2020 has been a crazy year and has most of us staying at home more than ever. With the increased time spent at home, people have been home improvement like the clappers. If you drive around Limerick city at the moment you will see a massive amount of extensions being carried out. An extra room in the house is being sought for the likes of home offices, sourdough factories and extra space away from your sibling or partner during lockdown avoiding the inevitable cabin fever kicking in.

As a self-storage provider, we have witnessed an increase in the use of our facility for families moving their items into storage out of the way of dust and builders wrecking their good furniture during the renovations. Below are some handy tips when planning a house extension or major renovation around your gaff.

1. Planning permission

First off be sure and buy tea bags in bulk and drink copious amounts to think and act like a builder. Getting into this mind frame always helps. Take several hours out of your day to lean against a shovel and plan out the work.

In all seriousness, the main thing is to work out the pros and cons of the build and work out if this is yours forever home. If not make sure that this will be adding value and not upsetting the resale down the line. I would seriously advise getting an architect on board, while it is another expense it will save money and hassle in the long run. They will keep you and the builders on the right track.

For any massive builds, I would suggest getting a quantity surveyor/project manager involved and they will be worth their weight in gold to keep the project ticking over.

There is some really great advice on getting planning permission from your local authority over on the citizen's information website. Check it out here 

With all that said you might not always need planning permission if the build isn’t that big. Recently the Minister for the Environment and Local Government introduced new regulations extending the exemption limits of house extensions from 23 sq m (247 sq ft) to 40 sq m (430 sq ft). Still, double-check with your local authority before any brick is laid.

 2. Budgeting the build

My advice would be to do your homework and get a few general quotes for local builders and then have a chat with the bank or credit unit. This is where the copious amounts of tea might come into play again or even something stronger.

If you have an architect involved in the project, they should be able to provide you with some potential figures for a build. I found a great little project calculator online from a website called Self Build. Check it out here

The main thing to remember when doing up a budget is to always allow for a 5-10% increase in the price just in case.

3. Should I move out during the build?

Ok so this is where we come into play, As mentioned, we have had a massive increase in business from customers doing renovation work on the house in the last year. One of the main points we hear from customers is that they avoided moving out entirely during the renovations as they were able to move out the main items near the messy work to a self-storage unit. This ensures there was ample space in the house for work to continue and also kept their precious items dust and damage free. It also made sure they didn’t need to move in with a relative during a pandemic or rent a place for crazy money.

We have 30 different size rooms here to cater for any renovation work being done, from our experience we advise the customer to start as earlier as possible and move the lesser needed items in bit by bit. This avoids one massive move in a day full of stress. We can arrange a free move-in service for the larger items in one day making the whole process seamless.

Check out for unit size estimator here to help pick the right size or fill out the enquiry form to receive a full free quote complete with videos of the unit sizes and all the information about our facility and pricing.

Best of luck with your plans and build. Be sure and ask a friend/neighbour for advice if you know anyone who has done something similar in your locality. There are plenty of sites online to check out builders' work such as trustedpeople.ie or ask for a builder portfolio on past jobs also be sure and check that the builder/ contractor is registered with the Construction Industry Register Ireland and they are insured.

We would be delighted to help regarding the storage during the project. So be sure and check out the website, call us or call us on 061-44602. If you know anyone thinking of building in the next while is sure an pass this on