House Clearance Dublin: Complete Guide to Costs, Process & Preparing Your Property

What a house clearance in Dublin actually means

A house clearance is the removal of some or all of the contents of a home — furniture, appliances, carpets, clothes, books, boxes, the attic, the garage, the shed and the garden — followed by a sweep so the property is empty and ready for whatever comes next. In Dublin that "next" is usually one of five things: a sale, a new tenant, a renovation, a family member moving on, or a home being handed back to a landlord.

It is a different job from waste collection. A skip takes what you carry out to it; a house clearance crew does the carrying, the sorting, the dismantling and the sweeping, and decides on the spot what can be reused, what can be recycled and what has to be disposed of. That sorting is what makes the difference between a property that has been "emptied" and one that has been cleared properly.

PropertyClearance.ie is based in Athy, Co. Kildare and clears homes across Dublin every working day — from Swords, Malahide and Howth on the north coast, through Drumcondra, Glasnevin and Castleknock, to Rathmines, Terenure, Dundrum, Blackrock and Dún Laoghaire on the southside, and Tallaght, Clondalkin and Lucan in the west. This guide explains the whole process so you know what to expect before you ask for a quote. If you'd rather go straight to the service page, see house clearance Dublin.

Full clearance, partial clearance and room-by-room

Not every clearance is the whole house, and the type you need changes the price, the time and how much sorting is involved.

Full house clearance

Everything out, every room swept — the standard job when a property is being sold, let or handed back, after a bereavement, or when a family is moving abroad or into care. The crew works from the top of the house down so cleared rooms stay clear, and finishes with the attic, garage, shed and garden if they're included. Most standard three-bedroom Dublin houses are finished in a single day; very full houses, period houses with basements and attics, and hoarded homes take longer.

Partial clearance

You keep what you want; we take the rest. This is the right choice when you're staging a house for sale and need the clutter gone so rooms photograph and view well, when you're downsizing before a move, or when a tenant has left bulky furniture behind. Partial clearances are quoted the same way as full ones — from photos, with a fixed price — and often take only a couple of hours.

Room-by-room and single-space clearances

One bedroom after a relative moves into care. A kitchen before a refit. A garage before a conversion. An attic before completion day. These are everyday jobs for us in Dublin and are usually the quickest to arrange. See attic clearance, garage clearance and shed clearance for what each involves.

Moving house and downsizing

When you're moving, the removals company only wants to move what's going to the new house. We clear what isn't — in the days before the move or on the morning itself — so you're not paying a removals crew to carry furniture you're about to throw out. If a few pieces are going to a family member nearby, we can drop them off on the same run.

The situations we clear houses for most often

Every clearance has a reason behind it, and the reason shapes how we approach the job.

Preparing a property for sale. Estate agents want empty, swept rooms before the photographer arrives and before the first viewing. We can work to a completion date, clear before the photos, and leave the house presentable. For more on getting a property ready, see our property clearance guide.

Preparing a property for rental. Landlords and letting agents need the property back to a lettable shell between tenants — abandoned furniture, mattresses, bags of rubbish and a fridge nobody wants to open. We turn these around quickly, with dated photos for your records. See end-of-tenancy clearance.

Probate and bereavement. Clearing a parent's or relative's home is the most sensitive work we do, and a large share of our Dublin jobs. We work at the family's pace, set aside photographs and documents, and can work from keys for executors and relatives living away. We've written a separate, dedicated guide: bereavement house clearance in Dublin.

Hoarded and heavily cluttered homes. These need more time, more care in sorting and, often, discretion. We treat them without judgement — see the hoarder clearance guide.

Downsizing, moving abroad, moving into care. A clearance that happens in stages — the big furniture first, the personal items once the family has been through them — is normal here, and we quote each stage separately if that helps.

