Providing high-quality, energy-efficient, cost-effective residential and commercial construction solutions across the West of Ireland and Dublin, Mannion Build has earned a stellar reputation as one of Ireland’s most dependable and versatile building contractors. We touched base with founder / proprietor Cyril Mannion to get an insight into this exceptional, Ballinasloe, County Galway headquartered, family-run operation.
Since its inception in 2009, Mannion Build has been providing high-quality, energy-efficient contract building services to the residential and commercial markets, successfully delivering a wide range of turnkey new build and refurbishment solutions throughout the West of Ireland and across the capital.
As a qualified European Passive House consultant, managing director Cyril Mannion specialises in building high end, energy efficient, optimum comfort properties on time and within budget. Every project is meticulously managed from start to finish, with lines of communication always open between clients and architects, ensuring an unrivalled end product that invariably meets, nay exceeds, specifications and expectations.
With extensive expertise in constructing energy efficient buildings (Cyril was one of the first builders in Ireland to work to Passive House standard) and a wealth of experience of multiple building systems, Mannion Build are passionate about building airtight properties which offer long-term savings for decades to come.
From one-off houses to small residential developments, commercial buildings, school extensions and civils packages, Mannion Build achieves the highest standards on a wide array of project types. “At the moment, it’s breaking down around 60:40 between residential and commercial,” Cyril notes. “Obviously, a lot of our work has been in Galway and the West, but we’ve also been travelling to Dublin a fair bit in the past seven or eight years and I’d estimate that around 80% of our turnover has been generated there over the past five years, although we are not doing anything in Dublin at the moment.
“We’re doing some civil works at present and are waiting to start a new development as well as a new build school in Galway. As we do all our own civils in-house and have our own plant and machinery, we are able to take on civils packages for Galway County Council, such as road refurbishments, footballs and pavings as well as school car parks, etc.”
Proven quality is at the heart of everything Mannion Build does, from the materials used to the highly-skilled tradesmen on-site, the experience and expertise of the management team to the unrivalled levels of Health & Safety implemented at all times.
“I tend to project manage and oversee each building myself,” Cyril confirms. “I come from a trade’s background and airtightness has always been a major consideration of mine, going back to when I built under the SEAI House of Tomorrow initiative in 2006/07. That home was A3-rated, which was the gold standard back then, but it’s second nature now. I’ve always been very conscious of thermal bridging and how to get buildings as airtight as possible.
“As such, we tend to attract a lot of projects that require those targets with airtightness and Passive House standard. As a family business, that tends to bring us into contact with other family businesses and we end up working for people who want things done right. Our clients are typically looking for value and that usually isn’t to be found in the lowest price – it’s all about long-term value, the intrinsic value in the finished building.
“We adopt a fabric-first approach to building [maximising the energy performance of the structure itself through the components and materials making up the building envelope] and we like to use insulated foundation systems, which I find to be cost effective and to perform well. This requires a bigger outlay at the start but it’s worth it as you will have a much more efficient building.”
Five full-time tradesmen are employed directly by Mannion Build alongside a steady crew of tried-and-trusted subcontractors, all of whom meet the exacting standards expected by Cyril. “I’ve been working with the same electrician since I started out and have forged long, lasting relationships with reliable men. The trust is there and there’s a real quality-driven element there as well.
“We also build quality relationships with our clients. Current clients are our sales reps of the future and that’s what will get you your next project. We always leave a good end product behind us, and a satisfied client, which results in us frequently being awarded new projects through word of mouth.”
While the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic to our shores made 2020 an unprecedented year for construction in Ireland, Cyril admits that he wasn’t as adversely affected as he might have been: “We were lucky enough in that a lot of our work at the time was external and we were able to continue,” he reflects. “The restrictions and regulations have ushered in a whole new way of working and I can see positives as well as negatives for construction. For example, we never piled the trades in on top of each other anyway. We would have always programmed them to follow one after the other and I believe this is a much better way of approaching a building project.”
Despite the ongoing difficulties facing the sector, which was hit with another lengthy shutdown at the start of 2021, Cyril is confident about the future prospects of Mannion Build: “I would hope to grow the business further – you have to really as rates are tight and you need a certain volume of work in order for the business to be sustainable,” the amiable Galway contractor concludes. “We’ll continue to provide contracting services but we’ll also look at taking on some developments going forward, while I’d also hope to get some social housing projects as well.”
Whatever they do, quality and performance will be to the fore, in keeping with the Mannion Build ethos.
Mannion Build,
Clonberne,
Ballinasloe,
County Galway.
Tel: 093 45580
Mobile: 087 2394435
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.mannionbuild.ie/
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, May, Vol 7 No 5
