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Couple build energy-saving
home
16/11/2005 The Star STORY AND PHOTOS BY LEE YUK PENG
READY FOR USE: Boswell outside Cooltek, his newly completed, environment
friendly home.
MALAYSIA My Second Home participants Harry Boswell and Stephanie Bacon have
built a house that reflects their concern for the environment and love for
nature.
Having chosen to live in Malacca, they built a heat-resistant and
energy-saving house with a wildlife pond in the compound.
Boswell, 70, said he designed the house with a white steel roof to deflect
sunlight and two underground chambers to collect cool air.
He said the extra thick walls and two layers of glass for windows and doors
helped to keep the house cool.
To prevent the roof from becoming noisy during heavy rain, Boswell stuffed
rockwool grounded into fibre between the steel roof and aluminium ceiling.
LIGHT MATERIAL: Boswell showing a piece of aerated concrete used in the
walls. It floats on water.
“This stops the noise and the rockwool also stops heat from travelling into
the house,” he said.
Boswell said he kept the aluminium ceiling low at 2.5m to keep the air
inside cool.
“The air-condition units in the house do not need to work extra hard to keep
the house cool since the ceiling is low,” he said.
He said the windows were made to face anywhere but the east to prevent heat
from the sun from entering the house.
Boswell used aerated concrete, which is lighter and resistant to fire, sound
and heat.
Beneath the laminated floor, 50mm thick polyurethane was placed to stop cool
air from going into the ground while channelling cool air into the house.
Boswell said it cost him only RM2 a day to run four units of
air-conditioners 24 hours a day at a temperature of 24 degrees Celsius.
The couple had a house located between two rivers with 7,000 trees in the
vicinity of Cambridgeshire, England.
Boswell said he did not mind sharing his design with those intending to
build an energy-saving home.
Boswell can be reached at 012-217 5590.
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