Enviro Friendly Housing In Los

[mixed]

I'd like to start a discussion about enviro friendly building. What designs and materials are most energy efficient?

Traditionally there was no air-con or even fans in Thailand, so houses were designed to be as cool as possible. There was always plenty of air flow and shaded areas outside the house, which is where ppl spent most of the day.

These days it seems all this has been forgotten. Moo bans are filled with concrete western style houses that require air con to be livable. The only outside shade is the carport!

Due to the high cost of timber, building traditionally is very difficult. What type of materials can be used these days? Eucalyptus is cheap and plentiful. Can it be treated to stop termites? What about roofing, what's best. I think thatch roofing does well too keep out the heat, but it doens't last long so I'm not sure how feasable it is. What about modern materials and insulating paints?

What about renewable energy? There's little wind, but heaps of sun. Solar would seem a good option, although at this stage I'm not sure how cost effective it is. There's a lot of companies making solar panels in LOS. Are their new solar technologies on the horizon? Is the price of solar panels set to drop due to mass production?

Water. What can be done to make houses use less water. In many rural houses water from the kitchen and bathroom runs straight to the garden, making simple use of grey water. Is it possible to store enough water for use all year round?

Let's here some ideas!

[Samuian]

Hi, check this out Link:

Plenty of good information there on this page, a blog too!

Think solar is out of the question since maintenance, batteries and ROI are prohibitive - maybe 20 - 30 years, as fossil fuel generated power is still subsidized.

Water underground cisterns, all roof catchment area guttering and sensible use of energy, good ventilation combined with insulation, shading, fish pond with (man made waterfall) doing some research you may be able to recycle "gray water".

Check out some typical old Thai houses in your area - talk to the folks... if they still know...but today you don't want to life anymore in such a "ban boran" old style Thai house!

And check this out:Geothermal:

[mixed]

Thanks, lots of info, may take some time to go through it all.

Another thing with new houses is they always have the kitchen in the house, which helps heat the place up, also if it's Thai food there can be a lot of smells. Traditionally kitchens were separated from the house a little, I think this still makes a lot of sense. You could even have a main kitchen separated and a smaller, simple kitchen in the house for preparing snacks/small meals.

Also, creating nice living areas outside, with the climate it's much more pleasant to be outside in the shade, especially if it's a garden area. The main purpose of walls over here is for privacy and security, so besides bedrooms and areas with valuables, most of the house can be open.

As for solar it's difficult to say what will happen with fossil fuels, solar hot water is viable now, it doesn't have to be efficient. There may be other simple options for cooking with solar.

[Wildebeest]

This is a good one. I am looking at building a house next year. We have just laid down the fill so will be at least a year before building starts.

1) Enviro Friendly & Energy Efficient can be miles apart. What I am looking at is Comfort Zone that can be Energy efficient.

2) Traditionally building is fine if it is in your Comfort zone. But the bottom line is when its 30 outside its 30 inside. Not in my Comfort Zone.

3) Concrete Western Style, Well I have to disagree with this. Most “Western style” house built in Thailand have an R factor of 6 or less. Just a brick wall and a coat of paint. Now you would have to go back 50 years or more for a “Western style” house of this type.

4) Timber is a very Non-enviro friendly building material. If you want a full on Enviro Friendly house go with the Bamboo footing, Thatch siding and Palm Leave roof. All renewable resource’s. But here again my Comfort zone not fulfilled.

5) Renewable energy , you said it, Cost Effective, However the up side to this is they have a buy back policy for unused energy.

6) Water, There is ways to recapture grey water for garden/toilet use, You can capture rain water off a roof and into a cistern. However to store a years worth of water would be a big cistern as well as the gray water run off would require more land than your normal mooban lot.

7) Ideas: look at the cost of a comparable size house in your home country and use that as your budget here in Thailand (take out land price, Land here can be just as or more expense than at home). Western houses built in Western countries normally budget 5-6% for the HVAC. In your budget here or back home use 12-15% of the budget in HVAC. Then you may be able to start to use some of the high price Renewable energy features.

Conclusion: I can build a 1 million baht house here or a 35k dollar home in the states and you would be hard press to tell the difference. Ok the trim and doors here would be teak.

