Eco friendly living in co. Galway?

irishivan

hi all,

we are looking to buy a property in co galway within a 1/2 hr commute of the city.
ideally this would have some land & out buildings e.g an old farm house in need of work.
we would like to make it as eco as possible - proper insulation, ground source heat pump & solar panels, rainwater recovery system also a polly tunnel maybe chickens etc. we really want an old style farm house.

we are thinking north of the city around lough corrib, moycullen, oughterard or headford side.
we also like the kinvara area.

1.is it feasible to do these mods to an old property?
2. are there people doing these kinda renovations?
3. I know there are some grants to do some of these upgrades, would we be eligible for these?
4. is there a small holdings/eco living community in galway?
5. are there regulations for these mods?
6. would we need planning permission for these?

I am an electrician & have worked in the building trade for most my adult life (42 yrs old) so would try to do a lot of the work myself. I also grew up on a farm in mayo & have family there. we also know some people in galway.

I,m sure there are a million more questions but this,ll do for starters!!!!!!!

cheers
ivan

ScumLord

It's going to be hard enough to find an old rustic cottage with all the mod cons. Stone cottages tend to be small and very hard to insulate and often lack the room needed for mod cons.

There were plenty of brand new houses built in the cottage style with all the mod cons. You'll find some mansions dotted around the Irish countryside as people with more money than sense went building ten bedroom house for just themselves to live in.

If you use Galway as a centre point Tuam is about 30 minutes away, draw a circle with Tuam at the outside and galway in the middle and you should be safe enough travelwise with any house inside that radius. Use the likes of daft.ie to have a look at what's available.

It's a good time to buy, you might get a very big house out the country for your money, just look into the running costs for these houses. Some people just didn't think about the day to day costs.

Eco friendly and half hour commute don't really go together.

I'm not from any of the areas described but I doubt that they are within a half an hour of galway at peak times.