New building system that saves household energy cost

The epileptic supply of 4,000 megawatts of electricity in a country of 160 million people immediately paints a picture of households living in dire straits with crippling energy crisis. The picture also clearly depicts energy situation in Nigeria—the giant of Africa and the largest economy in the continent.

Here is a country where household daily energy spend rises in geometric proportion as cooking, lighting and heating energy in majority of households come from alternative sources, notably generators.

Businesses are not left out in all of this as their generators are on 24 hours a day, seven days a week which takes toll on their bottomline, leading to high operating cost that are often transferred to customers.

It is against this backdrop that Nigerians are eagerly looking forward to any system or technology that guarantees reduction in the cost of energy in homes and offices. Interestingly, a Germany housing system is here holding promise for energy cost saving in homes.

This system, known as Huf Haus, is is a bespoke timber and glass house, with windows on all sides, maximising the outside environment. The houses built with this system are modern, light and airy, and the layout of each is designed to the owner’s specifications.

A Huf Haus is considered to be a design classic built to a very high standard and are extremely energy efficient, incorporating sustainably sourced materials, high-end insulation techniques, toxin-free paints, and utilising solar energy and rainwater recycling.

In more ways than one, the technology that drives Huf Haus architecture is an uncommon one with its perfect blend of luxury with nature, giving a breath-taking façade and eco-friendly living experience.

Arising from the traditional post-and-beam concept, the Huf Haus architecture has now been developed further into an unrivalled state-of-the-art, luxurious, open plan designs incorporating the floor-to-ceiling glass walls that we see today.

Huf Haus, a housing contracting firm with headquarters in Hartenfel, Germany, is a family run business with a long unbroken tradition of excellence in the over 100 years of its operation.

Thomas Geimer—the company’s Managing Director told journalists in Lagos recently that the Huf Haus philosophy, where a luxury lifestyle and eco-friendly living should not be mutually exclusive, has led the company to continually refine their designs to be more energy efficient while retaining and improving aesthetic quality.

Built in relatively large land size with generous landscaping and stunning façade, , Tunde Fagbemi the company’s Country Representative in Nigeria explained that Huf Haus houses are generally high end products, adding, “Huf Haus houses are for discerning clients; they are bought on request and the specifications are made according to what the client wants”.

Because of its exclusivity, Geimer said the company produces a limited number of Huf Haus houses each year, about 140 units, adding that besides a bespoke design and construction, Huf Haus clients have access to a wide range of interlinked services including basement construction, interior fittings, furnishings, landscape and garden design.

The most striking feature of Huf Haus houses is their energy efficiency as they source about 70 percent of their energy from the environment, thereby reducing the cost of electricity  in homes considerably.

“Huf Haus encourages intelligent living such that the owner can remote-control everything in the house even when he is not there—he can monitor the temperature in the house and control lighting; the air-condition filters the house; with the remote control  he can lower the façade of the house. The house is, indeed, intelligent and intuitive because it works on itself”, Fagbemi enthused.

As a prefabricated house ‘coupled’ in just four days with timber and glass as the major form-work, Huf Haus is as safe and strong as any other; it is burglar-proof with sensors which make the alarm ring in the event of an attempt to break in.

These houses are delivered defect-free for five years and they last for 100 years, Fagbemi assured, pointing out that the timber used in the houses is treated to prevent decay and termite attack. “The timber is taken from the best of forests which also make the houses eco-friendly”, he said.

Geimer disclosed that they were out to build for clients in Lagos, Abuja and other parts of Nigeria, assuring that local technicians are to be trained to do what would be needed. And for discerning Nigerians who would be requesting for the house, he said, a unit sells for between 2 million and 4 million Euros.

Chuka Uroko