The most frequently asked question before starting construction! How to compare the advantages and disadvantages? Prices? And what to buy in the end, a frame house or a completely wooden house, even at the same price? The answer is obvious, of course the house is made of laminated veneer lumber!
Archiline Houses in 15 years has built more than 500 houses from a profiled, glued timber, rounded logs and only one frame house (and that frame was only the 2nd floor), Why? We will try to highlight this issue in this article! We will not upload photos of frame houses, but we’ll show Archiline Houses’s Black Forest house, the project of which is altered from the frame (half-timbered) house project and collected all the best of frame and wooden houses from the massif: large windows, light , warmth and reliability of wooden walls. This wooden house has a unique water heating and heating system based on a heat pump and a warm water plinth!
House "Чёрный лес" , produced and built on the basis of the draft frame house, simple and concise. Large, open terraces give the house expressiveness and harmony.
The internal layout is convenient for living and recreation. Upon entering the house we see a single space of the kitchen, dining room and living room.
Reverse facade of the house "Черный лес":
Summer photos of a wooden house "Черный лес":
Why "Arсhiline" abandoned the classic frame technology for building houses?
If houses from a glued timber consist of a glued timber, then frame houses represent a complex structure, in which beams of solid wood or metal act as bearing elements. In the frame houses there are no classic walls, the role of which is played by another material. Such sections or panels of frame houses are made of frame panels or sandwich panels. With good architecture, the type of frame houses is almost their only strength.
Compare in practice:
In the articles, describing the frame houses, are advantages in comparison with the advantages enjoyed by wooden houses, built according to classical technologies.
! Foundation savings and no shrinkage
Corresponds to reality, because the frame houses have little weight. However, there is another side. In order to exclude shrinkage, it is necessary to carefully prepare the foundation soil under the frame houses, which is not easy in the Belarusian conditions of sandy loams. Therefore, a light foundation is being built, which will give the frame house a higher stability. But houses from a bar are also erected on a non-massive foundation, therefore in the ways. and then the price of construction there are no marked differences.
Prefab houses do not possess such features. This is due to the fact that artificial materials are used. During the construction of frame houses, the methods of fastening numerous connecting elements are performed, which gives a positive result, but the frame house will never be stronger than a wall of a log or bar. In frame houses, the most important thing is clear geometry. Distortions lead to loss of stability and even! to the collapse of the entire structure. Skewed frame houses in holiday villages are an example of this. As experts advise, it is necessary to carry out an examination of the supporting structures of the frame house, when suspicious sounds appear - squeaking, crackling - the alarm should be beaten immediately. Although if the frame house has already begun to warp, it will be almost impossible to fix the structure. Owners buy a house from glued laminated timber eliminates such incidents: the load in such houses is distributed evenly on all elements of the structure.
! Convenience and comfort:
The light construction of the frame house requires special measures for thermal insulation, so that it is truly comfortable and warm to live. As a result, frame houses are more expensive than structures in which glued laminated timber is used, with good quality of the frame house.
! Natural beauty:
To preserve naturalness, the space between the carrier beams in frame houses can be filled with wood materials, but in this case, saving on price will lose its meaning. And other insulation - mineral wool, foam - do not allow us to assert about the natural safety of such construction solutions. The internal atmosphere of frame houses differs significantly from the microclimate that is created in natural wooden houses built in the traditional way: the optimum moisture content due to the wood "breathing" and natural flavors instead of chemical compounds, metal and plastic.
Points over "i":
Frame houses are suitable for temporary residence, because to achieve the parameters that houses offer from solid wood will have to be spent on significant insulation, and artificial heating will lead to significant material waste and overdried air in the premises. Therefore, frame houses can be added to the group of buildings, which can only be used during warm seasons.
Secondly, is it necessary to chase the ghostly fashion and make decisions that will give a controversial temporary effect? In the presence of reliable and aesthetically beautiful versions of houses from solid wood. Moreover, with respect to real estate, experts advise not to experiment on themselves and trust in what is time tested.
What to do next?
Every person has a dream: to build or buy your own home. The point is not even the presence of a conventional roof over your head - everything is simpler. The house is a symbol of comfort, a strong family, it is a point of return and a point of support around which life revolves. Therefore, such qualities at home as reliability, resistance to bad weather, maintaining heat in rooms and, most importantly, durability, the ability to stand for decades, and perhaps centuries, are important. It remains only to choose the wall material. It would seem that it could be easier with the current diversity?
