Garage clearance in Dalkey, and a clean driveway afterwards

Two kinds of garage in Dalkey

Dalkey is two places when it comes to garages, just as it is for houses.

Down in the village, around Castle Street and the roads to Coliemore and Bullock harbours, many of the terraces and cottages have no garage at all. Where there is one, it is often a lock-up or a small store on a lane at the back, filled over the years with whatever would not fit in the house.

Up on Dalkey Hill and along the roads towards Sorrento and the Vico, the houses are larger and so are the garages. Some are cut into the slope at road level, with the house up a flight of granite steps above. Some sit at the top of a steep, narrow drive. A few are old coach houses that became garages and then became stores.

Our main garage clear-out page covers the service in general, and house clear-outs in Dalkey covers the houses themselves. This page is about the garage, and about what Spotless can do with the driveway once it is empty.

Where the van goes

In Dalkey the first question is never how much is in the garage. It is how close the van can get to it.

Two photos settle most of it: one of the garage door, and one taken from the road showing the drive or lane leading to it. If you can add where a van could stand without blocking a neighbour, better again.

In the village, a weekday morning is the easiest time. Castle Street and the roads around it fill up later in the day and at weekends, and loading is slower for everyone.

What comes out of a Dalkey garage

Most of it is what comes out of any garage. Some of it belongs to a house by the sea.

• Furniture that was replaced indoors and stored "for now"
• The spare fridge, the chest freezer and an old washing machine
• Bikes, golf clubs, exercise equipment and camping gear
• Garden furniture, parasols, pots and a lawnmower
• Tools, shelving, a workbench and boxes of fixings
• Timber, spare doors, tiles and leftover building materials
• Wetsuits, oars, life jackets, fishing rods and the cover of a boat sold years ago
• Boxes from a house move that were never opened

Before anything is loaded, boxes and bags are looked through. Personal papers, photographs and anything with a name on it are set aside and shown to you.

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What we cannot take

Every garage has a shelf of tins and bottles, and near the sea there is usually a fuel can as well. We cannot take paint, solvents, oils, fuel, chemicals, batteries or gas cylinders, full or empty. We stand them together in one place and tell you where they are. A local authority recycling centre takes household quantities of most of them, and a gas cylinder goes back to a supplier.

A petrol mower or strimmer can go once the fuel has been emptied from it.

Older garages sometimes have corrugated cement roof sheets or wall panels that could contain asbestos. We leave those exactly as they are and clear around them. Removing them is work for a specialist contractor.

What "cleared" means

When we leave, the garage is empty apart from anything you asked us to keep.

• Contents gone. Everything on the floor, on the shelves and in the roof space.
• Shelving and benches down, if you asked for that.
• Floor swept. Dust, leaves, sawdust and the grit that collects under shelving.
• Kept items in one place. Marked beforehand and left together, not scattered.
• Photos sent, if you are not there.

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The inside is swept, not washed. The washing happens outside.

Then the driveway

A garage that has been a store for twenty years usually has a driveway to match. Nothing has been parked in the garage, so a car has stood in the same place on the drive for all that time. There are oil drips under where the engine sits, moss in the joints and a green edge wherever the hedge keeps the sun off.

On a hill it matters more. A steep drive that is green with algae is slippery in wet weather, and granite steps beside it are worse.

Spotless power washes driveways as well as clearing garages, so the two can be booked together:

• Driveway. Block paving, cobble-lock, concrete or tarmac, washed with hot water and the pressure matched to the surface.
• The apron in front of the garage door, where the oil marks are.
• Steps and paths between the road, the garage and the house.
• Patio and garden walls, if you want the back done too.

Fresh oil marks usually lift well. Old oil that has soaked into the surface fades a lot, and we will say plainly beforehand if it is unlikely to go completely. Where a surface is delicate, we use a low-pressure soft wash in place of high pressure.

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Putting the two jobs together

The order does not change. The washing is always last, so the van is not driving over a clean drive.

Both can often be done in one visit on a small job. On a larger one, the washing follows on another day. Either way it is one quote, and you can take the clearance alone if that is all you need.

What Spotless does, in one place

• Garage clear-outs: the contents, the shelving and a swept floor. If the garage is about to become a room, see garage clearance before a conversion.
• Shed clearance: the shed and the garden store emptied on the same visit, or taken down.
• House clear-outs in Dalkey and flat clear-outs in Dalkey: when the garage is one part of a bigger job.
• Furniture removal: for the two or three large pieces that are the real problem.
• Driveway cleaning and power washing: the drive, the paths, the steps and the patio.

Usable furniture, tools and bikes are set aside for reuse where possible. Metal and electrical items are recycled, fridges and freezers go for specialist appliance recycling, and the rest goes to authorised waste facilities under our permit, NWCPO-25-13287-01. We are fully insured on every job and work Monday to Saturday, 8am to 5pm.

Before we arrive

• Take or mark anything you are keeping
• Empty the freezer and switch it off a couple of days ahead
• Have plumbed-in machines disconnected if they are going
• Leave the key, the gate code or the remote for an electric door where we can find it
• Keep a space free outside if you can, and let the neighbours know the date
• Check the outside tap is turned on if the driveway is being washed

Getting a price

Send photos of the garage from the door, the drive from the road and the driveway surface on WhatsApp to 085 202 1222, or use the quote form on this page. Tell us what is staying and whether you want the driveway done. You will get one written quote, usually the same day.