Shipping salvaged house materials from Europe

G-Man

A colleague large family home is getting knocked due to town redevelopment in Germany and all fixtures and fittings are available to salvage. This is all hi quality 5..20 yr old almost unmarked solid wood floors, bathroom goods, doors , windows , kitchens from a 300 sqmetre home 8br 6 bath, lots of d/g fully opening windows 3x crafted kitchens with fitted appliances, lots of high quality solid wood feature doors and covered decks.

is it anyway practical to reuse these high quality fittings in an irish house. I imagine windows would be awkward to reuse, what with planning dimensions and energy ratings. However internal doors and bathroom ware should be possible ok.

I enquired locally there and the high cost of wages and demand for very high standards means there is no local demand over there.

The wooden floors i can reuse myself here in a current renovation. At the cost of new wooden floors i think i can cover salvage (DIY over summer ) and container transport costs..

I guess sanitary ware might have different adapters, easily bought..

Perhaps door widths and heights are different, making it look off here or just needs to be included in planning stage.

What items should i just avoid and what is easily reused.

kirk.

Sounds like more trouble than it will be worth in the end

The Ging and I

I could understand if you were recovering oak beams or cut stone but its probably more trouble than its worth for flooring etc. Waste pipes are most likely a different spec to whats available in Ireland.

kirk.

Doors and windows will surely be a waste of time

Rows Grower

If you're going to use the floors then the doors will most likely be matching and the handles, locks and hinges will probably be top quality, the architraves and skirting boards will be matching too. You'd really want to take a quick trip over there armed with a measuring tape and take notes and pictures. Sounds like you'll be looking at well into the 6 figures worth of fixtures and fittings, the bog standard German houses use high quality stuff, the high standard German finish is eye wateringly expensive to buy in Ireland. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, get your ass over there asap and give yourself plenty of time to plan the logistics.

G-Man

Thanks for all the very constructive comments. At the end of the day, the issue is not clear cut. There appears to be so many variables over end date and due to fact house belongs to council the day after the family leaves, if extra permission is needed and if so are the undertakers of the work insured. All of the rest it appears to much variables so its difficult to plan for and if so would be expensive at short notice and then still have to be stored and a future use for.. No one over here has flexibility e.g. yard to store, even loan of ladder - never mind heavy tools. Even parking on the street to load stuff needs special permission. So everything is a cost to remove (undamaged) load and then transport and store..