Materials for building a house: wood, brick, concrete

You can build a country house in a dozen different ways. It all depends on how much money you have, for what purposes you are building a fortress: permanent residence or summer vacation outside the city, and, finally, what materials do you prefer.

Wooden house

The wooden house wins over others in the Economy and Sustainability categories. Indeed, wood is cheaper than other materials. The house is being built in a short time (2-3 months), and it doesn’t matter what time of year you build it. The wooden structure does not require additional finishing: wood is a living material that “breathes” and passes through itself about 30% of the air per day.

A wooden house retains heat and is heated fairly quickly (1,5 hours). In addition, the material exudes a resinous scent. In such a dwelling, a special microclimate is preserved, which has a positive effect on the human nervous system. Cons: low fire resistance, shrinkage of logs and insects living in the wood. But with a competent approach to construction, all these pitfalls can be bypassed.

Choosing a tree

First you need to choose what kind of wood the house will be built from. As a rule, preference is given to conifers – larch, spruce and pine.

Pine is the most popular. It is distinguished by the greatest straightness of the trunk and the minimum number of knots. Pine has a high resistance to decay, but at high humidity (usually in summer) it tends to turn blue. The blue itself does not change the physical and mechanical properties of wood, but spoils the appearance.

Aleon the contrary, it is more prone to decay, but it turns blue much less.

Larch has a unique pattern inherent only to her. It is stronger, denser and practically unaffected by moisture, but it is more difficult to process than pine and breaks easily. Therefore, larch is ideal as a wall material, but is not used as a material for structures. To protect the tree from external influences and prevent rotting, blackening, the appearance of fungus and other troubles, a lot of paints and varnishes are used.

Determining the construction technology

After the choice of wood has been made, you need to decide on the construction technology. As a rule, houses are built from laminated veneer lumber or round logs.

Glued beams made from pine, spruce or larch. The logs are “unfolded” on boards, each of which is dried to a moisture content of 10-15%. These boards are first put on a tenon, then glued together under a press with a special environmentally friendly glue. A timber is cut out of the almost completely dry mass obtained in this way. Walls made of such material, even after a long time, do not crack or deform. Glued laminated timber is durable, resistant to fire and gives minimal shrinkage, thereby reducing construction time.

Rounded log – a technological material that requires a minimum of manual labor when building a house, since the house is assembled according to the principle of a constructor. All necessary operations with rounded logs are performed at the production site. The advantage of rounded logs is their smooth, rounded shape, which makes it possible to achieve a tight connection of the logs.

Brick House

According to statistics, today almost 70% of houses for permanent residence are built of bricks, block materials and using monolithic technology, wooden houses account for 20%, the rest of the houses are combined. A brick house can be attributed to the elite segment of suburban real estate, it requires much larger financial investments than the same wooden one. First, the brick itself is more expensive than other materials. Secondly, if during the construction of wooden houses it is possible save on foundationbeing limited to a lightweight version, then brick, due to the large specific gravity of the material, requires a more serious basis and additional study of the geology of soils. All this complicates and prolongs the construction period.

Plus, the brick walls need additional finishing. But the effort is worth it: a brick house is durable and will be inherited for at least 100-150 years. Unlike wood, brick is not susceptible to atmospheric influences and is protected from pests and decay. Brick walls have great thermal inertia: they warm up slowly and cool down just as slowly. The temperature in brick houses practically does not change during the day, which is certainly a good thing. True, if in winter the house has not been heated for more than two weeks, it will take several days to warm it up to comfortable conditions.

Monolithic houses

The construction of monolithic houses is a fairly young and promising area of ​​suburban real estate. Monolithic houses are an order of magnitude more expensive than wood or brick, so most elite suburban settlements are built using this technology. In a simplified way, the construction of structures made of monolithic concrete looks like this: directly on the construction site, special forms are mounted – formwork, repeating the contours of the future structural element, for example, columns, walls, etc., into which a frame made of reinforcement is installed according to the project and concrete is poured. After the concrete has set the required strength, the formwork elements are dismantled and a finished structural element of the building is obtained.

Monolithic houses are 15-20% lighter than brick buildings and an order of magnitude stronger, which allows you to save on the foundation. Ceilings and walls in the house practically do not require additional leveling and are ready for finishing immediately after construction. Monolith structures are durable – such a house will stand for at least 200 years. The walls have good heat and sound resistance, since the technology makes it possible to create a seamless structure. The construction time for a monolithic country cottage is reduced several times compared to other houses.

However, this technology has a drawback. The entire production cycle is moved directly to the construction site in the open air. This means that atmospheric precipitation will hinder construction in every possible way. Winter is generally contraindicated for such construction.

Prefab Homes

If you are in urgent need of an inexpensive country house, this technology is for you. Frame cottages are prefabricated houses of the “cheap and cheerful” series. It can appear on the site in just a couple of weeks, although some manufacturers build them in 4 days. However, the lifespan of such a cottage is 2-3 times less than a brick or wooden house. On average, it is 50 years old. This technology is quite popular in the world: about 80% of all private housing being built falls on frame houses. Historically, it came to us from Canada, but in Russia it has not become widespread.

The house is lightweight and therefore does not require a heavy foundation. During construction, a lightweight slab or columnar foundation is used, depending on the condition of the soil on the site. The basis of such a cottage is a wooden frame from a bar. The service life of a house directly depends on the quality of the wood. To prevent the process of rotting wood, it is impregnated with a special composition against biodegradation and thoroughly dried. The wooden frame does not dry out and does not lead, which allows finishing work without waiting for shrinkage.

The walls of a frame house resemble a sandwich. The filling is a balsat insulation – mineral wool. From the outside, the insulation is sewn up with moisture-resistant plywood or OSB boards, which are faced with facade plaster, or sheathed with siding. The interior decoration of a frame house is usually made of plasterboard. Seams are carefully putty and plaster. Paint is applied to the prepared leveled surface, or wallpaper is glued.

Thanks to the use of mineral insulation, the wall of a frame house is equal in heat loss to a brick wall. Even in extreme cold, such a house remains warm. When the heating is turned off, the temperature in the house decreases by an average of 2 degrees per day. This allows you to save up to 50% of electricity for heating, compared to a brick house. Interior partitions, floors and floor panels are made of frame panels with insulation. This eliminates drafts, reduces noise and creates a microclimate in every room. Despite all the advantages of such a house, it still remains a timber-framed house. Therefore, if a hurricane happens, only chips will remain from it, at best.