Based in Westport, Co Mayo, Oak Barn Construction Ltd is a building services company which specialises in the use of renewables and sustainable materials for low energy homes. Building Ireland touched base with company co-directors Ger and Willie McDonagh to learn all about the business – from its origins to its on-going projects at the moment.
This year marks a decade-and-a-half since Oak Barn Construction Ltd officially became an incorporated company and business at the moment is thriving for the Mayo-based venture.
Specialising in timber frame construction, the company uses natural materials, where possible, to achieve well-insulated and airtight structures, which are breathable and pleasant to live in.
It also builds with traditional block build, and extend and renovate in block should the client require it.
Brothers Willie and Ger McDonagh started up their business together back in 2000, and Building Ireland caught up with the brothers recently to find out more on what they’ve been up to as of late out around the picturesque town of Westport.
“I suppose the background of the company is that we both worked in the (United) States for nearly 10 years during the late 1980s and 1990s and, while we were out there, we were both doing timber frame,” Ger outlined.
“When we came back, we thought there’d be an opening for it here and we saw it as a sustainable way of building.
“We got into it here and started doing timber frame extensions, full builds and we worked with a number of architects in the Westport area and just went from there.
“So, we started to specialise in it and were doing only timber frame for the first eight nine years when the recession hit. After that, we had to diversify into regular build but the main theme of the company has always been sustainability and building sustainably for the future.”
The economic downturn of 2008 meant the company needed to diversify into regular build and it did so while trying “to use as much renewable products as possible”, according to Ger.
Fast-forward a dozen years later or so and the Covid-19 pandemic, along with the government lockdowns which followed to try and combat the spread of the virus, brought about new challenges for the industry.
It also brought about new opportunities for Oak Barn Construction, with home renovation and extensions taking off right across the country and, of course, in the west of Ireland as well.
“Since the lockdown, there has been a growing market for home office space and we have diversified into that,” said Willie.
“Small living cabins with one room, office and people working from home that need more space.
“So a small little cabin at the back of the house say, we stick frame those and build them on site.
“In the past couple of years, we’ve also done a couple of timber frame extensions and there are still some clients that prefer the timber frame.
“We’ve built a couple of timber frame extensions with larch cladding, a full timber frame with airtight membrane on the outside and breather membrane on the inside, external cladding and larch cedar cladding.”
With lockdowns hopefully now a thing of the past and somewhat of a return to normality this year, business has been quite robust for the McDonagh brothers.
Repeat business has been key to their company’s growth down through the years and there has been plenty of occasions where past clients have come back to them looking to carry out further work years after the initial project was completed.
“We’re pretty busy this year,” said Ger. “There’s an upturn from the previous year and we were caught in lockdown situation the last previous two years.
“This year, we’ve just finished a timber frame extension which was actually to a timber frame house that we built back in ’08. How that came about was new clients purchased the property and they wanted to extend and they went with timber frame extension.
“We also have some office rooms that we’re working on, garden sheds and block built as well.
“So, generally, there’s been an uptake and it’s been a busy year this year so far.”
Willie added: “We renovated a cottage and built an extension which was block about four years ago, and that lady is now looking to demolish some old sheds and reincorporate some of the stone from an old out building into a mix of timber and stone external cladding.
“It’s for an office, yoga room, exercise room – things like that.”
So, the burning question is, what has been the secret behind the success of Oak Barn Construction?
Having worked in major cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco what now seems like a lifetime ago, the two siblings returned home and opted to make a bold decision with a small timber frame construction start-up which has since diversified into what it is today.
Ger himself points to the company’s continued “sustainability” as being the key ingredient to its success for far.
“When we came back here in 2000, it was a very niche market but more and more clients are looking at sustainable way of building and living along with a light footprint on the environment,” he stated.
“They see us as being to the forefront of that and I think they come to us for that reason. It’s our calling card – sustainability and ecologically sound building methods.
Also the contribution of our subcontractors is one of the elements that helps to make our company as good as it is. We have huge respect for the talented Tradesmen who work in the Westport area.”
Looking towards the months ahead for the company, Ger says he’s optimistic even in these uncertain times for the industry.
The hope for everyone, of course, is that material costs can come back to some sort of normality after hitting an all-time high in recent times.
“People are a bit hesitant about moving forward with projects with the uncertain economic future we’re facing,” said Ger.
“But the difference we’re facing this year is that people have money ready to invest but they’re playing a ‘wait and see’ sort of game. Price inflation is rampant, especially in the building industry, so the hope is that prices may come back to us at the end of the year.
“I’d be optimistic that it won’t be as severe as the previous downturn.”
Willie also shares in his brother’s sense of optimism and sees more houses being upgraded in the next few years under schemes.
“With the government projects in the SEAI schemes, there is a move to upgrade the housing stock in the country.
“In all fairness, during the boom, there was poor quality houses made with very little oversight. They have to be upgraded and I see, rather than more new builds, it’ll be upgrading the current stock as being the main focus for the next few years,” Willie concluded.
Oak Barn Construction
Moyhastin,
Westport,
Co Mayo
Mobile: 087 417 7049
Website: oakbarn.ie
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, November 2022, Vol 8 No 11
