Cedar house experience first hand

Valuable qualities of this new-to-Bulgaria feature include eco-friendliness, energy efficiency, beautiful and modern design and even health benefits

'The model house built on Dourankoulak Lake, boasts 300 sq m, and was constructed in about three months. A square metre is estimated to cost between 900 and 1200 euro.This may sound like news coming from the world of fairytales, but it is now possible in Bulgaria to have your house built, including shipping and construction time, in a total of six months. The house literally gets shipped in a container from overseas and a knowledgeable crew assembles it on a selected plot of land. Other valuable qualities of this new-to-Bulgaria feature include eco-friendliness, energy efficiency, beautiful and modern design and even health benefits. They are cedar-made structures and are presented in Bulgaria by the American leader in the field, Lindal Cedar Homes.

The first cedar house model in the country was built at the Durankulak Lake with the common efforts of Lindal Cedar Homes and their Bulgarian partners from Kedrovi Kushti Bulgaria. The plan is to build an eco-village, an investment worth five million euro, consisting of five houses within the lake's proximity.

'We don't go to foreign countries to ask people to buy our homes,' Bob Lindal, owner of the American company, said to The Sofia Echo. 'Forward looking individuals seek us out, such as expatriates who had lived in North America, wanting to bring a specific experience to their home countries.'

Lindal Cedar Homes was founded in 1945, in Seattle. So far it has built more than 50 000 houses around the world, as the company has offices in Russia, France, Japan, and Greece, among others.

The main building material is red cedar, typical for the Pacific coast of Canada and the US. Cedar wood has proven to have good insulation qualities and some say that it even has positive cardiac effects.

In terms of the Bulgarian side of the business, Ivailo Taskov, now the executive director of Kedrovi Kushti Bulgaria, who visited one of the Lindal’s dealers in New Jersey, had made the first step. His initial intention had been to settle in such a house with his family. As time passed, he decided to bring the quality and convenience of his 'dream house' to Bulgaria.

'In comparison to the conventional construction process done here and in the US, the cedar homes are of undeniably higher quality including the building materials and the design,” Taskov told The Sofia Echo. Over the years, world-renowned architects and designers have shared their visions of a perfect home, and now Lindal Cedar Homes has more than 3000 different styles and designs to offer to its clients.

The model house built on Dourankoulak Lake, boasts 300 sq m, and was constructed in about three months.

Bob Lindal explained that a crew of expert carpenters had been flown in from Seattle. Some of the finishing materials, as well as the furnishing, were supplied from Bulgarian manufacturers. A square metre is estimated to cost between 900 and 1200 euro.

Asked whether the cedar houses have a life expectancy, Bob Lindal replied that the real difficulty with housing is the 'functional obsolescence', which occurs when the cost to upgrade and renovate the property exceeds the value of the house itself.

'But a cedar house will last longer than anyone would expect to live in it,' Lindal said.

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