'd need, need to consider, you know, and but it's something that's fixable, other than things that I'd look out for will be like, does the house need to be rewired and does it need a new heating system? Because some people like the idea of being able to move into a property and then living there for a while, getting a feel for the property, and then moving out, essentially, to do the work, you know, at a later point when budget allows. So if the house needs to be rewired and the heat system isn't working, then you have a challenge there, because you won't be able to move into the house. In its current condition, and that is a challenge in itself.
Breffnie O'Kelly 18:20
And the telltale signs I notice, anyway, for looking at houses about rewiring, are the sockets that stand out of the wall and the you can see the wire just kind of being chased outside of the wall and fuse boards to
Shay Lally 18:36
Yeah,so exactly that. And off me, you'll see sockets on skirting boards as well. So they're at a really low level. So that's another telltale sign. So essentially, like with building regulations now for the electrical side of things, like a socket should be 450 millimeters off the floor level, basically. So if you see them really low down, that's a telltale sign. If you look up at the light fittings, like the pendant lights, like a standard light in it, in the living room, let's just say. And if you see twisted cables on that, that's another telltale sign. And if you look at the fuse board, and they're more like plugs rather than switches, again, another telltale sign that the house needs to be rewired. And then when it comes to heating systems, like if you see really long radiators in a room that look too big for the room, but they're only single panel radiators. That'd be an indication that the heating system needs to be updated. And likewise, if you see really, really thick pipes coming out of those rads, that would indicate that there's gun barrel pipes in the in the in the rads, and they need to be replaced and upgraded as well. And then even things like looking at the boiler and just, even just doing a visual inspection and saying, like, does this look new or old? And also checking, like the service register. So when someone services a boiler, they'll put the sticker on the boiler and they'll say, you know, last service done whatever, 18th of April 2024, or whatever. So if someone comes in and has a look at a house in six months time, they realise, I. So the boiler was only service six months ago, whereas, if you're in a house today, and it says, you know, the first of September, 2001 you're kind of saying, we've got that boiler hasn't been touched in 23 years, you know. And and the challenge with some things like that, like with some boilers, they might last, and there's no guarantee of how long they're going to last, or if they're going to pack in tomorrow, like, some things will just last. The only challenge is that if you have an old boiler in a house, if something breaks in it, it's very challenging to get parts for that boiler. Even if it's something that's fixable, you know, yeah,
Breffnie O'Kelly 20:30
how about the roof?
Shay Lally 20:33
Yeah. So roof and with the older houses that you're talking about, like in Dublin eight and a lot of them have had their roofs replaced over the years, like it's one thing like, you do notice when you see houses up for sale, the roof is often replaced and the rest of the house isnt, and a ridge tile is one thing, I suppose I'll start there. So the ridge tile is like the capping on the roof. And so you'd want to make sure that the pointing, the pointing is like the mortar or the cement in between the joints and the ridge tile, you want to make sure that that's all really well done. If there's no gaps, there's no indication of any overgrowth. And another thing I'd look at is the chimney. Again, I'd look at the joints between all of the brickwork. If there's no brickwork, let's just say it's like a rendered chimney. I'd see if there's any cracks in the chimney. Again, I'd see if there's any overgrowth in the chimney, and I'd look out for things like slipped tiles or slates. And then I'd also check the lead flashing, which is the detail around the chimney, or if you have two roofs that meet. So say, like, again, I'm going to use Dublin native to reference, because we're talking about Dublin City. You have loads of, you know, Victorian terraced houses, and they have returns on the back of them. And with the returned one roof, the roof of the return runs into the roof on the the main house, and you'll have a lead flashing where those two rooves meet. So I'd be checking the detail along there and see what the story is there, you know, and and then other things like in relation to the roof, is that when you're upstairs in the house, if you have a look at the ceilings, and again, if you notice kind of water marks are, again, like what I said about the tea stains, if you notice something that looks like a bit of a tea stain or a flaking ceiling upstairs, that that would indicate as water coming from somewhere. And now, it could be from the water tank in the attic. It could be from a pipe, or it could be from the roof. And...
