County Louth
New Homes in Louth. The apartment questions to ask before you sign.
Louth built 3,790 new homes between 2023 and 2025, and 910 of them, 24%, were apartments. If you are buying one, the electrical specification is already fixed by the developer, and almost everything outside your own front door, the car park, the risers, the external walls and often the meter position, is common area controlled by an owners management company. A car charger is a management-company question before it is an electrical one. Ask before you sign.
Why Louth Is Different
Outside Dublin, Louth is where new apartments actually get built
Of the 3,790 new homes completed in Louth between 2023 and 2025, 910 were apartments. That is 24%, close to a quarter, and no other county we cover outside Dublin comes near it. Scheme houses still take the bigger share at 2,499, or 65.9%, and one-off houses account for 381, or 10.1%. But the apartment number is the one that changes how a buyer should think, because an apartment is the one new home where you inherit an electrical installation rather than influence it.
Building is also speeding up. Louth completed 1,081 homes in 2023, 1,170 in 2024 and 1,539 in 2025, the biggest of the three years. Drogheda takes most of it: Drogheda Rural at 1,484 and Drogheda Urban at 584 come to 2,068 between them, more than half the county total. Dundalk South added 852, Dundalk-Carlingford 520 and Ardee 360. Against an existing stock of 48,132 homes, that is a lot of brand new wiring going into the county in a short window.
The decision that matters happens at purchase, not after you get the keys. In a completed apartment the developer has already fixed the specification: socket counts and positions, where the fuse board sits, whether a spare way was left for a charger circuit. All of that was installed and certified to IS 10101 before the show unit ever opened, so there is no first fix left for you to influence. What you can do is find out what is actually there, find out what the building allows, and take that into account before contracts.
Louth In Numbers
What is actually being built in Louth
| Type | Homes | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Scheme houses | 2,499 | 65.9% |
| One-off houses | 381 | 10.1% |
| Apartments | 910 | 24% |
Source: CSO new dwelling completions 2023–2025, County Louth. 3,790 homes completed in total. Data pulled 2026-08-05.
Where your ownership stops in an apartment
Inside your own front door, the flat is yours and normal rules apply: you can add a socket, move a light, change the board, and the work is certified to IS 10101 by a Safe Electric registered electrician. Step outside it and the picture changes. The car park, the bin store, the risers that carry cables between floors, the external walls and often the meter cupboard are common area. They belong to the owners management company, and every owner in the block holds a share of it. So the question, can I run a cable out to my parking space, is answered by the lease and the company's rules, and you can read both before you sign.
The car charger question, asked in the right order
Ask three things in this order. First, do you own or only have a licence to use a parking space, and is it a numbered space or first come first served. Second, does the block already have charger infrastructure, and if it does, is it metered to your apartment or to the common supply. Third, if nothing is there, what does the management company's policy say about an owner installing one, and what route would a cable take from your meter to the space. Only after those three is it an electrical job, and then it is a straightforward one: a dedicated circuit, its own protection, and certification to IS 10101.
What to check at the snag, before you close
You get one clean run at this. On a completed unit the useful checks are simple and take a few minutes: every socket and switch works, the fuse board is labelled so you know what each trip switch does, the test button on the board actually trips it, the cooker and oven connections are live and terminated properly, the shower circuit is on its own way, and the smoke and heat alarms sound. Ask for the completion certificate for the installation and the board schedule, and keep both. In Drogheda Urban alone 584 new homes were completed over the three years, and those documents follow a property for its whole life.
Scheme houses and one-offs in the same county
Louth is not only apartments. Scheme houses account for 2,499 of the 3,790 completions, or 65.9%, across places like Dundalk South with 852 and Ardee with 360. If you are buying off plans in an estate you own everything from your own boundary in, and the decisions you can influence close early, at first fix, long before the kitchen goes in. One-off houses account for 381, or 10.1%, and they bring a different set of jobs: the pump on a wastewater treatment plant, a well or borehole pump, a long connection run in from the road. We cover those on our Wexford new build page.
Who You’re Dealing With
Why this job is safe with us
J Cowman Electrical Contractors is based in Wexford and covers Louth 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 Louth: what we get asked
Can I put a car charger in at a new apartment in Drogheda?
Not on your own decision alone. The parking space, the car park surface, the risers and the external walls are common area, so the owners management company controls them, and a charge point installation has to cross at least one of them. Get the answer before contracts: ask whether the space is owned or licensed, whether the block has any charger provision already, and what the company's written policy is on an owner fitting one. If the answer is yes, the electrical side is ordinary work: a dedicated circuit from a board with a spare way, its own protection, and certification to IS 10101.
Where is the meter in a new apartment, and does it matter?
In most new blocks the meters are grouped in a common cupboard or riser rather than sitting inside your flat, and that cupboard is common area. It matters for two reasons. Any work at the meter position, including a supply change or a circuit fed from it, needs access arranged through the owners management company. And the distance from the meter to whatever you want to feed decides the cable run. Louth completed 910 new apartments between 2023 and 2025 and the arrangement varies block to block, so ask on the viewing where the meter for that exact unit sits and whether the riser has spare capacity.
Can I add sockets or move things once I move in?
Inside your own front door, yes. Adding a socket, moving a light, putting a spur in for a home office, all of that is normal work in a new apartment and it gets certified to IS 10101 like any other job. Two limits are worth knowing before you buy. Anything that needs a cable to leave your unit, or a chase into a structural or external wall, brings the management company into it. And the fuse board fitted by the developer may have no spare ways left, which caps what you can add later without changing the board. Both are things you can look at on a second viewing.
What should I ask the estate agent before I sign?
Five things, and they are all answerable before contracts. Where is the meter for this unit and is it in common area. Is the parking space owned, licensed or unassigned. Does the block have any electric vehicle charging provision, and if so how is it billed. Does the management company have a written policy on owner installations. And how many spare ways are left in the fuse board. Put them in an email rather than asking at a viewing, so you have the answers in writing. Louth completed 1,539 new homes in 2025, the biggest of the three years, so these are current questions, not unusual ones.
Does a brand new home need testing or a certificate?
Yes, and it should already have one. A new installation is tested and certified by a Safe Electric registered electrician before handover, to IS 10101, and that certificate plus the board schedule should come to you at closing. Ask for both and keep them with the deeds. What a new home does not need is a rewire. For context, a full rewire of a 3-bed semi is an indicative €7,000–€12,000 including VAT and the Safe Electric certificate, and that applies to older houses among Louth's 48,132 existing homes, not to anything completed in the last three years. It is a range, not a quote.
Is a new apartment wired worse than a new house?
No, but it is fixed differently. The wiring in both is new and certified to IS 10101. The difference is how much of it you control. In a scheme house, and 2,499 of Louth's 3,790 completions were scheme houses, you own the whole plot and can extend a circuit out to a garage or a driveway charger without a management company in the way. In an apartment the installation stops at your front door and everything beyond it is shared. That is not a fault in the wiring, it is a fact about the building, and it is easier to price in before you buy than to discover afterwards.
Do you cover Louth if you are based in Wexford?
Yes. J Cowman Electrical Contractors is based in Wexford and covers 13 counties across Leinster and the south east, Louth included. Jamie Cowman is Safe Electric registered and every job is certified to IS 10101. For a buyer, the most useful call is usually the one before contracts, while the questions above still have weight. Send the block or estate name and whatever you have been told about parking and charging, and we will tell you what is realistic and what would need the management company's agreement. Drogheda Rural and Drogheda Urban account for 2,068 of the county's 3,790 completions between them.
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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