[GuestHouse]

For anything (a house) to be truly 'environmentally friendly' it needs to meet an 'Environmental Impact Target' over its "Life Cycle", many designs do not.

For example - Solar energy that requires large power storage batteries - The batteries have to be produced and eventually disposed of and since their production and disposal carries environmental impact due to the chemicals the batteries contain we can see we are saving on greenhouse gasses by using solar energy/batteries, but contaminating the environment with chemicals.

It is also clear that every house has an environmental impact - the term 'Environmentally friendly' has no meaning without a definition of the environmental impact - This might be expressed in un scaled terms such as 'minimum impact' (again no meaning) or perhaps in relative terms such as 50% less than a standard design - Or better still in absolute terms such as Max Power Usage, Max CO2 generation, or max water/sewage flows.

This measure of 'environmental impact' can then be applied to the whole life cycle of the building - Design, Production and transport of materials, building, day to day running and eventual disposal.

You can have some fun exploring this idea -

Start with the Design and Build

Make a list of all the materials you plan to use, and then against each list the energy that is used to produce/transport them. (The production of concrete and steel are two of the real energy/green house gas sources)

Then take a look at direct energy use, power tools, trips to and from site.

Think about chemicals used in the building process, paints, vermin treatments etc.

Running Impacts

Then think about day to day running impacts, water usage, heating, cooling, waste disposal

Examine passive heating/cooling v powered heating/cooling

Are you pumping water? (Is someone else pumping water)

Have you planted the gardens with local plants or are you using plants that require chemicals/herbicides insecticides?

Are you planning a pool with all the chemical and water usage that entails?

Disposal

And then of course there is disposal, not just of the batteries I mention above, but household materials and household rubbish. At the end of the day there is disposal of the house itself.

Mitigation

Essentially supplying materials from sustainable sources, wood from forests that are replanted and don't forget recycled materials.

Plenty of things to think about there (I spend enough time considering them myself)

[MrSquigle]

Live in a cave sounds easier.

[Wildebeest]

Using the Guide lines from the two web sites listed below you can have an Energy efficient house.

To build a house like this in the states can cost you 10-15% more than the regular way.

The savings or money back is two fold:

Heating/cooling bill can be 50-75% less than standard built house, in most cases you can recoup your investment in less than 10years..

And in the resale value which is higher, also banks love to loan money to people who buy these houses

as they know that the extra 300-500 $ they don’t spend on electricity can be spent on Mortgage.

Check the follow web sites out.

http://www.usgbc.org/

http://www.energystar.gov/

[Naam]

Conclusion: I can build a 1 million baht house here or a 35k dollar home in the states and you would be hard press to tell the difference. Ok the trim and doors here would be teak.

building a house for your dog is much cheaper than you think. and surely it does not require doors made of teak!

Edited January 20, 2008 by Naam

[mixed]

Using the guide from Guesthouse, I quickly jotted down some ideas.

The house is really simple and uses renewable materials that should be found close by. There is no air con and few creature comforts, but my idea was to start really simple. There are a few problems, for example large eaves don't allow much light in, so it will be a challenge have the house bright enough thru the day.

Besides being renewable, I was thinking the thatch roof provides good insulation, it also isn't heavy like tiles, but maybe a bit flammable!

My ideas are largely based on bungalows and restaurants that I've. If done properly it could look nice and blend with it's surroundings. It would also be fairly cheap.

Design and Building

A simple house, with few corners or fancy bits that require heaps of labor. To allow for air flow, there won’t be too many walls. The roof shall extend to cover outside areas, where ppl can sit during the day, for meals etc. This area will be brick paved.

Large eaves will provide shade and prevent rain entering parts of the house that are open.

There will be a raised concrete slab, to assist air flow under the house and prevent dampness (not sure what you call this, but I’ve seen it done).

Eucalypt posts are used for support beams, woven bamboo panels (or whatever you call them) for the wall. There will be thatch roof with guttering to collect water.

Main kitchen is a little separate from the building, so as not to heat it up too much.

Regarding chemicals, the eucalypt would have to be treated for termites, although I’m not sure what treatments are available. The interior would be painted white to keep it bright so lights would have to run during the day.

Running Impacts

Daily running impact would be minimal, no air-con, no lights during the day.