Breffnie O'Kelly 22:10
Sometimes you see stippling on the ceiling, yeah, and, and I hope everyone knows what I mean by stippling, but just that uneven surface on the ceiling. And why did people put that there was that decorative?
Shay Lally 22:23
I think it was just fashionable. Yeah, I think it was, yeah. I think at one point it was fashionable, and now it's obviously not fashionable. That's a very easy thing to fix, though, in the sense that, like a plaster would just go in and scrape what they can off, yeah, and they put a product called thistlebond on, and it's like a sealant, essentially. And it just means that when they skim the ceiling, that the plaster will stick to that kind of uneven surface. So it just means when you go to paint the plaster, the new skin post doesn't pull off the the old surface that's there.
Breffnie O'Kelly 22:54
Have you noticed, in general, in areas in Dublin, that they have different characteristics, like, for example, I think Marino, the houses that were all built around Marino, they tend to have asbestos in the roofs. And as you say, maybe the tunnel goes under some of them. Have you? Have you noticed that there are patterns emerging?
Shay Lally 23:11
Yeah, well, Marina, that's actually a good place to start, like you're right there. The ceilings have asbestos there, and some of the roof tiles would have asbestos in them as well. And also, like the architraves, and the houses in Marino upstairs kind of have structural elements. So if you wanted to replace the architraves, like the surrounding the door, essentially, that's actually a structural component of those houses, whatever way it's built into. So realistically, like to do that, it's a big, big job. So many people actually just leave them in place. And Dublin eight, yeah, like the ground there is sort of swampy, you know, like in a lot of Dublin eight. So that's why you'd need the likes of the rising da... you need to keep an eye out for the likes of the rising dampness. Drumcondra definitely has roads where, like, there's been so much movement, like, there's a wall, there's a road in Drumcondra called Walsh road, and there's a few houses there, and they've been condemned like there has been that much movement. And there's other roads in Drumcondra that have movement in them as well. And not many, but there are a couple so that, I suppose, would be a characteristic there.
Breffnie O'Kelly 24:10
And movement, you mean subsidence?
Shay Lally 24:13
Yeah, like the house move so much, like just, there's two, if not four houses. I think it's on Walsh road. And if anyone's familiar with it's like a triangle in Drumcondra, like upper Drumcondra, it's up near where the library is. It's kind of behind St Pat's college in Drumcondra. And there's quite a few houses there, and they're basically like, just the facade is supported by steel. It's very obvious that they're condemned, you know. And so you'd have a lot of issues with subsidence on some roads around that that neighborhood, you know, not every road, but some roads. And then if you go down a little bit further in from Drumcondra, you'd have a bit more of that as well. And I think it comes back to what you're saying. There's all sorts of rivers running underneath Dublin that we're not even familiar with, you know, yeah, and just movement in them over the years, and just the way to erosion and stuff has caused some of these things.
Breffnie O'Kelly 24:55
Interesting. I was actually doing a history course at night in UCD recently, and one. Of the things, one of the our brilliant lecture was talking about was the underground rivers of Dublin. And it's a book I have. It's a really interesting one for anyone just to get to, to get a sense of what's going on down there underneath us.
Shay Lally 25:13
Yeah, it's like what happened in Dundrum a few years ago. Dundrum shopping centre, there's a river that runs underneath that, and it basically flooded, for want of a better word, and they had whatever risk assessment they did when they were building that that they kind of said, like, this is likely to happen one in every 150 years, or something like this. But it did actually happen, and it caused a lot of damage, yeah. So that's just what you have in some of these places as well. You know
Breffnie O'Kelly 25:38
It's true, and I think if you're looking at roads, sometimes there's a hint in the title of the road. If you've got Mill Street, if there was a mill, there was something driving that mill, and the chances are it was a river, even if it's not visible. So sometimes Bank Street, or Mill Street, or or other kind of palm streets, there's a hint in the title. There somewhere,
Shay Lally 26:02
Absolutely. Yeah.
