Operating out of Drimneen, Islandeady, Castlebar, Co Mayo, Moran Bros Builders Ltd specialises in the building of one-off houses along with fit-out and civil engineering work. Building Ireland touched base with company co-director Chris Moran to learn more about the ins outs of the business – from its origins to the projects it has on-going at the minute.
When Chris and Sean Moran partnered up and set-up a building business together five years ago, the two brothers could’ve hardly envisioned its rapid growth in such a relatively short space of time.
Business is good nowadays for Moran Bros Builders Ltd and the two siblings, along with the rest of the team in Drimneen, Co Mayo, mean to keep things that way right through to next year.
Operating with 12 full-time staff, including another brother Paddy Moran, the company has been building for the past half decade and officially became incorporated in 2020.
Building Ireland caught up with Chris Moran recently to discuss the services he and his brother’s venture have to offer clients and their overall hopes moving forward.
“Our address might be Castlebar but the bulk of our work would be in Westport and, basically, we’re a general construction contracting company,” Chris outlined.
“We build one-off houses, we do a lot of extensions and renovations for housing as well, and we work for the Office of Public Works (OPW) an awful lot as well.
“So, we do fit-out, civil engineering and building projects for them which would be reasonably large-scale projects up to €500,000 and I suppose 30 per cent of our work would be for OPW.”
All of Moran Bros Builders Ltd’s carpentry work is done inhouse, employing five full-time carpenters and two apprentices, and the company also employs full-time block layers and stone masons as well.
Chris himself is a qualified civil engineer while Sean has over two decades of experience as a carpenter and two siblings have clearly combined their knowledge and background in setting up Moran Bros Builders Ltd.
“I’m a civil engineer and done a degree in it back in 2000,” said Chris. “I worked as a site engineer and a contracts manager after that for 15 or 16 years before I decided to go out on my own.
“I ended up as a Contracts Manager with a fairly large construction company in Galway for nine years and myself and my brother Sean decided at some point that we’d just have a go at it on our own.
“Sean is a carpenter and would’ve worked in all different types of carpentry for the last 20 years after serving his times in a carpentry joinery workshop, so he’d have a wealth of experience in all types of carpentry, joinery and management as well.”
Business is good at the moment but it’s not without its challenges for the two sibling directors.
Construction material costs are at an all-time high – and everybody is the same boat – as they keep fingers crossed that their will eventually be a return to normality with the prices.
As for the Covid-19 pandemic, and the government lockdowns which followed in order to combat the spread of the virus, Chris explained the company were able to stay busy throughout those unprecedented times.
“We actually worked through Covid because we do a lot of insurance work,” said the co-director.
“Another 10 to 15 per cent of our work every year would actually be insurance related work, so we worked with a skeleton team through Covid in re-roofing houses and chimney projects from insurance company work that we do a lot of.
“So, Covid didn’t have a major, major impact on us although we did have to follow all different types of regulations and rules and bring in some different policies for the work. We went down to a skeleton team and pushed through Covid carrying out essential works.”
Right now, Moran Bros Builders Ltd’s books are full with projects and the work ranges from one-off houses, to Garda Stations and even luxury homes.
Since before even setting up the company, the two brothers have been involved in the construction of Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF) homes and have continued on with them, having been impressed by every facet of the materials used.
“At the moment, we have four one-off houses which would be over the €500,000 mark and, all in, we have 17 projects on in total,” said Chris.
“So, in the last two years or so, we’ve had to up our team as we’ve got busier and we’ve full-time office staff that wouldn’t have been there when we first started.
“We build ICF houses as well here and at the minute we have two of those houses on and we use Thermohouse exclusively for those ICF builds, so Kore Raft and Thermohouse Walls and we use those companies exclusively.
“We find them great to deal with – they’re on time, they guarantee the prices, they guarantee deliveries and, essentially, we’ve never had any problems with them and we like their products.”
So, the burning question is, what has been the secret behind the rapid success of Moran Bros Builders Ltd to date?
How has a small start-up grown into a thriving general construction contracting business with a golden reputation for its work amongst its clients?
For Chris, it comes down to a combination of different factors but, above all, excellent work is delivered by he and his brother’s company on a consistent basis.
“We’ve built up a great name and we do it right first time,” he stated plainly. “Our attention to detail is something the client appreciates, I think, and we always keep the lines of communication open all the time for our clients. We think that’s fairly important.
“When we deliver a project, we bring those clients in all the time. We bring them on site, meet them and meet the architect; there’s no point in people hiding in offices behind their desk and we want everyone on site so they see what’s happening.
“Towards the end of a project that really helps because the client has a great understanding of what’s happening during the project. Then when we’re finishing off a project, we use the best tradesmen we can get and we use the same tradesmen if possible, all the time because we can ensure the quality of the work.”
As for the months ahead for Moran Bros Builders Ltd, the family-run company will stay immersed in its projects well into next year while also hoping to see an overall reduction in material costs.
“Our books are fairly full and we wouldn’t need to take any more work for the next year if we wanted with the team we have,” stated Chris.
“We’re hoping that material prices will settle and fall back into place so that people can afford to go ahead with their projects.
“That’s the reality of the materials bubble at the minute and it’s very unfair on young couples/first time builders and you can appreciate that they’re struggling to come up with the total price to build and finish a project at the minute.”
He concluded: “We’re there to work with them as much as possible and our hopes for the future is that material prices settle and that construction projects that have got granted planning go ahead because we’d love to be involved with them.”
Moran Bros Builders Ltd
Drimneen,
Islandeady,
Castlebar,
Co Mayo
F23 RF43
Mobile: 087 700 8209
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, October 2022, Vol 8 No 10
