Cool Thai housing

Government’s low-energy blueprint changes the shape of Thailand’s homes It’s 30 degrees and humid outside, but inside Gary and Wanida Ebsen’s home it’s comfortably cool. The Ebsens and their three children live in a baan harn song or ‘energy-saving house’. To look at, it’s much like the houses Thais used to build before they started copying ‘Western’ models. They built it to plans provided by the Thai government’s Energy Policy and Planning Office (EPPO) as part of a fuel-saving initiative - and it’s designed to stay cool without air conditioning. This makes a huge difference to power consumption, according to EPPO’s calculations, which show that air con accounts for two-thirds of a typical domestic electricity bill. The main factor in keeping the three-bedroom house cool is its location, facing just east of due north to take maximum advantage of the prevailing breezes. It’s an asymmetrical H - effectively two buildings connected by a ground-floor terrace and upper-floor bridge. Each room has at least three exterior walls, with large, shuttered windows to the north and south. The windows have mosquito screens rather than glass, but even torrential monsoon rain won’t enter the house, because of the deep overhang of the roof and the steep canopies over the ground-floor windows. The overhangs also reduce sunshine, glare and heat inside. The pale roof reflects heat rather than absorbs it, as do the pale walls. As the house is on stilts, cooling air circulates underneath while monsoon-season damp cannot rise into the rooms. Although 3,000 people requested baan harn song plans when they were released in 2000, an EPPO spokesman could not say how many had made it from blueprint to home. Gary Ebsen estimates that his cost about 10% more to build than a conventional property, but that he has more than recouped the difference through lower energy costs. “I’m no environmentalist,” he says cheerily, “but I like good ideas.” His house is in a part of Phuket unaffected by the devastation of last December’s tsunami - but the ‘appropriate technology’ approach that it embodies is highly relevant to the massive reconstruction effort that Thailand now faces. - Alison Winward Gary Ebsen, ebseng@yahoo.com

15 March 2005

Alison Winward