Breffnie O'Kelly 26:03
Okay, that's super interesting. So we've got just things that you would be on your radar going into has subsidence, damp, electrics, the boiler, the heating system. Have a look at the roof. See, does it look like it's an upstanding, straightforward roof, or is it a bit dippy and gappy and growthy. Sometimes you've got a bit of a garden happening up there too.
Shay Lally 26:25
Absolutely, and the same with gutter is, like, often gutters have overgrowth in them, and they can cause an awful lot of destruction, but it's something that's quite easy to fix. Like, you can just clean them out and just remove whatever's there. You know, often that's a quick fix. So yeah, that'd be those things. I think they're the big ticket items. And another thing, obviously, then, is the BER rating. Because obviously, if you the low ber rating, you want to increase that, like, there's a cost involved with doing that. So if you keep your low be or rating, the house is going to be expensive to heat and all the rest of it. And then if you spend the money to improve the BER or to reduce your bills, you obviously have to pay to, you know, get that energy upgrade done to the house, be it inside walls, replace windows, upgrade your heating system, insulate your attic, all those sorts of things. So that's another thing. You know, a low BER is going to mean, or it does mean that, you know, the budget is going to go up as well.
Breffnie O'Kelly 27:16
Sure. And are there any rules of thumb that we could just fire out for example, I'm buying a house I want to put in a downstairs bathroom under the stairs. It looks like there's enough room. Is there a kind of a rule of thumb budget? Are there figures you have in your head that would be super helpful just to fire out there. If you're putting in a downstairs loo, it's this...
Shay Lally 27:37
Yeah, that's a tricky one, because it depends on where the sump is in the house. So the sump is basically where the waste goes, and then it also will depend on, like, if it's a concrete floor or if it's a timber suspended floor. So it's more straightforward if it's a timber suspended floor in some ways, because you're not going to kangoing up a floor to root out that pipe, and then, like, let's just say you have a cast iron, old soil stack at the back of the house. You can't just break into them. So realistically, if you want to do something to one of them, you're going to have to remove that, and then you're going to have to install, like, a new soil stack or a new sump, you know, okay, there that could be. It could be, like, more straightforward in some places, if it has, say, like a plastic pipe, and if it has, like a timber suspended floor, but if it's a concrete floor, and you're digging up through all that, that's a big job, you know.
Breffnie O'Kelly 28:29
Okay, okay, so flooring and the existence of other loos in the house sometimes, and you can tell me if I'm right on the right track here, if I'm looking at putting a bathroom upstairs, say, for example, in those old council houses in the likes of Crumlin, Kimmage, wherever some parts of Drumcondra, yeah, we know the ones we're talking about, the ones with decent sized gardens, and usually they didn't start with bathrooms upstairs. So you're, most people are hoping to get a bathroom in upstairs. And one of the ways I would have a look at things is, well, where's the bathroom downstairs? And if we put a bathroom on top, are we roughly in line with the outflow? Yeah. And is that aligned?
Shay Lally 29:14
Yeah, you're spot on, on what you're saying there. It's just when you put in the downstairs toilet, often it's under the stairs. There's no bathroom. There's no bathroom. You're rooting it out, you know, rather than just dropping it down. So your example is perfect, and it's really simply put, and that's a lot more straightforward a job, because you're essentially just putting one above what's already there. Yeah. So something is just dropping further, you know, and that's it's an easier job to do for something like that, you're looking at anywhere between about 10 and 15,000 euro to put that bathroom upstairs, between somewhere, yeah, yeah. But the toilet under the stairs, like it could genuinely be anywhere between five and maybe even 15,000 euro, if you're taking up, kangoing up floors, and then if you're doing some building work, to form a partition underneath the stairs and 50. Am, sanitaryware it, decorate the space, and plaster it, and all that sort of stuff. Quite a bit of work involved with that.
