If you see an older house in Hilo with a horizontal band of wood running around the outside, there’s a good chance you’re looking at single-wall construction. The house in the picture above is one of ours. I own two single-wall homes, and I love them.

I’ve always liked old houses. I like the character, the craftsmanship, the old wood and the fact that they don’t all look exactly the same. I like the traditional sliding and double-hung windows, and especially the jalousie windows you see all over older Hawaiʻi homes. There’s something about a well-maintained old house that you just don’t get with newer construction.

These houses were also built for airflow. Open the windows and you can really move air through the house, and they have a look and feel that is distinctly Hawaiʻi.

If you’re new to the islands, though, “single wall” may be a construction term you’ve never heard before. So let’s start there.

What Does Single-Wall Construction Mean?

In a conventional modern house, an exterior wall is usually made up of several layers. You have siding or sheathing on the outside, wood studs, a cavity that may contain insulation, and then drywall or another interior wall surface.

Traditional Hawaiʻi single-wall construction is much simpler. The wood boards are basically the wall. There isn’t a conventional framed wall hidden behind them. The vertical tongue-and-groove boards form both the exterior and interior surface and are part of the structural system of the house.

The State of Hawaiʻi describes traditional single-wall construction as vertical tongue-and-groove boards forming a load-bearing exterior wall without conventional studs. That can be a strange concept the first time you see it. In many of these houses, you can stand inside, look at the wood wall, and know that the other side of that same board is outside.

What’s That Band Around the House?

One of the easiest ways to spot a single-wall house is the horizontal band of wood running around the exterior. Those horizontal pieces are commonly called girts, although you’ll also hear people call them bands or belly bands. They tie the vertical wall boards together and help stiffen the wall.

Some houses have one and some have two. Depending on how the house was built, you may also see horizontal reinforcing members on the inside. Historic Hawaiʻi Foundation describes older single-wall homes as having vertical tongue-and-groove boards reinforced by one or two horizontal wood girts around mid-height. Hawaiʻi building codes have also specifically addressed the use of girts in single-wall construction.

Once you know what you’re looking for, you’ll start spotting these houses all over Hilo.

Why Were So Many Hawaiʻi Homes Built This Way?

Single-wall construction wasn’t some odd shortcut used by a handful of builders. It became a major part of Hawaiʻi’s housing history. The method grew out of plantation-era housing, when there was a need to build a lot of homes quickly and economically. It used fewer materials than conventional framed construction and made sense in Hawaiʻi’s climate.

It became even more common during the housing boom after World War II, when Hawaiʻi needed a lot of relatively affordable housing in a short period of time. The climate mattered too. Builders in Hilo weren’t trying to create tightly sealed, heavily insulated houses capable of handling a Minnesota winter. Airflow mattered.

That helps explain some of the other features commonly found on these houses: raised post-and-pier foundations, generous eaves, lots of windows and, later, jalousie windows. Historic preservation guides for Hawaiʻi describe prewar single-wall houses with tongue-and-groove walls, raised foundations and double-hung, sliding or casement windows. These were houses designed for the place where they were built.

The Jalousie Windows Are Part of the Appeal

I happen to love jalousie windows. If you haven’t seen them before, they’re made from horizontal glass louvers that crank open and closed. When they’re fully open, almost the entire window opening lets air through. That works pretty well in East Hawaiʻi.

Older houses may have a mix of jalousies, traditional sliding windows, double-hung windows and large picture windows. You’re not going to confuse one of these old houses with today’s tightly sealed construction. There are tradeoffs. You don’t get the same sound isolation, and you have less control over outside air getting into the house. But if you like natural ventilation, there’s a lot to appreciate.

What About Post-and-Pier Construction?

A lot of single-wall homes are also built on post-and-pier foundations rather than concrete slabs. The two things aren’t the same. A post-and-pier house can have conventional double-wall construction, and a single-wall house isn’t defined by its foundation, but you see the two together quite a bit in older Hawaiʻi homes.

A typical post-and-pier house is raised above the ground on wood posts supported by concrete or masonry footings. One advantage is that you can often get underneath the house and physically see a lot of the floor structure, plumbing and other systems. I like that. My house in Volcano is built this way and is about 100 years old.

Of course, with any old wood structure, condition matters. I want to look carefully at the posts, beams, connections and foundation, and I want to know whether there has been moisture damage or termite activity. The fact that a house is post-and-pier doesn’t concern me nearly as much as what kind of shape those posts and piers are actually in.

