Garages at the end of the garden
Plenty of Drumcondra houses have their garage at the bottom of the garden, with a timber or up-and-over door that opens onto a lane behind the terrace. They were built for a car, but in most cases the car moved to the street long ago and the garage became a workshop, a store and, eventually, a place nobody quite wants to open.
Because it's out of sight at the end of the garden, a back-lane garage tends to fill more slowly and more completely than one at the front of the house. What we find is often forty years of household life in layers: the most recent things just inside the door, the oldest ones against the back wall.
That's also why the back wall deserves a careful look. Damp gets into older rear garages, so cardboard boxes at the bottom of a stack may have gone soft, and anything that matters, like photos or papers, is lifted out and set aside for you before the box goes.
Loading from the lane, or through the garden
How the garage is cleared depends almost entirely on the lane. Drumcondra's lanes vary a lot. Some are wide and surfaced, others are narrow, potholed or partly blocked by bins and neighbours' cars.
| The lane | How we load |
|---|---|
| Wide and clear | The van backs up to the garage door, and everything goes straight in |
| Narrow but passable on foot | The van waits at the mouth of the lane or on the road; we carry, with a trolley where the surface allows |
| Blocked, gated or overgrown | We work through the back garden and the house, with covers down on every floor |
| No lane door at all | Out through the garden and the house, the same as a shed with no rear access |
When you send photos, include one of the garage door from the lane and one from each end of the lane. That tells us more than a long description.
spotless.ieDecades of DIY
The typical Drumcondra back-lane garage is a record of every home improvement the house has had. Expect the leftovers of each one:
- Timber and offcuts. Lengths of skirting, architrave, shelving and sheets of board, kept in case they'd come in handy.
- Old doors and fittings. Interior doors swapped out years ago, handles, hinges and the old kitchen cupboard fronts.
- Tiles and flooring. Spare boxes of tiles, rolls of lino and underlay, carpet offcuts.
- Tools. Hand tools, broken power tools, ladders, sawhorses and a workbench that won't come out in one piece.
- Hardware. Jars and boxes of screws, nails, fixings and rawl plugs.
All of it is sorted as it comes out. Tools in working order and sound timber are kept back so someone else can use them, where possible. Metal is recycled, and the rest is taken to licensed facilities. The workbench and any shelving are taken apart on the spot.
If you've been wondering whether a skip would be simpler, remember that a skip still has to be filled by someone, and there's rarely room for one in a lane. Our comparison of clearance and skip hire sets out the differences.
Paint tins and the dangerous shelf
Every DIY garage has one shelf we look at carefully: the paint, varnish, white spirit, wood preservative and the odd bottle with no label at all. These can't go in with general waste, and some can't travel with us at all.
- Paint. Tins that have dried solid are much simpler than full tins of liquid paint, especially oil-based gloss. Tell us roughly how many there are of each.
- Solvents and preservatives. White spirit, thinners, creosote-type wood treatments and similar products need specialist disposal.
- Unlabelled bottles. Treat them as hazardous until you know otherwise.
- Corrugated roofs. Some older garages have cement-sheet roofing that may contain asbestos. We don't break up or remove it.
We'll be straight about what we can take, and some local authority recycling centres accept household paint and chemicals.
Want a price for a back-lane garage in Drumcondra? Send a photo from the lane, two from inside the garage and one of the paint shelf on WhatsApp. We'll reply with a fixed price, usually the same day.
Parking and timing in Dublin 9
If the van can't get into the lane, it needs somewhere legal to stop on the road, and many Drumcondra streets have permit or pay-and-display parking. Let us know what applies on yours. We'll also avoid big event days at Croke Park when choosing a date, because getting a van in and out of the area on those days is slow. Our Drumcondra house clearance page has more on access and parking across Dublin 9.
Cost, permit and the next job on the list
Every garage clear-out gets a fixed price from your photos, agreed before booking. What moves it is the volume, the lane and the carry, heavy items like workbenches and bags of plaster, and anything that needs special disposal. Permit NWCPO-25-13287-01 is ours, so you're dealing with an authorised waste carrier, and we're fully insured too.
The attic is often next on the list: see attic clearance in Drumcondra. If there's a shed in the garden as well, see shed clearance in Drumcondra. For a pile that's already sorted and just needs taking away, junk removal may be all you need. For garages anywhere in Leinster, start with our garage clear-out service, and if you'd like to make a start on the sorting yourself, the garage clearance guide has tips.