Water would be collected to feed the house by gravity (for the rainy season at least).

The gardens will have local plants, along with vegetables and fruit trees.

No Pool.

Disposal

Grey water will run to the garden. Composting for kitchen scraps. There are also systems that recycle toilet waste, although I don’t know much about these.

[Wildebeest]

North East side the coolest, suggested day time living environment.

South West side the hottest, suggested bathroom, closet, nighttime living area.

[chownah]

Best design for energy efficiency and comfort depends on where in Thailand you are building.....in Chinagrai this time of year the temp often gets down to 15 deg C at night or less and inside the house it can typically be the same as outside!!!! For the last couple of months I have been wearing a long sleeve shirt, heavy knit sweater, socks, and hat every morning and this is inside the house on typical days....when the weather gets cold I put a jacket over the sweater and slippers over the socks. On the cold nights I sleep under a thick quilted blanket plus another lighter one on top and I pull the sheet over my head while sleeping...I've been considering getting a night cap!!!!!

One design of house will not be best everywhere in Thailand!!!

Chownah

[Gary A]

Conclusion: I can build a 1 million baht house here or a 35k dollar home in the states and you would be hard press to tell the difference. Ok the trim and doors here would be teak.

building a house for your dog is much cheaper than you think. and surely it does not require doors made of teak!

Namm, is your dog house about 100 square meters? Compared to your house, that size sounds appropriate. Your dog house would be about the right size for me, BUT, I would keep the teak doors.

[warfie]

The subject of harnessing solar energy has been of great interest to me for many years. Recently I heard of new applications for an old technology, the Stirling Engine (google for it and for stirling solar) The most impressive I've found is at www.stirlingenegry.com

There are quite a few existing projects, however I believe I have a (half baked) idea to eliminate, or at least minimise the need for batteries!

A well designed house with lots of insulation, large internal thermal mass, strategic placement of windows with regard to the orientation of the house vs sun, wide ventilated eaves/verandas, roof peak hot air exhaust, double glazed windows, thermal-backed curtains etc. etc. would minimise the cooling requirements. But this would most likely not be so enviro-friendly, at least not in materials anyway... but you could, perhaps, justify that against the reduced environmental impact such a house would have in terms of energy requirements. You can make a house in Alaska that needs no power except the sun to heat it, so you can make a similarly comfortable house powered by the sun here too...

The cooling requirements, with adaptations of existing technologies, such as www.radiantcooling.org, could be met with little or no electricity. With a few twists the radiant system, using natural down-draft indirect evaporative cooling towers, stirling driven pumps etc I think it could conceivably be done, I'd love to have the project... I haven't figured a good enough way to control the system without electricity... yet... but that's such a minor power requirement...

Solar hot water is obvious, cooking with gas is better anyway, what else is there? I believe that with smart, well researched implementation of currently available technologies, an energy minimalist structure is possible, and, I will happily help anyone who wants to try... I hope I have the funds to try myself one day.

[bunta71]

WILDEBEEST...

I'm the one that built the passive solar heated house in Palmer Alaska using no other sources of energy but the sun along with solar water heaters back in the late seventies and am recognized in some of the older publications dealing with appropriate technology way back when. I'll tell you a simple method that you almost hit on. Then the post about the cave made me laugh because it is dead on track. So this: You said"30 outside,it"s 30 inside". UNLESS you incorporate the constant temperature of the earth underground using the correct thermal mass on the INSIDE of the structure with substantial insulation (stucco covered extruded polystyrene) on the outside od the building extending down about four feet inthe ground and the "flairing out" at a downward 45 degree angle going away from the house usually about ten or twelve feet. This essentially makes the cave effect and now I can stop laughing.30degrees outside...much less inside...power needed? maybe a small heater for the mornings.

[warfie]

Bunta... would that constitute "geothermal cooling"?

[quiksilva]

I heard that there is an entire town built underground in one of Australia's deserts. Its principally an Opal mining town. I cant recall the name it wads on TV once, they built the whole place underground to escape the searing heat of the day.

[warfie]

I heard that there is an entire town built underground in one of Australia's deserts. Its principally an Opal mining town. I cant recall the name it wads on TV once, they built the whole place underground to escape the searing heat of the day.

That sounds like Coober Pedy