Pawid - What is a Pawid?

“Pawid” is a term used to call a roof cover used in old houses (Bahay Kubo) by Filipinos.  Pawid is manually made and composed of basic materials coming from Coconut leaves, Kawayan (bamboo), and rattan string.

Making Pawid is very hard to think of, its maker must be expert enough to make them extra strong when used in roofs considering an average of 20 typhoons are striking the Philippine Island all year round.

Pawid symbolizes the early innovations of ancient Pinoys. You can see almost every house is using Pawid as their roofs and some of them would put nets over the Pawid to protect them from damages when strong winds strike.

Some Bahay Kubo(s) also use Pawid in their walls, after putting bamboo structures they would arrange a number of Pawid to cover all the walls.  It’s a bit expensive that time to do this, but the main purpose was to improve the room temperature.

What are the good things about the Pawid?

As Philippines is a tropical country, during summer season you can really feel the heat and a bit humidity. Pawid makes inside temperature in houses extra cool as it blocks the heat from entering the house. Even during rainy season, Pawid can survive from heavy rainfall.

Pawid is so cheap and environmental friendly. You will not worry about disposing them because it will eventually decay for a short period of time and won’t harm our environment.

What are disadvantages using Pawid?

- Well of course, when it comes to fire, Pawid is a fuel (meaning it easily gets burned).
- Since they are only made out of coconut leaves, Pawid can easily get damaged compared to traditional metal roofing nowadays.

How they are made? 
1) Well, maker of these products would gather a piece of Kawayan in a specified length and prepare a bamboo rod having an estimated dimension of 2x1.5x120 centimeter (LxWxH).
2) Then they would collect fallen leaves of coconut tree and would detach each piece of leaf from its branch. Each leaf will be carefully aligned in a bamboo stick where the base part of the leaf will be folded on the bamboo stick attaching them one by one and over the other.  Each time a leaf is inserted, the maker would stitch them using the rattan string. Attaching leaves and Stitching will be continued until all the parts of the bamboo stick are fully covered.

Did you experience living in a house using Pawid roofs? What are your experiences? You may leave your comments here: