Synonymous with the consistent delivery of stunning projects around the capital, Caracon Ltd. received more industry recognition this summer when a stunning project on Dublin’s North Circular Road was selected for exhibition by the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland.
In the seven short years since its inception, Caracon Building & Civil Engineering has quickly earned an unrivalled reputation as an industry-leading contractor of choice, consistently displaying the highest quality of workmanship on a magnificent portfolio of residential new build, extension and renovation, and commercial fit out project throughout the greater Dublin region.
Working in conjunction with a who’s who of architects and interior designers, regularly featured in Ireland’s main building and interiors publications, and frequently acknowledged by the industry for the exacting standard of the workmanship painstakingly delivered from start to finish on every project, resulting invariably in a breath-taking finish, Caracon was in the news again in June, 2024, when their exquisite refurbishment of a protected structure in Dublin 7 was selected by RIAI for exhibition as part of their annual awards celebration.
Director Noel Cassells, who runs Caracon Ltd alongside business partner Aslam Rawat, was naturally delighted that the company found itself in the spotlight once more: “We are very proud of the fact that it’s been selected. It’s always nice to see your work showcased in publications or by architects. Another one of our residential projects was selected previously for the Irish Architecture Foundation’s Open House Event exhibition, so this is the second time to receive this kind of recognition. Incidentally, both of those projects were with the same architect: Brennan Furlong Architects.”
Along with this, Caracon Ltd was also nominated in the Element category for the 40th Irish Concrete Awards for their Northland Grove project, and have had their works featured in several Interiors publications, including Image and Irish Interiors magazines.
Caracon has developed strong relationships with a number of renowned architects, who are happy to keep recommending them on the basis of their exemplary track record. “We rely heavily on architects to make great designs – we’re just the guys who do the work,” Noel quips. “They do the design … we make them shine!
“What we do bring to the party is that we have an excellent team of tradesmen who take great pride in their work. That’s the main reason why we enjoy such a good reputation with architects and interior designers. We manage our projects very well and when a project is managed well and the team is aligned, then you will get a good end result.”
Word of mouth has played a big part in the emergence of Caracon Ltd as a much-sought-after contactor, resulting in a steady flow of work and a healthy order book going forward. The business offers a full range of construction services from small to medium size building and civil engineering projects including residential new builds, extensions and renovations, commercial fit outs and medical facilities, as well as civil groundworks and site development.
Caracon Ltd is also NSAI and SEAI registered and approved as an External Wall Insulation contractor, for home retrofit installations for which SEAI Home Energy Grants are available.
“We are fortunate that we seem to create little clusters of work areas, where we find a lot of our projects end up being quite close to one another geographically every 3 or 4 quarters,” says Noel. “We have seven residential projects on in Dublin currently and six of those are all quite near each other on the south side, but does go as far out as Dalkey. It’s like waiting on a Dublin bus, there won’t be one in the area for a while, and then all of a sudden there will be a bunch of them. Of course, from the point of view of mobilising and managing resources, it always helps when you have jobs close together.”
Noel confirms that Caracon Ltd have some nice new projects in the pipeline going into the back half of 2024 and says he feels very lucky that the company has built such lasting relationships with select architects and interior designers, leading to a healthy volume of repeat business.
“Thanks to the reputation we have earned and the relationships we have built up, we are very busy, which is a great place to be in. At the same time, we don’t want to take on too much. Going forward, our intention is to try to focus on the Clients and Professional teams who have been good to us and to service them as best we can.”
At the heart of the company is a team of 16 full time, directly-employed staff as well as a strong network of proven subcontractors. “Just as architects like to use the same quality contractors time and time again, we like to bring in the same subcontractors,” Noel points out. “There is a handful of tried and trusted subbies that we know from experience we can rely on to produce quality workmanship, so we try to keep them for the most part and to give them as much of our work as we can. When you know the levels of quality they are capable of, it makes sense to stick with the people you are happy with.”
A period of consolidation is on the cards for Caracon, rather than exponential growth. “As I mentioned last time I spoke with Building Ireland, we have been growing organically over the years and that is still the case. We haven’t targeted growth but it has just happened naturally.
“However, while we’re still experiencing organic growth in line with demand for our services, we probably don’t want to grow much bigger in the foreseeable future, because if you get too big then it’s more difficult to maintain high quality and you can let everybody down, including yourself.
“We have a good-sized team of skilled people now and our staff retention rates are very high which we are also proud of, and we are very happy with where we are at,” Noel concludes. “There’s a fair amount of work out there and we are getting recommended by good architects and highly-regarded interior designers, and of course our satisfied clients get our name around by referrals, which is exactly the position we want to be in. We’re just happy that the phone keeps ringing, to be honest, and that there are clients who want to work with us. If it’s not broken, why fix it? – we’ll just continue to do what we are doing.”
Caracon Ltd Building & Civil Engineering.,
Ballinteer,
County Dublin.
Telephone: 01 6918824
Mobile: 085 8170468
Email: [email protected]
Web: caracon.ie
Facebook: www.facebook.com/caracon.ie
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, October 2024, Vol 10 No 10
