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Build a modular / prefab house in Ireland: how complicated and expensive is it?

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    #62
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,511 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    islabonita wrote: »
    exactly, like I said, we have very few needs.
    Internet, no stairs.
    Then if we can choose I will add this: within 1 hour from a supermarket and a hospital.
    I apologize but English is my second language and did not express myself properly in the opening post. I do realize now that I should have included in the title: log/timber homes.
    Log/timber homes tend not to be popular in Ireland; because of the unremitting and constant damp they tend to be very high maintenance and not to last very well. As Mellor has pointed out, they tend to be favoured as garden sheds, perhaps tourist accommodation for seasonal use or as a weekend/holiday chalet, but not as permanent homes. Most of the suppliers you find will be targetting that market, and what they offer will not be built to the standard that Building Regulations require for permanent occupation.

    Here's the website of a company that does claim to offer higher-specced timber buildings. They say:

    "The log cabins for sale in our Ireland showroom can be insulated so that they meet Irish building regulations, which means they can provide not only a home for the holidays but also a home for retirement." And they offer, for example, the "Limerick Log Cabin" - two bedrooms, 54 square metres, which they say is "a good family space for full time living, fully insulated. all windows double glazed . . . Great log cabin for the family". It starts at €23,539, though I suspect the version that meets Building Regs for permanent occupation would cost rather more. And of course those costs won't include any earthworks, landscaping, provision of sewage, water and power to the site, etc. Still, even adding all that, it could be well within your price range.

    But, NB, they only offer a ten-year guarantee. This is more than you will usually get on a timber building, but note that the standard structural guarantee on a new build house in Ireland is 30 years, and you're definitely not being offered that, or anything like it. So I wouldn't assume that what you are getting here is a home that will house you or your mother indefinitely, and I think it would be extremely difficult to resell; it would not in any sense be an investment in the way that buying or building a home normally is. Neither you nor any subsequent purchaser would be able to get a mortgage on it. And you might have difficulty insuring it.


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    #63
    islabonita
    Registered Users Posts: 21 ✭islabonita


    okay, great replies, I guess I have to discard the log cabin idea.
    Silly me, I was thinking that timber was better for cold weather but if it's rather damp weather than no good.
    Maybe I will look into Spain then, thanks everyone.


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    #64
    bennyineire
    Registered Users Posts: 2,476 ✭✭✭bennyineire


    islabonita wrote: »
    okay, great replies, I guess I have to discard the log cabin idea.
    Silly me, I was thinking that timber was better for cold weather but if it's rather damp weather than no good.
    Maybe I will look into Spain then, thanks everyone.

    TBH if I had a choice to retire in Ireland or Spain with an elderly parent (and I had no connection with Ireland) I would pick Spain all day.

    Damp weather 6 months of the year is not an ideal environment for elderly, there is a reason why so many people retire there.

    In saying that getting planning in Spain will be even harder in the time-frame you are looking at, there are far more levels of bureaucracy there.


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