Traditional Semi-Buried House

Abstract

The “bordei” house is the oldest type of construction intended as a permanent residence on the territory of Romania. There is evidence of the existence of “bordei”-type buildings even from the Neolithic period, evolving from having one room during the Neolithic to three or even five rooms at the beginning of the twentieth century.

This type of building is specific to the plains of the country but especially to areas where construction materials such as stone were missing or difficult to obtain. For this reason, they were built only from available natural materials that came in handy: wood, straw, earth, and reed.

“Bordei” houses were abundant in the southern and southeastern parts of our country, where the summers are very hot and winters very cold. In these areas, the Romanian peasants found this solution: to construct the building so that half of its volume would be underground, a semi-buried home. This contributes to the energy efficiency of these houses; it is proven that the inner spaces are cool in the summer and easy to heat in the winter.

Although in Romania such homes are not built anymore, internationally there is interest in these sorts of buildings. Considering climate warming, the emphasis is on building low-energy buildings with a tendency to achieve near-zero energy consumption, also called near-zero-energy buildings (NZEB) by specialists.

In this context, it is important to study the “bordei” houses since they fall into the category of energy-efficient constructions from two points of view:

• 1. Low energy demands during the construction period.

• 2. Long-term low-energy consumption during usage of the building.