Empty the house before the builders start
When an older Ranelagh house changes hands, a renovation often follows. Builders price, plan and start work on an empty house. A house still full of the last owner's furniture means delays, a messier strip-out, and things going in a skip that should never have been there.
So the order matters: clear the contents first, then let the builders strip out and rebuild. A skip outside is fine for rubble, but it's a poor way to get rid of furniture, as our guide to house clearance versus skip hire explains. If you're moving out, letting or clearing a Ranelagh house for another reason, our main Ranelagh page has the general picture.
Contents or strip-out: who takes what
The simplest way to avoid confusion on site is to agree who removes what before anyone starts.
| Item | Our contents clear-out | Your builder's strip-out |
|---|---|---|
| Furniture, beds, wardrobes, boxes | Yes | No |
| Carpets, underlay, curtains and blinds | Yes | Sometimes |
| Freestanding cooker, fridge, washing machine | Yes | No |
| Attic and shed contents | Yes | No |
| Fitted kitchen units and bathroom suite | Ask us | Usually |
| Plaster, rubble, old pipes and timber from the works | No | Yes |
If anything on that list is going to be reused in the renovation, such as a fridge or a good set of curtains, mark it and it stays.
Keep what the renovation needs
A renovation often reuses parts of the old house: panelled doors, fire surrounds, cast-iron radiators, stained-glass panels. These are part of the building, not contents, so we leave them. The trouble is that by the time we arrive, some of them are loose: doors propped in a back room, a fireplace a previous owner already took out, boxes of reclaimed tiles in the yard. Tell us what's being kept and where it should sit, and we'll clear around it.
If the house is a protected structure, your architect will have a list of what has to stay. Send it to us with your photos, so nobody on our crew mistakes a loose original for rubbish.
If you're keeping some furniture through the works, it needs to be somewhere the builders won't be: a room they aren't touching, a relative's garage or a storage unit. We clear around whatever's staying, and can come back after the renovation for any pieces you decide against.
spotless.ieThe parts builders need first
Some spaces matter more than others before works begin:
- The attic, if there's roof work, new insulation or a conversion planned. The roofer or insulation installer needs a clear floor, and anything left up there is in the way or gets damaged. See attic clearance, or our page on attic clearance in Ranelagh.
- The back garden and the shed, if an extension is going in. Small yard sheds behind terraces are emptied through the house, then dismantled; see shed clearance.
- A garage or mews, if it's being rebuilt or converted; see garage clear-outs.
- The bathroom and the hot press, where years of towels, bedding and toiletries need emptying before the plumber starts.
- The kitchen, which goes first in most renovations, so every press needs emptying.
Renovating a Ranelagh house? Send photos of each room, the attic and the garden on WhatsApp, with your builder's start date. We'll reply with a fixed price, usually the same day.
Inherited houses and houses sold with contents
Some renovations start with a house that came with everything still in it, whether inherited from a parent or bought from an estate. Go through the obvious places for papers and photos before we arrive, and we'll set aside anything else that looks personal as we work: letters, documents, jewellery and keepsakes.
If you're clearing a parent's home before renovating it to live in or to let, the first clear-out is a different kind of job; see bereavement house clearance. A house that had become very full before it was sold is cleared methodically and without comment; see hoarder clearance. Renovating a flat in a converted house or a newer block? See apartment clearance.
Timing around the builders, and the price
Book the clear-out for the week before the builders start, not the morning of, so there's a margin if anything is bigger than it looked. If a skip or scaffolding is already on the road outside, tell us, because it changes where the van can stop and how far we carry.
The fixed price comes from your photos and reflects the volume, the stairs and the carry to the van, plus anything with its own disposal route, like mattresses and fridges. Sound furniture is set aside for reuse where possible, metal and electricals are recycled, and the rest goes to licensed facilities under permit NWCPO-25-13287-01. For the rest of the city, see house clearance in Dublin. And once the dust has settled, we can freshen the carpets in the rooms you kept; see carpet cleaning in Ranelagh.