Breffnie O'Kelly 30:06
Okay and if people were to So, that's great. Any other figures that you have off the top of your head, like replacing windows, that's another thing that people have to do, even ballpark ranges, just anything that you can throw out there. No problem if you don't. But if someone's house
Shay Lally 30:24
Saying for windows, like, depending on what you go for, obviously you PVC of aluminum and your value clad like aluminum and ALU card are an awful lot more expensive than PVC. But say, if you're looking at, say, PVC, you probably are looking at somewhere between, like, say, 6 or 900 euros square meter. Is roughly how I figure it out. Now window companies don't necessarily price it that way, but if I'm doing up costs or windows, I kind of base it on that myself, you know. And more often than not, it's there, thereabouts. It's never exactly right, but it's, it's a ballpark, you know,
Breffnie O'Kelly 30:53
Yeah, exactly. And like, for example, yesterday, I was with clients, and we had a builder out to look at the house and and they were talking about replacing floors, and he was saying, Well, you know, we could do anything from 20 a square meter to 200 a square meter, depending on whether you want lino or parquet. So yeah, it really does vary. But still, I think it's helpful for people to have a sense of any kind of level of the range. So even just to have that figure for a bathroom and the concept of a per square meter figure for Windows, that's super helpful.
Shay Lally 31:30
I was doing a an Instagram Live last night on heating systems like Cleve. The main one that people are looking into now, really is a heat pump, you know. And I think people are a little bit overwhelmed by heat pumps, because there just seems to be an awful lot of information and a lot of misinformation. And then you have other people who are maybe living in a house and there's a gas boiler there, and they mightn't necessarily be intending to stay in that house forever. So the simple thing for them maybe to do will be just to change the boiler for another gas boiler. So like, you've a standard gas boiler where you have a cylinder in your hot press, like your water cylinder, and then you have a newer form of boiler called the combi boiler, which are good for smaller spaces, like an apartment is ideal, and they're good for, say, small houses where you only have a shower, you don't have a bath. So it just basically means you've hot water available to you all of the time. And in terms of their running costs are more or less like, but like, there's not much of a saving for a combi boiler versus the standard boiler. It just means you don't need a water tank in your hot press for a combi boiler, and then you have the heat pumps. So with the heat pumps, you need to be at a certain rate. And so if you're getting a heat pump, you need to basically get your house assessed by a BER assessor, make sure there's not too much heat loss in that house for a heat pump, because if there's too much heat loss in the house, the heat pump isn't worth installing. So by heat loss, I mean, let's just say you have single glazed windows, and let's just say your attic isn't insulated, you'd have a lot of heat loss through the windows and through the attic roof. So as a result, a heat pump wouldn't be suitable there. But if you had, say, double glazed windows that were relatively new, you have your attic insulated, your walls are insulated, well, then you're more likely to be a candidate then just to insert or fit a heat pump. But heat pumps, yeah, they're, they're, they're the big one. Now, you know.
Breffnie O'Kelly 33:19
Yeah, I just back to your combi boiler, and I have one in my small house, and I, what I thought is a great place to put it is in the attic. Because, you know, when you have a small house, every square meter can so I found that a really good suggestion of the builder at the time to put it up in the attic.
Shay Lally 33:37
Yeah, you see that in loads of houses, to be fair. You know, it's in a house, and the Tenter there again in Dublin eight a few weeks ago, and that's where their one was. It's definitely something that's becoming increasingly more popular, because if you have a small kitchen, like, typically, your boilers in the kitchen, or if you're lucky to have, lucky enough to have a utility room, but it takes up a fair bit of space in a small kitchen or a small utility room, yeah, and a lot of people just don't want to give that sort of, I suppose, work top space and press space over to a boiler.
Breffnie O'Kelly 34:01
Yeah, great. So Shay I think we've been... we've had a lot of great tips in terms of looking at a house. Is there anything finally, you'd like to say before we go like, What's your preferred if someone was to pick up the phone and book you to do something? What's your favorite thing to do? What do you love doing?
