Based in Newry, Co Down, PDMC Building Services Ltd specialises in new builds, extensions, and renovations for its clients. Building Ireland touched base with its Managing Director Damien McCabe to hear all about the company – from its origins to the current state of business.
When Damien McCabe first started out in the construction game some three decades ago, he did so with the aspiration of running his own company from his native county Down.
Fast-forward to the presentday and PDMC Building Services Ltd is an established and successful company, having become a limited venture five years ago.
Building Ireland caught up with Damien recently to the discuss the ins and outs of his company, the projects it has on-going at the minute and its overall priorities as a business going forward.
“We traditionally specialise in private large scale one-off houses as well as renovations and extensions,” he outlined.
“Since we started, the majority of our projects have been in the greater Belfast area. In fact, we’ve completed four major houses within a mile of each other there, with word of mouth recommendation from client being an important factor in securing contracts.”
Damien and his team in Kilcoo are renowned for their quality of work and, that considered, it’s no surprise to see PDMC Building Services Ltd’s rapid rise since its establishment half a decade ago.
Looking back on it, the Damien sees the origins of the business going all the way back to his early 20s when he first got himself educated in the construction trade.
“I’m a carpenter by trade,” he stated. “When I finished school, I went to Newry College and started doing night classes after and took the classes up to and including Supplementary Studies before progressing to studying and achieving a HNC in Construction & Architecture.
“After that, I ended up becoming partners in a Construction business McCabe and Quinn which was established for 25 years.
“When we first started in partnership, we we’re just simply doing the joinery work for the contractors and then we got approached to do a timber frame private house. It just sort of went from there and we started to do one-off houses over the years.”
The experience would stand to Damien as the years rolled past before taking the decision to go out on his own. The catalyst for the creation of PDMC Building Services came about when a customer approached Damien himself for a price quotation for a house.
The rest, as they say, is history.
“In 2016, with McCabe and Quinn, we completed a house in Carryduff. We had just freshened it up and priced a few other houses and they just didn’t come through,” Damien reflected.
“We sort of got slack at the time. We went and started doing a bit of joinery work for a local builder Leo Masterson just to fill a gap and then Leo asked me if I would be foreman for him on a job, on a large luxury private dwelling near Holywood in Belfast.
“It took a year and then another company approached me to do foreman for them, again it was for five private houses, this time in Bangor. Unfortunately, it ended up that only one of the five houses sold and they were out a lot of money from it, so that left me kind of up in the air with no work.
“Lucky enough, at that time, a guy approached me to give him a price for a house on my own and that was the start and just sort of took off from there.”
Things have come a long way since then for Damien and business has been ticking over nicely for him as of late.
“Up to around September/October of last year it was very, very busy for us,” he said. “We’ve just started another house in Dromintee in south Armagh now that we’re working on here at the minute.”
So, all of that considered, the burning question is what has been the secret behind the company’s success to date?
How has a small start-up grown into what is now a thriving and trusted construction firm that holds an excellent reputation among its clients?
“From what I can gather talking to them, most of them say it was because of the relationship we have with our clients and off course the outstanding quality of service provided throughout the build process,” said PDMC Building Services Ltd’s director.
Looking towards the months ahead for PDMC and towards another year, Damien says he’s keen to keep progressing the company and, hopefully, one day move it towards becoming a second-generation family business.
“I’m hoping it’ll keep steady. My son is doing Quantity Surveying at the minute and I’d like to keep it going so that if he ever wanted to come into the company and try and go further that that would be a good base for him,” he concluded.
PDMC Building Services Ltd
20 Tullynasoo,
Kilcoo,
Newry,
Co Down.
BT34 5JD
Tel: +44 7855 391302
Email: [email protected]
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, December 2024, Vol 10 No 12
featured, PDMC Building Services
