Since its inception at the dawn of the millennium, O’Leary Building Services has earned a stellar reputation as one of Cork’s premier builders of stunning, high-performance homes. Despite the strong demand for his standard-setting services, founding proprietor Danny O’Leary is content to keep the company at a manageable size and focus first and foremost on consistently delivering quality workmanship.
Commendably and prudently, O’Leary Building Services is resisting the temptation to grow in what could potentially be an unsustainable or unmanageable manner.
The Newmarket, County Cork based building contractor is widely-regarded as an industry leader when it comes to the exceptionally high standard of workmanship invariably delivered on every project. Owner Danny O’Leary is determined that this will continue to be the case. He is simply not prepared to compromise on quality.
Thus, the emphasis going forward is very much on consolidation and maintaining these standards through the guaranteed provision of a personal touch and the exacting attention to detail for which O’Leary Building Services is renowned.
“I’d rather do a few projects a year less and focus on quality,” the experienced Cork contractor confirms. “I started out with the goal of making sure I did everything properly, with a lot of OCD and the keenest attention to detail. That’s the way we want to keep it. When you insist on producing quality work, it gives you a great deal of personal satisfaction and you know you’ll always have satisfied clients, with no grief or trouble.
“The last thing we want is to take on too much work and allow our standards to slip. If you take on a little less and give each job your full attention, then you can keep your standards high and that is in everybody’s interest.”
Specialising in new builds, ICF wall systems, groundworks, roofing, extensions and renovations, O’Leary Building Services was established in 2000 by Danny, who has worked in construction all his adult life, starting off as a labourer, then working extensively as a carpenter before setting up his own company.
Danny is very much the archetypal hands on-builder, overseeing and coordinating all projects from start to finish and liaising closely with clients.
O’Leary Building Services’ high-performance energy-efficient homes are significantly cheaper to run than a traditional built house, with superior comfort levels and incorporating modern build technologies that are typically at least 30% more efficient.
The sole agent and installer of Altherm Ireland ICF (Insulated Concrete Formwork) wall systems in Munster, O’Leary Building Services boasts an unrivalled track record for completing high-performance full-home new builds across counties Cork, Kerry and Limerick. While these stunning start-to-finish new builds remain a key component of the business today, Danny offers a wide range of services to clients wishing to build or improve their dream home:
“At the moment, we are actually in the process of doing our first renovation job in years and we’re also just after finishing a couple of raft foundations – both insulated and standard,” he reveals. “We’ve done five or six of those in the past couple of years, having maybe only done the same number in the previous ten years, so we’re getting busier with that.
“Another thing we’ve started doing is Tobermore retaining walls. We’ve just completed a nice one in Glounthaune, near Little Island – a substantial retaining wall with curves, which is a largescale and very impressive wall. That wall is 4.4 metres high at its highest point and it suited the site perfectly as there was a lot of rock at the back of the site. It looks really well.
“We’re still busy with the full builds and most of those are high-performance homes built with ICF and to a builder’s finish,” Danny continues. “We’re doing a lot of structural envelopes where we go to a greenfield site and look after everything from groundworks, the foundation and ICF walls up to the roof, and windows and doors, and we then hand it over to the client.
“Most clients can manage organising the trades involved in the tiling, wooden floors and kitchens, etc., themselves and this is an arrangement which works out extremely well for a lot of clients. From the home owner’s point of view, they are not doing a full-on self-build and also have the peace of mind of knowing that the structure and envelope has been taken care of by professionals.
“In a way, they are getting the best of both worlds. Once we’ve finished the structural envelop, they can get in their own plumbers, plasterers, electricians and kitchen fitters. It also works out very well from the engineer’s point of view as the engineer likes this as a minimum base – any engineer is going to be content when he / she hears that competent, professional builders are looking after the structural envelope.”
The building envelope consists of foundations, wall structure (including ICF Super Structure System), roof and glazing. A building constructed using ICF will – at a very reasonable cost – achieve higher thermal, sound and fire performance standards than traditional construction methods such as block or timber frame.
O’Leary Building Services build and insulate to the highest standards possible to produce highly-efficient A-rated energy homes, and are committed to giving practical advice to make sure the client achieves the most sustainable home possible.
Danny and his trusty team can provide a complete project-managed service tailored to each client’s specific new build requirements, from structure only to builder’s finish, right through to complete turnkey solution and anything in between.
“I have a small team at the minute,” the busy proprietor of O’Leary Building Services concludes. “We were up to seven or eight men at one point there but the calibre of tradesman that I would need and insist upon simply isn’t available at the moment. And we are not interested in compromising on the quality of work we do.”
O’Leary Building Services,
Newmarket,
Mallow,
County Cork.
Tel: 087 0516016
Email: [email protected]
Web: olbs.ie
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ICFCONTRACTOR
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, March 2024, Vol 10 No 3