Shay Lally 34:17
I like doing the home assessments. I like meeting people. I like talking through the house and talking through the possibilities and what the likely cost of those possibilities are. But I also think, like, there's a lot of value in it, in the sense that, like, it's kind of like that due diligence piece, someone doing their homework, and they can realise whether they can afford what they're hoping to do to that house or not. And I think that's a huge thing, because there's a lot of people who buy a property and only do that due diligence afterwards, and unfortunately, it's too late then, because they own the property, and then they realise, Oh, God, you can't afford to renovate this property. And so I think it's good to have that number before you buy because even, like, they little things, like you might have two houses in mind, and one might. Have side access or a garage, and one might have very poor access. By not having good access, that could substantially add to the cost of renovating that house. And the house with the garage could actually be more expensive. Well, you know what that cost could be borne out in the renovation cost, because it could be an awful lot easier to renovate. And even by having a driveway in the house versus a house with no driveway. It means there's somewhere for a skip to go and theres somewhere for maybe the lads, if they're coming there advance and stuff to park. That's even a saving in itself. So it's to kind of have those early on conversations, and that's what I love to do. I love to arm people with that information so as they're going into... because, like the purchasing process, with their eyes wide open and fully aware of well, this means this. The other thing means that the advantage it is is whatever, and they're aware of the pros and cons, so the whole renovation assessment,
Breffnie O'Kelly 35:46
Yeah, great. And just when you're saying that, it makes me think of a surveyor, and in a way, you are like the flesh and bones of a survey. And I think that's a really useful service for anyone to have, because a lot of people get a survey done before they buy a house, and they get the report. They don't always meet the surveyor, because they're at work or whatever, and they get the report from the surveyor. And it's hard to digest it. It's hard to kind of link this physical... this, this report, to the physical house that you've just seen. And while the surveyor does put in photographs, and does do their best to explain what's what, having you go and walk through the house with them and just really talk through how the house works with them and explain the issues. It sounds like, even if they weren't planning to do work straight away, it sounds like it would be a very good thing to do.
Shay Lally 36:40
Oh yeah, yeah. The thing is, there's two things that I've noticed, like predominantly true of houses to restore. People are buying houses, and they're costing a fortune. And there's certain things you're missing out on buying some of them houses, you know? And then they go to renovate. And likewise, they don't always seek the right information, or they might necessarily research things, or research things, or go about things in the right way, and it ends up costing them an awful lot more money in the end, and a lot of sleepless nights and an awful lot of stress. So I think if you think about what you're doing in advance, before you buy, before you renovate, I think you're sort of halfway there, because you have a better plan in place, and you know where you sort of stand, so your kind of expectations are, are more in line with where you're at, you know,
Breffnie O'Kelly 37:22
Absolutely. And the thing is, a lot of people wouldn't have thought of the very point you made there about it being easier, like the job may just work more smoothly, get done quicker and actually cost less if there's a driveway, or if there's somewhere just to just accept a delivery and not and somewhere for the builders to park the car, even when they come so all of those things you mightn't think about them when you're buying the house, but they'll really feed into the difficulty or ease of the renovation process.
Shay Lally 37:52
Oh, yeah, no, absolutely. And that's how to say they think people don't consider so that's why it is good to do all your homework, particularly if you're buying a fixer upper, because they're a bit of a minefield, and these things need to be explained, and that's just to come back to what you say it's that's why it's good to walk a property with a client, because you can point all these things out, and most people do understand the visual stuff when you physically point to something, whereas you put that into a report, they often don't pick up on it. But you can point it out to someone, and you can explain the consequences of, say, the crack that I mentioned about the subsidence at the start of our conversation, that the ridge tile or the chimney, or whatever the case may be.
Breffnie O'Kelly 38:26
I think that. And you know, you're user friendly, which is super great, too. And the final point about that, Jay is that sometimes people buying a house that needs to do work, that needs work, they'll buy the house, they'll get the survey report, and then they'll get a builder, and they'll ask a friend for a builder, or they'll know a builder, and they'll ask the builder to come around, and the builder might say they'll be there at four, and very often they are there at four, but sometimes they aren't. And because you're not paying them, and because there may not be anything in it for them, you can't really hassle them. You're hoping they'll come, and you're grateful to them for coming, and you're not sure how much you can ask them or how much of their time you can take up, whereas, if they know they're paying you, and they know you'll come and they it's a clear service, this assessment as distinct from a sales pitch by a builder. And I'm not suggesting builders are trying to sell, but they're there to try and get to see, is there a job here. So having you as a sort of a neutral third party expert that they can rely on is super useful, I think.