What we take — room by room

In short: the entire contents of a home. In detail, because people always ask:

• Furniture: sofas and armchairs, beds, mattresses and divans, wardrobes (fitted ones dismantled on site), chests of drawers, dressers and sideboards, dining tables and chairs, desks, bookcases and shelving, garden furniture.
• Appliances and electricals: fridges, freezers, washing machines, dryers, cookers, dishwashers, microwaves, TVs, computers, lamps — all sent for WEEE recycling rather than landfill.
• Kitchen contents: crockery, pots and pans, cutlery, food cupboards, small appliances, free-standing units.
• Soft contents: clothes, bedding, curtains, towels, cushions, rugs; carpets and underlay if you want them lifted.
• Books, boxes and paperwork: sorted as we go — anything that looks personal or important is set aside for you.
• Attic: suitcases, cots, Christmas decorations, old carpet, boxes of everything, brought down carefully through the hatch.
• Garage and shed: tools, bikes, lawnmowers, paint, timber, tyres, old furniture, the chest freezer that stopped working years ago.
• Garden: broken furniture, barbecues, pots, overgrowth and the things that were thrown out the back door "for now".
• Storage areas: under-stairs cupboards, basements, outhouses and storage units rented elsewhere.

The only things we don't handle are asbestos, medical or clinical waste and large quantities of hazardous chemicals, which need specialist contractors. Household amounts of paint, batteries, aerosols and gas cylinders are fine if you mention them in advance.

Access in Dublin: stairs, lifts, parking and apartments

Access is the thing that most affects how long a Dublin clearance takes, and therefore the price. Tell us about it when you ask for a quote and there will be no surprises on the day.

Terraced houses with no side access. Common in Dublin 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 12 — Drumcondra, Phibsborough, Harold's Cross, Rathmines, Crumlin, Marino. Everything comes through the house, so we protect floors and door frames and carry rather than drag.

Period houses. The redbricks of Ranelagh, Rathgar, Ballsbridge, Donnybrook and Sandymount have high ceilings, enormous wardrobes, steep stairs, a return, a basement and an attic. We allow for extra crew and stair equipment.

Apartments. From the Docklands and Dublin 1, 2 and 4 to Sandyford, Tallaght, Santry, Swords and Blanchardstown, apartment blocks have lifts that need booking, loading bays with time limits, management companies with moving-day rules and underground car parks with height limits. Older walk-up blocks and converted flats have no lift at all. We deal with all of this every week — see apartment clearance.

Parking. On-street permit parking in Dublin City Council areas is normal for us; we plan loading so the street isn't blocked, and if a parking suspension would make the job faster we'll say so in advance. Driveways in Castleknock, Lucan, Clontarf or Dundrum make life easy.

Keys. You don't need to be there. Many Dublin clearances are done from keys collected from an estate agent, solicitor or neighbour, with photos sent on completion and keys returned wherever you ask.

How house clearance quotes work (and why photos matter)

We don't charge by the hour and we don't give a one-size-fits-all rate, because a three-bed semi with a driveway and average contents is a very different job from a top-floor flat with no lift or a house that has been hoarded for twenty years. Instead, every job gets a fixed written price before we start, and the price covers labour, transport and all disposal. There is nothing added afterwards.

The fastest way to that price is photos. A phone photo of each room — including the attic through the hatch, the garage and the shed — tells us the volume, the type of contents and the access, which is everything we need. Most quotes go back the same day. If the property is very full, or you'd prefer we saw it in person, we'll arrange a quick visit instead.

Two things people sometimes leave out of their photos, and which change the quote: the attic, and the garage or shed. If they're to be cleared, show us.

House clearance cost factors in Dublin

No two houses cost the same to clear. These are the things that move the price — up or down — and what you can do about each one.

A note on house clearance prices

Because the price is fixed from your photos, the quote you get is the price you pay. If, on the day, the volume turns out to be significantly more than the photos showed — a loft that was "nearly empty" and wasn't — we'll tell you before continuing and agree any change with you first. That's rare, and it's exactly why we ask for the attic and garage photos.

If you're weighing a clearance against hiring a skip, bear in mind that a skip needs space, a permit if it's on the road, time to fill it and someone to do the lifting — and it won't take mattresses, fridges or TVs without extra charges. We've compared the two properly in house clearance vs skip hire in Dublin. For an older article on what drives the price, see house clearance cost in Dublin.

