ECO cottages

Our ECO cottages are specially designed to protect the environment. In fact you may call it Green houses. Like all our other houses and gazebos, all timber used is obtained from sustainable and well controlled plantations. A contribution is paid for Indonesia's reforestation plan. The designs are adapted to the environmental circumstances. All walls are sandwich walls so that insulation materials can be applied between the siding boards. The roof will be insulated as well and we offer the possibility that solar panels can be installed. Since low mass constructions heavily contribute to a fast temperature change inside a building we use 25 mm thick sidings on each side of a 60 mm wide framework which is filled with insulation material (polystyrene foam). The delay rate for such structure is approximately 3 hours. Solar radiation intensity is highest on horizontal surfaces and lowest on vertical surfaces. Our roofs are shaped such that optimum air flow will occur. Roofs are insulated in a similar way as the sidings. In addition Merbau has a higher delay time than Bangkirai which is the reason that we use Merbau siding boards for both the exterior and interior part of the walls and for the floors. Despite the fact that we use expensive materials (Merbau for the sidings, Bangkirai for the structure, stainless steel and Cetol ® coating) we succeeded in keeping the price ECOnomically low, due to our long experience in timber prefab structures.

Materials used

All exterior and interior boards on the siding frames are made from 25 mm thick Merbau boards connected by T&G and hidden screws. The exterior boards have a rain water run-off sill. All floors from 25 mm thick Merbau boards, connected by T&G with hidden screws. The structure, (main floor beams, sub floor beams, siding frames, columns and roof trusses) are made from solid Bangkirai. All windows and door panes have insulated glass. In the event that door and/or window panes become too large we use tempered insulated glass. Fixtures (threads, nuts, washers and screws) are stainless steel grade 304. Not one nail will be used. Window and roof hardware from stainless steel. Roof covering from either wood shingles or thatch, the latter being the best solution from an insulation point of view. The cottages have raised floors (about 40 cm above natural grade) as to prevent creepy crawlers from entering the house. The exterior and interior of the cottage is protected with Cetol ®, world's foremost environmental friendly protective coating. We guarantee a maintenance free period for the exterior of 3 years in the most aggressive environment (close to open sea with salty spray). Alternatively French Polishing can be used for the interior against a variation order (refer to the French Polishing page).

We supply all assembly drawings which include the drawings for plumbing and electrical lines.

A question often raised: "Is there any difference between our standard houses, villas or custom made houses and our ECO cottages?" The simple answer is "yes, there is". Our standard houses are being prefabricated and assembled exactly in the same way as the ECO cottages, except that for the ECO cottages facilities are provided for solar panels, roof and siding insulation is included, glass is always insulated glass and sidings are made from Merbau (unlike our standard units which have exterior Merbau siding boards and a choice of Merbau or Bangkirai interior siding boards).

Due to the fact that our ECO cottages have all these extra built-in features the units are approximately 15% to 25% higher in price compared to a standard system for the same units. We may consider this the client’s contribution to a better protected environment.