Shay Lally 39:30
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Breffnie O'Kelly 39:32
Its euros really well spent.
Shay Lally 39:34
Yeah, and just one last thing on that, a lot of people jump in and get the builder to work as quickly as they can, and they skip the design stage, and they spend a lot of money on a house, and it's not necessarily creating the most functional house for their needs, and then three or four or five years time down the road, they'll end up redoing a lot of what they did because they didn't give the functionality piece consideration. So it's really, really important to go through the design stage, and the way I look at the design is like, I think there's kind of three levels, and this is minus. Now I'm not going to factor planning permission in here. Even if someone just wants to remodel a house, you have to remodel piece, as in working on the floor plan and coming up with an agreement for the new floor plan, and if there's a structural component. So for example, if you're knocking the low bearing wall, you need a structural engineer to specify what steel beam needs to go in. And then they'll need to sign off on the work at the end, so you have your certificate of compliance, which is really important if you go to sell a property that you have altered. And then lastly, there's the interior design piece. And people think interior design is a complete luxury, and others might think it's a waste of money. It isn't. It will save you so much time, so much hassle and so much stress, and it'll prevent you from having to go to all of these different showrooms in places like Ballymount, The Long Mile Road and all these places. And you'll have all your Saturdays back. And the interior designer will give you your color scheme. They'll choose your fixture, fixtures and fittings. They'll put a mood board together for each room. They'll put you in contact with good suppliers. And that in itself, is worth its weight in gold, in my mind. So any client that we work with, that's the three parts that we we outline, and we're very clear on that, but I won't say most people, a lot of people skip that because they don't value it, but those people are not going to end up with the space that works best for them in the long run, and they're going to have a more stressful time renovating their house, because there's going to be so many decisions to make and there's going to be so many delays because those decisions aren't made on time.
Breffnie O'Kelly 41:29
And I agree with you, Shay, and I think you know when you mentioned that interior design will put together a mood board and furniture supplies, true, but in my experience, in interior designer will do a good bit more than that as well. They'll design the cabinetry for the room. So they'll tell you where it makes most sense to put your shelves and keep it a level throughout the room so that give which will give the room a feeling of calmness. They'll tell you how to use the space properly. It's not just well, it is, of course, the design and the furniture and the finishes. But it's also actually the use of the space
Shay Lally 42:03
The lighting plan and the electrical plan is huge as well. Like, that's, that's something like, if people don't realize it as well. Like, if you get an electrician in and you tell them what you want, and then if you change your mind as you go, sometimes it isn't just as simple as popping in a new light, or is this or that? Yeah, there's things that need to be kind of nearly taken out and redone. It's not, it's not quite as simple as it might seem. And it becomes a very, very costly, and it can often cause, you know, a lot of heated discussions, let's just say, on these projects, you know. So if you have that concrete plan, it's very clear, this is what I want the electrician to do. This is where I want the plumber to put his rads. All those sorts of things that people don't need to consider. It's even down to things like hinges on doors,
Breffnie O'Kelly 42:44
which way the door opens, even!
Shay Lally 42:46
Yeah, yeah, all of those things just so much involved. And most people, they might be amazing in their given profession, but it's not their bag. They might have an eye for certain things, but there's loads of hard lessons they're going to learn along the way.
Breffnie O'Kelly 42:58
Oh, absolutely, I'm all in favor of talking to the person who's doing it all the time, because they will certainly have, obviously keep your own views and your it's your house in your home. But it's so useful to talk to people who are in and out of this issue all the time. They know what the fixes are, for dark spaces, for small spaces, for too long spaces, they've got all these fixes and ways to approach it. So Shay, listen, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk. And I so think that service you offered the 750 for a house assessment. I think it's a brilliant idea. I really do, and I've, I can, I hope we have least discussed the value of that, and people can see what the value of that is. I can certainly see it.
Shay Lally 43:41
Yeah, brilliant. Thanks for having me Breffnie I really appreciate it.
Breffnie O'Kelly 43:43
My pleasure!