County Offaly
New Builds in Offaly. A shrinking market, and a third of it one-offs.
Offaly completed 1,259 new homes in 2023–2025: 543 in 2023, 393 in 2024 and 323 in 2025, a fall of 41% in three years and the steepest of any county we cover. 420 of those were one-off houses, a third of the total. If you are building in Offaly you are more likely than in most counties to be building your own house on your own site, and that changes how the electrical work gets priced.
Why Offaly Is Different
Offaly is building less every year, and mostly one-offs
The completions run in one direction in Offaly. 543 homes finished in 2023, 393 in 2024 and 323 in 2025, a fall of 41% across the three years. Together those years come to 1,259 homes. Scheme houses account for 766 of them, 60.8%, one-off houses 420, 33.4%, and apartments 73, 5.8%. Set that against a housing stock of 28,144 homes, of which only 1,709 postdate 2011. Offaly is a county with a lot of older houses and a small, shrinking amount of new work.
The practical consequence is about pricing more than about wiring. With 420 one-offs in three years and completions down to 323 in 2025, there is very little repeat estate work in Offaly setting a local going rate. Where a county has a lot of scheme housing, the same house type gets handed over again and again, a price settles and everyone works off it. Offaly does not have much of that. So a new build here gets priced off your drawings and your site: the real room count, the real cable runs, the real position of the fuse board.
Where the work is: Tullamore accounts for 604 of the 1,259 completions, Edenderry 389 and Birr 274. That is the whole county in three electoral areas, and it is a short enough spread that a site visit before first fix is straightforward from any of them. None of this changes the wider picture. With 28,144 homes standing and 1,709 of them built since 2011, Offaly is mainly a county of older houses, which is what the main Offaly page deals with. This page is for the smaller number of people who are actually building.
Offaly In Numbers
What is actually being built in Offaly
| Type | Homes | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Scheme houses | 766 | 60.8% |
| One-off houses | 420 | 33.4% |
| Apartments | 73 | 5.8% |
Source: CSO new dwelling completions 2023–2025, County Offaly. 1,259 homes completed in total. Data pulled 2026-08-05.
What we need to price an Offaly one-off
Because there is no local estate rate to copy, an Offaly one-off gets priced from paper. Send the floor plans, the site layout showing where the house sits relative to the entrance and the meter position, and a rough idea of what you want in each room: sockets, lighting points, outside lights, an EV charge point, heat pump controls, data runs. If you do not have that list yet, that is normal, and we will walk the plan with you room by room. The 420 one-off houses built in Offaly between 2023 and 2025 were 420 different jobs, so a price per square metre tells you very little.
One-off sites outside the towns
420 of Offaly's 1,259 completions were one-off houses, a third of everything built in the county between 2023 and 2025. A one-off is a site of its own rather than a phase in an estate, and it usually carries electrical work that a scheme house never sees, from the connection run into the site to the pumps that keep water and wastewater moving. We deal with all of that, and rather than repeat it here we have set it out properly on our Wexford new build page, which covers the same ground. The Offaly point worth making is timing: those items need to be agreed before first fix, because the cabling for them is buried in the walls and under the floor with everything else.
First fix, second fix and the certificate
The electrical work on a new build lands in two visits with a gap between them. First fix is cables, back boxes and the fuse board position, done once the house is closed in and before the plasterer. Second fix is fittings, switches, sockets, the fuse board itself and the testing. Everything we install is wired and certified to IS 10101, the national wiring rules, and the job closes with a Safe Electric completion certificate in your name. Keep that certificate. It is the document your solicitor, your insurer and any future buyer will ask for, and it is the only proof the installation was tested.
If you are buying a scheme house in Offaly
Scheme houses were 766 of the 1,259 homes completed in Offaly between 2023 and 2025, 60.8% of the total, so a fair number of readers here are buying rather than building. In that case the wiring sits inside the builder's contract, not yours, and your window is the extras list the builder puts in front of you. We have written that up in detail on our Kildare new build page, because Kildare is where most of that work sits. The Offaly-specific point: with the county finishing 323 homes in 2025, sites are small and move on quickly, so ask for the electrical specification and the extras list early rather than waiting for them to arrive.
Who You’re Dealing With
Why this job is safe with us
J Cowman Electrical Contractors is based in Wexford and covers Offaly as part of our Leinster service area. Same crew, same registration, same certificate on completion.