This is where many pitfalls lie, the presence of which is not suspected by inexperienced developers. Speaking of cleanliness, the majority comes from the principle of "build cheap and cheerful." However, such an approach is unacceptable with the modern development of the construction industry, to put it mildly. And in this context, we consider the most affordable options for the construction of a private residential house - a frame house or a house from an array of timber or logs. Today it is the most attractive cost solutions, which are most often oriented to people standing a step from the realization of the cherished dream.
The price of the frame house and the house from the massif of a tree
The price is the first thing the novice developer pays attention to. Even the difference of 5-10 thousand dollars for a house is essential for many, and in such cases they prefer a cheaper house without thinking about what will happen to it after a few years of operation. You can understand people: there is always not enough money, but when it comes to housing, there is no question of compromise: quality cannot be neglected, because where they offer to build a turnkey house and cheap, they don’t talk about problems a person will face in a short time.
You shouldn’t have any illusions about modern technologies, believing that you can create something from nothing. You can not build a house of sawdust and argue that this is a full-fledged wooden house. A sawdust house will never be as warm as a house from a profiled bar or a rounded log. Therefore, choose and buy the wall material, which for many hundreds of years of use has received a positive reputation. If you decide to build a house of brick - build, but do not forget that you should have a powerful heating system in it.
If you decide to build a house of solid wood - build and remember that it requires the usual care and a normal attitude to stand for centuries. If you decide to build a house of sawdust or planks - build, but do not forget that the degree of its strength is extremely small, and the period of operation is critically limited.
And now from "prose" we turn to mathematics and give specific figures that evaluate wall material through the project of a house. As we already wrote above, we will compare the frame house and the house of glued timber. At the beginning of 2016 in Belarus, the cost of a set of houses made of glued laminated timber ready for assembly is about 268 euros per 1 square meter. A square meter of a house from a profiled bar will be a bit cheaper.
At the same time, the cost of one square meter of a turnkey frame house "floats" in the range from 200 to 300 US dollars. Someone will say: "If you build in the lower price category, it is more profitable to build a frame house." Not exactly, this is only the visible side of the medal: if you distribute the cost of houses for the years of their operation, then the house from solid wood looks the most advantageous and profitable. First, it requires less thorough inspection.
Secondly, once treated wood with a protective agent is able to maintain resistance to negative factors - insects, fungi and rot - for decades. At the same time, as they say, the efficiency of a frame house is minimal here: most of the materials are created artificially, industrially, so their durability leaves much to be desired, and this is an objective fact. Compare a timber or log made of solid pine and chipboard with a block house: what will stand the effects of time and moisture longer ?!
In pursuit of cheaper prices, you can only achieve a momentary effect of low prices, the joy from which is lost over the years and the accelerated dilution of the wall panels of a frame house. Thus, over the years, it will be necessary to allocate more and more money from the family budget to repair it, but the selling price of the house will not increase and will remain at the level of buying a new house or even decrease.
Conclusion: the frame house does not justify the funds invested in it, besides it is necessary to understand how the frame houses of the lower price category look like after construction:
Frame houses of the lowest price category:
And so look wooden houses similar in price to the frame, from the array of wood companies - Archiline Houses:
Thermal conductivity of wall materials:
In this section, we will try to visually confirm the above and do this by comparing wall materials according to the coefficient of thermal conductivity. This is the main indicator by which it is determined: whether the house will be built warm or not. Also, the microclimate of residential premises depends on the wall material - the air exchange should be sufficient so that there is no excess moisture, therefore, mold and cold.
As we know, frame houses in Belarus are erected by creating wall panels, inside which are laid mineral wool, or rebuild the frame directly on the site. In some cases, this design is supplemented with foam to enhance, so to speak, the effect of heat saving. But is he attained ?! Will such an approach provide for the creation and maintenance of a microclimate in the home that is normal for human life? Questions and Questions. Let's turn to the opinion of specialists who have studied well the properties of these insulants and formed a definite opinion. So, they claim that mineral wool is able to accumulate condensate, which is confirmed by various experiments with building materials.
Consequently, the frame house, like a sponge, will accumulate moisture, which will lead to a rapid deterioration of not only wooden structures, but also furniture. This smell of decay and poverty is known to everyone who lived in camp sites in 20 summer frame houses. Another question arises: will it affect the health of residents ?! Yes, to remove this problem from the agenda, you can use a vapor-tight membrane, but then the walls will stop breathing, that is, the house will be blocked, which leads to the development of mold inside it. Someone will say that such problems are solved through the creation of a ventilation system, but such a step costs money, and it will not definitely contribute to the preservation of heat in the house.
