<Dublin, March 14th 2006> onlinetradesmen.ie, Irelands’ only servi= ce to provide Irish property owners with pricing estimates and availability from accredited tradesmen online, today announced the details of its recent survey into tradesmen’s charges across a variety of home improvement projects.

‘With over 7,200 accredited tradesmen on our service we are in a strong position to report on the average costs charged by tradesmen across Ireland’ explains John Egan, marketing manager of onlinetradesmen.ie, ‘ since our launch in October 2005 we have processed over 4,000 requests from Irish property owners nationwide.

While the results vary between urban and rural areas, our findings have been relatively consistent. There are always those tradesmen that will quote exorbitant rates but our policy of only using accredited members of the National Guild of Master Craftsmen keeps that behaviour to a minimum.’

So what of the results? onlinetradesmen.ie can reveal the following costs from its findings:

- The average cost for building work on a new home or an extension in

Dublin came in at €140 per square foot, with jobs outside Dublin

coming in at an average of €115 per square foot.

- The average cost for a tiling job came in at €25 per square Yard,=

with bathroom jobs coming in slightly more expensive.

- The average cost for laying a semi-solid wooden floor came in at

€22 per sq yard, with prices in Dublin starting at this rate and varying up to €35 euro per sq yard depending on the type of wood u= sed.

- Electricians tend to charge an hourly rate, averaging out a €35 p= er hour in city locations, with rates starting at about €25 per hour = in rural locations

- Plumbers in Ireland charge by the hour and average out at €45 per=

hour, with the cost increasing above €60 per hour in Dublin.