Safe Electric registered
Registration A6700
Verifiable on the public register
Public liability insurance
Up to €6.5M
Cover in place on every job
Crew size
10 electricians
Trading since 2021
Fixed-price quote
Within 48 hours
WhatsApp replies within the hour, Mon–Fri
Building in Offaly: what we get asked
What does it cost to wire a new build in Offaly?
We do not publish a figure for new builds, because there is no honest one to publish. Offaly completed 1,259 homes between 2023 and 2025 and 420 of those were one-offs, so there is very little repeat estate work setting a local rate to quote from. The price comes off your drawings: the number of points, the cable runs, the site services, the position of the fuse board. The only price we do publish is for a full rewire of a 3-bed semi, an indicative €7,000–€12,000 including VAT and the Safe Electric certificate, and that is a range rather than a quote. Send the plans and you get a real number.
When should I bring an electrician into a one-off build?
At drawings stage, and at the latest before the house is closed in. First fix cabling goes in before the plasterer, and anything you decide after that costs more to change because it means opening walls again. On a one-off in Offaly the early conversation matters more than it does on an estate house, because 420 of the county's 1,259 completions in 2023–2025 were one-offs and each one is laid out differently. Half an hour over the floor plans before the blocks go up will settle socket positions, the fuse board location and whether you are running data or an EV supply.
Do you actually travel to Offaly, or is it Wexford only?
We cover Offaly. J Cowman Electrical Contractors is based in Wexford and works across 13 Leinster and south-east counties, Offaly included. In practice the county is three electoral areas: Tullamore with 604 completions in 2023–2025, Edenderry with 389 and Birr with 274. They sit close enough together that one trip can take in a site visit and a day's work. For a new build we would rather see the site once at plan stage than take it all over the phone, so that first visit is part of pricing the job, not an add-on to it.
Can you wire for an EV charger and a heat pump if I'm not fitting them yet?
Yes, and first fix is the time to do it. Running the cable and leaving the capacity at the fuse board while the walls are open costs a fraction of retrofitting it into a finished house. It is worth doing on an Offaly new build in particular: only 1,709 of the county's 28,144 homes were built after 2011, so a house going up now will be one of the newer ones in the county for a long time, and the spare capacity is cheap while the plasterer has not been in. Everything is installed and tested to IS 10101 whether the appliance is connected on day one or not.
What paperwork do I get when the house is finished?
A Safe Electric completion certificate for the installation, issued in your name, with the test results behind it. Every installation we complete is wired and tested to IS 10101, the national wiring rules, and the certificate is the proof that it was. You will be asked for it more than once: by your solicitor at closing, by your insurer, and by a buyer or their surveyor if you ever sell. Keep the original with the house file. If you are buying a scheme house rather than building, the builder's electrician issues the certificate, and it is worth checking at handover that it has actually reached you.
I'm buying a new house in Tullamore. Do I need my own electrician?
Not for the build itself. The wiring sits in the builder's contract and their electrician certifies it. Where you do need your own is afterwards, for anything the standard specification left out: extra sockets, outside lights, an EV charge point, a garage or garden supply. Tullamore accounts for 604 of Offaly's 1,259 completions in 2023–2025, and scheme houses are 766 of that total, so most Offaly buyers are in exactly this position. Get the electrical specification from the builder early, and if you want a second opinion on what is missing from it, send it to us before you sign it off.
Is a new build cheaper to wire than a rewire?
They are different jobs and the comparison does not really hold. A rewire means working in a house that is finished and usually lived in, lifting floors and chasing walls, and for a 3-bed semi that runs to an indicative €7,000–€12,000 including VAT and the Safe Electric certificate. A new build is cabled while the walls are open, so the labour is cleaner, but the point count on a modern house is far higher and a one-off site carries services an older semi never had. Offaly has 28,144 homes and only 1,709 built since 2011, so most houses in the county are candidates for the first job, not the second.
Where to go next
Written and checked by
Jamie Cowman, Registered Electrical Contractor
Jamie runs J Cowman Electrical Contractors and holds Safe Electric registration A6700, which is what allows a Completion Certificate to be issued on this kind of work. Everything on this page reflects how the job is actually priced and sequenced on site, not a generic specification.
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