A wooden house is a dwelling that a person has been using for many centuries. Time-tested technology is constantly being refined, more modern solutions appear. Now a wooden house can be built from two main materials: a log and a beam. Their characteristics are close to each other. The choice depends on the preferences of the customer.
It is worth noting that houses made from profiled timber are more technological, since they are made using elements with a square or rectangular section, which is better stable than round (there is no need for additional processing for the convenience of connecting the elements in height).
Pros and cons of construction
Like any other walling material, the beam has its own strengths and weaknesses. Building houses from profiled material can guarantee the following advantages:
- Environmentally friendly structure and the ability to "breathe". Profiled timber, unlike more expensive glued wood, is not treated with any adhesive compositions. It is safe for both work and home use.
- Good thermal insulation performance. In most areas, a wall 300 mm thick will be sufficient to maintain normal temperature and humidity conditions in the room. For comparison, in the same conditions it will be necessary to erect a building envelope made of brick with a thickness of 770 mm.
- Light weight. The density of the material for construction is extremely important. Massive walls will require expensive powerful foundations, increased labor costs in the manufacture and transportation, which entail additional financial investments. You can build a house from a profiled beam on an inexpensive pile-screw foundation, which is suitable even for weak and marshy soils.
- Attractive appearancewhich allows you to do without finishing. But it’s important to remember that you can’t leave “bare” walls. Material needs protection against mold, mildew and rot, at least. To do this, it is treated with antiseptic formulations of coating or glazing. As a decorative and protective coating, various paints and varnishes are used.
- Slight shrinkage which is comparable in size to glued wood.
- No additional caulking. Pluses of this kind distinguish a beam from a log.
- Profile form. Its advantages are that the groove system prevents water or cold air from penetrating through the seams, which increases the service life of the structure and prevents the appearance of cold bridges.
- Assembling a house from a profiled beam makes it more resistant to minor deformations of the base. This property is especially important if installation is carried out on weak subsiding soils or prone to frost heaving.
- Speed of assembly. The enlarged wall elements allow you to increase the speed of work compared, for example, in brickwork. But such a process can no longer be carried out by one person due to the increased mass of wall details.
These are the main advantages, but not all. Cons of the house are as follows:
- Deterioration if chamber drying technology was violated in the production of the material. In particular, a violation of the geometry and groove system, which leads to a violation of the tightness of the joints of the wall elements, deterioration of thermal insulation and waterproofing.
- Instability of the material to rot, mold and fungus. The need for mandatory treatment with antiseptic compounds.
- Instability to fire. To increase it use special substances - flame retardants, but they can not give a high result.
Advice! It is best if the material for the construction will be treated with protective compounds in the factory. This will increase the effectiveness of protection.
Many of the disadvantages of wood are removable, it is only enough to take care of them in time. In addition, these disadvantages are not able to block the positive aspects of wood, an environmentally friendly material that gives the lady a presentable appearance.
Having learned the strengths of the profiled beam and its disadvantages, making the final choice, you can begin to study the construction technology.
Manufacturing technology
Before building a house from a dry profiled beam, you should familiarize yourself with the technology of its manufacture, so that it is easier to assess the quality when buying.
Some tips for choosing wood:
- the more durable material is that made from wood from the northern regions (the more difficult the growing conditions, the better the timber will be);
- the ideal time for logging is the end of winter and the beginning of spring, this is also due to the fact that the top layer is formed in the winter when conditions are met, which leads to an increase in its qualities;
- the grade of material should not be lower than the second, better than the first (for bearing structures, the third grade is unacceptable);
- the best option for construction is a coniferous tree (spruce, pine, larch), this is due to the fact that the material contains a large amount of resin, which prevents decay and mold.
An important manufacturing process is the chamber drying process. It is important to achieve a certain humidity (normative) of 13-15%. Chamber drying should be carried out at the initial stage of the production of profiled timber. Material that is free from moisture in accordance with the technology will give minimal shrinkage and will not cause problems during operation. For the production of chamber drying, special apparatuses are used.
The manufacturing of profiled timber is carried out in the following order:
- chamber drying;
- drawing on a bar profile on a machine with four faces;
- bowl milling;
- sawing timber into individual elements using high-precision technology;
- splicing parts into a dovetail in length;
- a complete set of products with which you can build a house from a profiled beam with your own hands.
All stages are important: the chamber drying process affects the further behavior of the element during operation; accuracy of the size of parts and connecting elements for tightness of the connection and the absence of cold bridges and places for moisture to penetrate. When buying a ready-made kit for assembly, it is important to check the availability of all elements for wall fencing. If there are no parts, the installation will stop, the construction will be delayed.
One-story, two-story houses can be made of material.
For the construction of taller buildings, it is better to contact specialists who will make detailed calculations and develop the project.
Home Construction Technology
After the pros and cons are considered, the features of the material and the subtleties of the purchase, you can begin the installation.
Construction of the house begins with the layout of the site. To do this, use a wooden paving and marking threads (cord, twine), which indicate the boundaries of the foundations or the axis of the building. To correctly perform the markup, it is worth updating the knowledge of geometry. You will need the ability to verify the correct construction of right angles using the Egyptian triangle method.
For square and rectangular buildings, you can check the correctness of the construction by measuring the diagonals. If the angles are even, the diagonals will be equal. When building complex houses in plan, the correct construction of angles can be checked by breaking the building spot into separate simple figures
.
This is followed by earthworks, the complexity of which depends on the choice of the type of foundation for the building. For a lightweight structure, pile-screw supports will be the best option. They allow you to perform work without soil development (not counting the removal of the fertile soil layer with an average thickness of 20-30 cm). The most complex work will be required for a building with a basement, here you need to dig a full excavation pit and remove the worked land from the construction site.
To cut free-standing supports, you will need to make a grillage. If one-story houses are being built with a small load on the foundations, the grillage can not be done, the lower crown of the wall will play its role.
Between a wooden wall and the foundation it is necessary to make waterproofing. In the drying process, the wood acquires a certain moisture content, which differs from the moisture content of concrete or metal, which serve as the material for the foundations. Waterproofing is made from rolled materials. It is not recommended to use outdated toli. It is better to turn to more modern materials, such as roofing material, hydroisol, linocrom, glassizol.
The following is the installation of external and internal walls. This process does not cause serious difficulties. Country houses from profiled timber, as well as for permanent residence, begin to be built from the first crown. One-story buildings require less strength, but their construction should be taken seriously.
Installation is carried out by installing the groove elements in the groove. Depending on the profile, interventional insulation in various compounds may be required. A profile with a groove and a spike requires that the sealing material be laid between the bars along the entire perimeter. With the “comb” profile, it is sufficient to perform the installation of the insulation only in the corners. The material used is jute.
On the construction of walls, the installation of house structures does not end. The final stage is the roof. For a small structure, it is reasonable to make it pitched along wooden rafters. The upper crown of the wall serves as a Mauerlat in a wooden house. It is absolutely necessary to carry out its installation with very careful fastening, since this element will work on a spreader.
Wooden houses from profiled timber are not recommended to be built with the use of heavy roofing, such as ceramic or cement-sand tiles. They have too much mass and will overload the walls.