Jungle Loft Materials

The Framing Structure

One of the most important decisions that you’ll make when buying a home is the material that you use for it’s structure. You have 3 basic choices here.

Wood – Wood is the lowest cost method, but its very difficult to maintain in the tropics. Termites and mold are a never-ending battle in a wood framed structure in the tropics.

Concrete Block – Block is the still most widely used system in Central America, but that’s changing fast because the cost of block has risen exponentially over the last 15 years.

Though block lasts a very long time, it’s horribly inefficient. Construction times are 300% longer with block.

Steel – This is the obvious choice for Central America. We chose galvanized steel because it far exceeded our parameters in several ways.

Steel is More Environmentally Friendly

We love efficiency. With steel, all of the materials are laser cut off-site before they are loaded into the container. All of the holes are pre-drilled as the steel runs through the forming machine.

This means that when you get it to the site, it’s ready to be bolted together like lego. Reduced waste and faster construction times are better for the environment.

There is no site waste and it has a high strength to weight ratio. Fewer deliveries mean less emissions.

With steel, there are no trees to cut or large concrete plants to draw from the local rivers.

Low Maintenance & Long Life

The typical maintenance problems with homes in the tropics have to do with bugs, mold, and rust. Bugs don’t eat steel and it doesn’t mold. Because light steel is galvanized, its corrosion factor is greatly reduced.  That’s why light steel is the most common framing material in places like Hawaii, which are similar to (but more advanced) than Costa Rica.

We have seen homes that were famed in light steel sit unattended in the jungle for decades and still look as good as they day they were built.

It’s the Lowest Risk Way to Build in the Tropics

When building a home, risk comes because of material cost overruns and construction delays. This is greatly reduced with light steel. We use a computer based program to calculate all of the components needed for the home. So the amount of material needed isn’t something that a builder is guessing at. It’s pre-determined by our engineers and precision manufactured at the factory.

Further, because the builder isn’t measuring, cutting, or drilling on site (remember that’s already done at the factory), construction times are less than half of normal building times.

This means less opportunity for unexpected labor overruns. That’s how you lower your construction risk in Central America.

It’s Cost Effective

Light steel is more expensive than wood for framing and less expensive than concrete block. However, that’s the end of where wood ends the cost question. Wood building requires skilled carpenters that barely exist in Central America. This results in unexpectedly high construction costs.

Not counting the off-grid system (so that we can compare apples to apples), our 3 bedroom model costs less virtually every part of the US (or Costa Rica for that matter). That’s before we consider the fact that your Jungle Loft home comes loaded with 10′ tall custom sliding walls, a high end kitchen, and….it’s being built in the tropics.

The Roofing System

The Jungle Loft roofing system is a critical component for several reasons.

It’s the Best Place for Solar Panels

The farther away your solar panels are, the less efficient they become. Cabling to a farther away location also gets expensive. Putting the panels on your roof just makes sense.

Great Insulation

The roofing system comes with an 8 inch thick piece of insulation sandwiched in between the panels. This goes a long way for preventing heat being passed inside your house.

Its Angle is the Best Passive Cooling Design

Don’t go to sleep on this one. Otherwise your home is going to be so dang hot at night, you won’t be able to sleep! The shape of the roof is intentionally designed to force the warm air out of the home.

And of course we love the tropical rooflines with teak ceilings underneath!

More on That Passive Cooling Design

Over the years we’ve personally experienced how important this is in the tropics. Off-Grid kilowatts are expensive. And air conditioners are pigs when it comes to electrical consumption. So you want a design that reduces the amount of A/C that you need.

That’s why we hired a passive cooling expert specifically to aid in the design of the Jungle Lofts

It’s roof line and operable upper windows are only a few of the design decisions that were made to keep cool air moving in and hot air moving out of your home.

The Electrical System

For those of us interested in off grid power, we are living in exciting times! We have personally witnessed the cost of solar panels reduced by over 65% even since we started working with off-grid products in Central America.

Now we have multi billion companies like Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, and Nissan, engaging in an arms race to drive down the cost of power storage…aka batteries.

Your Jungle Loft comes ready to install a cutting edge power system.

The Foundation System

Your type of foundation is a big cost decision. If you have to move a bunch of earth in order to make a perfectly flat space for your home then you’re not only stressing the ecosystem of the land, but you’re spending a lot of extra money.

Jungle Lofts can be built on concrete columns or on a slab foundation. The columns are structurally engineered to more than support the home on top.

This not only allows for efficient construction on challenging topography, but its the most cost effective and environmentally friendly solution for building in Central America.

Some of our lots are flat & level.  A slab makes sense on those.  Some have more of a slope.  Since we can build on columns, the choice will be yours.