And Then There Were Hicks Homes

If you spend enough time looking at older Hawaiʻi real estate, eventually somebody will tell you a house is a “Hicks Home.” Hicks Homes were a big part of Hawaiʻi’s postwar housing boom.

Harold Hicks developed a system using standard plans and pre-cut materials that allowed buyers to choose a house design and have it constructed relatively quickly and affordably. Historic Hawaiʻi Foundation says Hicks Homes began appearing in Hawaiʻi in the 1950s and became a standard for low-cost housing. More than 10,000 had been built by the 1960s, and historic documentation prepared for the National Register says the number had passed 16,000 by 2001.

Typical Hicks construction included a lot of the features we’re talking about here: vertical tongue-and-groove walls, post-and-pier foundations, jalousie windows and Canec ceilings. Later Hicks houses often used redwood walls and oak floors. They became so common that people sometimes refer to almost any postwar single-wall Hawaiʻi house as a Hicks Home, but not every single-wall house is a Hicks. There were plenty of other builders, along with older plantation houses and individually built homes that used similar construction methods.

Are Single-Wall Houses Still Good Houses?

This is where I think people sometimes get too hung up on the label. A 60- or 70-year-old single-wall home isn’t automatically a bad house, and a much newer double-wall house isn’t automatically a good one either. Condition and maintenance matter enormously.

Water is a problem for any wood house. So are termites, and so is a roof leak that nobody bothers to fix for ten years. Neglect a house long enough and it’s going to deteriorate, no matter what kind of walls it has. On the other hand, there are single-wall houses all over Hawaiʻi that have already been standing for many decades. My Volcano house is roughly a century old.

Keep the roof in good condition, fix leaks, stay on top of termite inspections and treatment, maintain the posts and foundation, and update the electrical and plumbing when they need it. Do those things and there’s no reason to assume an old single-wall house is somehow at the end of its useful life.

I’ve seen old single-wall homes that I think are fantastic houses. I’ve also seen ones where decades of deferred maintenance have piled up to the point that a new owner may reasonably decide it makes more sense to tear the house down and start over. That’s not really a single-wall problem. That’s an old-house problem.

A Quick Note About Canec Ceilings

Another thing you may run into in an older Hilo home is a Canec ceiling. Canec was a fiberboard made from sugar cane waste, or bagasse, and it was manufactured right here in Hilo for decades. It was widely used in Hawaiʻi homes and often appears as painted ceiling panels with grooves creating squares or rectangles.

Canec was treated with inorganic arsenic for termite resistance, which understandably gets people’s attention when they first hear about it. The Hawaiʻi Department of Health says Canec that is intact and in good condition can generally be left in place without expected arsenic exposure. The bigger concern is damaged material or renovation work that involves cutting, sanding, drilling or removing it, because that can create dust. Canec itself is not known to have contained asbestos as part of the manufacturing process, although materials or coatings applied to it later could contain asbestos.

As with a lot of things in an old house, I don’t think the answer is to panic when you hear the name of the material. The answer is to know what you have, understand its condition and know what precautions may be necessary before you start tearing into it.

What About Electrical and Plumbing?

This is an area where the age of the house often matters more to me than whether it’s single-wall. A lot of these homes were built before modern electrical loads, modern plumbing materials and today’s appliances were even imagined. Some have since been completely updated. Some haven’t.

One thing I actually like about many single-wall, post-and-pier houses is how accessible everything can be. Because there isn’t a conventional wall cavity hiding everything, and because much of the underside of the house is open, you can often see and reach plumbing, wiring and other systems much more easily than in a typical double-wall house.

That can make repairs and upgrades relatively straightforward. Rewiring a conventional double-wall house can mean opening walls, fishing wires through framing, repairing drywall and repainting everything afterward. In a traditional single-wall house, wiring may run through the attic, beneath the floor or in surface-mounted raceways where it’s much easier to reach. The same is often true of plumbing, particularly in a raised post-and-pier house where a lot of it is exposed underneath the floor instead of buried inside walls or under a concrete slab.

Bathrooms, kitchens and additions may also have conventional double-wall framing that was added later, and none of that automatically bothers me. I just want to know what I’m looking at and whether the work was done properly. I’d much rather buy a 70-year-old house with good, modern electrical and plumbing than one with outdated systems simply because everything is still “original.” Original isn’t always better.

