The middle house,planned for its middle.

A terrace or link house is long, narrow and shares two side walls, so daylight and breeze only enter at the front and rear. The middle rooms — usually the dining area and stairs — sit furthest from any opening, so they stay dark, and without a front-to-back air path the heat that builds up through the afternoon has nowhere to escape. The fix is planned before finishes: a light path to the core (a light well, borrowed light or glazed internal doors) and a cross-ventilation and shading strategy, so you are not relying on downlights and air-conditioning to paper over the plan.

Yes — and it is often the sensible way to do it on a budget or while living in the house. The key is to freeze the whole-house scope and the M&E (wiring, plumbing, duct and wet points) once, up front, then build in stages against that single plan. That way the electrical and drainage you install in phase one already serve phases two and three, and a later phase never has to demolish work you have already paid for. Phasing without a frozen plan is how people end up chasing the same wall open twice.

At the rear, against the external wall — because that is where the hood duct can reach outside air on the shortest run and where drainage can fall to a floor trap. The wet-kitchen base, sink run and anything that stays wet should be specified in ACP or honeycomb aluminium, not board, because board swells in Sarawak's humidity. The dry-side cabinetry away from direct water can use P6 particleboard or plywood. The point is to decide the material by moisture zone, and to place the wet kitchen where its services actually work.

Not always. Before any structural work, there is usually a lighter path: borrowing light from a brighter room through a glazed internal door or a high-level opening, adding a light well or roof opening where the plan allows, or re-planning which rooms sit in the dark core. Structural openings and any work on a party wall are possible but sit on a project basis and involve a licensed trade, so we scope those separately. ELS plans the light strategy first and only proposes structural work where a lighter option genuinely will not do.

By deciding every exhaust path on the plan before walls and ceilings close. A terrace house often has only one external wall at the rear and no side access, so the hood, the dryer, a toilet fan and any second kitchen exhaust are all competing for a few possible outlets — and they cannot share one hole. We map each duct route to a real outlet up front, size it, and coordinate it with the ceiling and cabinet layout, so nothing gets discovered as impossible after the plaster is up. Cutting a new duct through a party wall afterwards is the expensive, disruptive fix we plan to avoid.

The Design + Specification service starts from RM1,500 (excl. SST), depending on scope. Site measurement is from RM300 in Sibu and RM500 outstation, and is creditable on confirmation. That fee covers the plan, the material and services specification and the coordination — the final build cost is confirmed after measurement, material selection and an approved scope, and if you phase the work it is quoted against a single frozen plan. Prices exclude SST.