What happens on clearance day

A typical full house clearance in Dublin, start to finish:

1. We arrive at the agreed timeWith the truck, trolleys, tools, bags and the crew sized for the job. If you're not there, we collect keys from wherever you've arranged.
2. A quick walk-throughWe confirm what's being kept, what's going, and where anything personal should be put if we find it.
3. Top of the house downAttic first, then bedrooms, bathroom, landing, living rooms, kitchen and hall, so cleared rooms stay clear. Furniture goes out whole where it fits and is dismantled where it doesn't.
4. Sorting at the truckReusable items are set aside for donation, recyclables are separated, electricals are loaded for WEEE recycling, and the remainder is bagged as residual waste.
5. Garage, shed and gardenCleared last, including hazardous bits like paint and batteries which we keep separate.
6. Sweep and walk-roundEach room is swept as it empties. At the end you get a walk-round — or photos if you're away — and the keys go wherever you've asked.

What happens to your belongings after the clearance

Reuse and recycling come first on every job. Furniture and household goods in usable condition are donated or passed on for reuse where possible; wood, metal, cardboard, paper and textiles are separated for recycling; fridges, freezers, washing machines, TVs and other electricals go to WEEE recycling; and only what genuinely can't be reused or recycled goes to licensed waste facilities.

PropertyClearance.ie is operated by Krystal Klean Express Limited, an authorised waste carrier holding Waste Collection Permit No. NWCPO-25-13287-01, and we're fully insured for the work we carry out in your home. That matters more than it sounds: waste collected by an unpermitted operator and dumped illegally can be traced back to the householder. With us, you get a legitimate company, a written quote and the reassurance that everything went where it should. We've written more on this in what happens to your items after a house clearance.

If we find photographs, letters, documents, jewellery or cash during the clearance, they are set aside and handed back to you — never loaded. Families often tell us this is the part they're most grateful for.

Preparing the property after the clearance

A cleared house is a blank canvas, and what you do next depends on why you cleared it.

Selling: a swept, empty house photographs well and lets viewers see the rooms rather than the contents. If the property needs a deep clean, carpet cleaning or power washing before photos, we can point you to a cleaning partner — basic sweeping and tidying is included in every clearance, but a full clean is a separate job.

Letting: landlords usually follow a clearance with a clean, a paint and any repairs before the next viewing. Dated before-and-after photos from us are useful for deposit records.

Renovating: builders need the property stripped — carpets, curtains, free-standing units — and we can do that as part of the clearance so the trades can start on day one.

Family moving on: sometimes the clearance is the last practical step in a long process. We're glad when customers tell us it was the easy part.

Where we clear houses in Dublin

All of Dublin city and county. On the southside: Rathmines, Ranelagh, Rathgar, Terenure, Templeogue, Rathfarnham, Harold's Cross, Crumlin, Kimmage, Walkinstown, Ballsbridge, Donnybrook, Sandymount, Ringsend, Milltown, Dundrum, Churchtown and Goatstown. In Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown: Blackrock, Booterstown, Monkstown, Dún Laoghaire, Dalkey, Killiney, Glenageary, Sandyford, Stillorgan, Foxrock, Cabinteely, Deansgrange, Stepaside and Shankill. On the northside: Drumcondra, Glasnevin, Phibsborough, Cabra, Marino, Fairview, Clontarf, Raheny, Killester, Artane, Beaumont, Santry, Whitehall, Coolock, Donaghmede, Sutton and Howth. In Fingal: Swords, Malahide, Portmarnock, Baldoyle, Balbriggan, Skerries, Rush, Lusk, Donabate, Castleknock, Blanchardstown, Ongar and Clonsilla. In South Dublin County: Tallaght, Clondalkin, Lucan, Adamstown, Palmerstown, Ballyfermot, Rathcoole, Saggart, Citywest, Firhouse, Knocklyon and Ballyboden. And the city centre: Dublin 1, 2, 7 and 8, including the Docklands, the Liberties, Stoneybatter and Smithfield.

Each area has its own page with local detail — start from the Dublin areas list. We also cover Kildare (where we're based), Wicklow, Meath borders, Carlow, Kilkenny and Laois.