The Insurance Issue Is Real

There is one current issue buyers of single-wall homes need to pay attention to, and that’s hurricane insurance. Some insurers have tightened their underwriting for older single-wall houses. In 2026, State Farm confirmed that it had stopped renewing hurricane coverage on single-wall wooden rental houses in Hawaiʻi as part of its effort to reduce catastrophe exposure. Other insurers have also adjusted underwriting on some older wood-frame construction.

I’ve dealt with this myself. State Farm stopped providing hurricane coverage on one of my single-wall rental properties, so I had to find another carrier for the hurricane policy. Interestingly, the replacement coverage actually cost me less.

That doesn’t mean everybody is going to have the same experience. Insurance companies change their underwriting, properties are different and pricing varies. But it does mean I would not wait until the end of a transaction to find out whether you can insure the house and what it’s going to cost. If you’re buying an older single-wall home, get insurance quotes during your inspection and due-diligence period.

There are still insurers writing hurricane coverage on single-wall construction. Hawaiʻi’s 2026 homeowners insurance comparison includes hurricane premiums for single-wall wood construction from multiple carriers. The insurance market for these houses hasn’t disappeared. It just needs to be investigated earlier than buyers may be used to.

Does Single-Wall Construction Mean a House Is Weak?

This one is more complicated than either side sometimes makes it sound. Older single-wall houses do have structural characteristics that differ from modern double-wall construction. Hawaiʻi’s hurricane-strengthening guidance identifies potential vulnerabilities in some older single-wall homes, including roof-to-wall connections, uplift resistance and foundation anchoring.

But that doesn’t tell you the condition or strength of the particular house you’re standing in. Some older houses have been reinforced and some haven’t. Some have been meticulously maintained for generations, while others have suffered decades of termites, leaks and poorly executed alterations.

That’s why I don’t think the words single wall should become a substitute for actually inspecting the house. If wind resistance is a concern, look at the structure itself. How is the roof attached? What do the framing connections look like? What condition are the posts and piers in? Is there adequate bracing? Have there been additions or alterations? Has any strengthening work already been done? Those questions tell you a lot more than the label alone.

What I Look at When Buying One

Single-wall construction by itself is not a reason for me to walk away from a house. I’m much more interested in condition. I want to understand the roof and whether there has been water intrusion, look for termite damage, understand the condition of the posts, beams and foundation, and know the age and condition of the electrical and plumbing systems.

If there are Canec ceilings, I want to see whether they’re intact and dry. Before the inspection period ends, I also want the buyer to know whether the house is insurable and what that insurance is actually going to cost.

Those are real questions. “Is single-wall construction bad?” isn’t a particularly useful one.

I Really Like These Houses

I own two of them, so clearly I’m not afraid of single-wall construction. I like the simplicity, the old windows and the airflow. I like post-and-pier houses where I can crawl underneath and actually see a lot of the structure, plumbing and wiring, and I like the way these homes fit into Hilo’s older neighborhoods.

When an old house is worth preserving, I like seeing it preserved. That doesn’t mean every single-wall house needs to be saved. Some have deteriorated too far, and sometimes the real value is in the land or the location and a buyer would rather start over with something modern. That can make perfect sense too.

Bottom line, I wouldn’t dismiss a well-maintained old Hawaiʻi house simply because somebody tells you it has single walls. Some of these houses have already been here for 60, 80 or even 100 years. Take care of them, fix the things that need fixing and update the systems that need updating, and there’s no reason to assume they’re finished yet.

That’s also part of what makes shopping for real estate around Hilo interesting. You may run into construction methods and materials you’ve never seen, including single-wall redwood, post-and-pier foundations, jalousie windows, Canec ceilings, catchment systems, and houses that have been added onto and modified several times over the decades. You don’t need to be afraid of those things, but you do need to understand what you’re looking at.

If you’re thinking about buying a home in Hilo or elsewhere on the East Side of the Big Island and want help sorting through what’s original, what’s been changed and what actually matters, that’s a big part of what I do.

References and Further Reading

I’m Dan Tousignant, Principal Broker of Living on Big Island Realty, certified home inspector, property manager, landlord and Hawaiʻi registered agent. With extensive experience in construction, real estate investing, and business management, as well as experience living off-grid both abroad and here on the Big Island, I provide clients with practical, real-world guidance through the Big Island’s unique real estate and business landscape. I am also the author of Moving to Big Island: Life on the Eastside. Whether you’re buying or selling a home, need a thorough inspection, or are setting up a business, I’m here to help. Reach out anytime at dan@livingonbigisland.com.