For example, the creation of only one ventilated air gap in the wall of a frame house will require investment of large financial resources and time. Thus, the final price of a frame house will be quite high, and if we add to this the money that will be needed to periodically maintain all of its operational properties, the attractiveness of such a choice will quickly fade against the background of a house from a profiled or glued timber that does not require such close attention.
At the same time, the ideal characteristics for thermal conductivity and vapor permeability are wood, such as profiled timber, glued timber or log, from which high-quality and inexpensive Belarusian houses are built. From the point of view of the above-mentioned parameters, wooden houses contribute to the creation and maintenance of maximum eco-cleanness and a healthy microclimate in residential premises. In particular, the thermal conductivity of pine is very low and amounts to 0.09 W / m * ºC. As for vapor permeability, it is the highest 0.32 Mg / m * h * Pa.
Why is this so? The fact is that the microstructure of wood is a tubular fibers that provide the trunk with a relatively low density - 500 kg / cubic meter. For comparison: in reinforced concrete, this figure is 2500 kg / cc. m, and its coefficient of thermal conductivity of 2.04 W / m * ºC. Despite the fact that the rate of thermal conductivity of mineral wool is 0.056 W / m * ºC when wet, it almost loses its properties by half! Now tell me: do you want to build a frame house, within the walls of which is laid the most ordinary mineral wool, which every year loses its performance qualities ?!
Let's summarize this section.
Profiled timber has a low thermal conductivity, which allows building wooden houses with walls of relatively small thickness, which, of course, is more profitable financially. For example, a wall of profiled timber with a cross section of 100 mm in thermal conductivity is identical to a brick wall 510 mm thick (the width of two bricks!). A similar effect is achieved due to the removal of the most loose layer of wood, therefore, internal stress is removed from the material, the occurrence of cracks is prevented when the wood dries out. If we take, for example, a profiled bar with a section of 125x150 mm, then its thermal conductivity will be even higher, exactly the same as that of a log with a diameter of 240 mm!
In addition, houses from profiled timber, as well as houses from glued timber, have additional thermal insulation properties due to the application of some technological solutions. In particular, the timber fits snugly to each other along the entire length, as well as in the castle corner joint. Thus, no mineral wool, no foam, any other insulation can not be compared with the most ordinary wood - a natural material capable of maintaining high performance properties for many decades and even centuries!
Exterior / interior of frame houses and timber houses
Houses from a bar, as a rule, do not need exterior decoration: the facades of the building look attractive, fit perfectly into any surroundings of the area, and architectural cottage building, and their traditional architectural style has long become a classic. But the frame house requires careful finishing of its facades. Above, we wrote that due to the nature of the wall material, it is necessary to use air gap technology, which, it should be noted, is not cheap and rather seriously affects the cost of the project.
If we take the path of least resistance and apply the cheapest and most affordable materials for finishing the facade of a frame house, for example, siding, then it is not necessary to expect the desired effect - a favorable microclimate inside residential premises. In addition, materials for finishing the frame house, as a rule, are made of artificial materials, therefore, they have a certain percentage of toxicity, and this can not affect the health of the person living in such a house. If you use only the most expensive materials, then the meaning is lost in achieving the desired goal: to build a cheap house, because it will not be such.
As for the materials for finishing the facades of a house of profiled timber or a house of glued timber, in most cases these are the most common impregnations of resins and oils of natural origin, which have a high potential to penetrate the wood structure. Such materials are relatively expensive, and the process of their application does not take much time, and all the work can be done without attracting expensive specialists. Thus, the house is made of profiled timber, the house of glued timber is easier to maintain, and this does not affect the thickness of the wallet.
The interior of a frame house depends largely on the designed structure, each element of which has a connection, therefore, if the size of the kitchen or living room arises during the construction process, it cannot be done without sacrificing time, wallet and durability of the whole house. Wall panels or frames do not have the stability that would allow all these manipulations, and this leads to serious and rapid wear of materials.
Yes, some projects of frame houses provide for the possibility of making changes, but these works are very voluminous, difficult for execution. Should I make such sacrifices by choosing a turnkey frame house ?! At the same time, due to its high strength, a house made of lumber makes it possible to make a variety of changes in the arrangement of rooms, changes in their size and configuration. Thus, even after many years of its operation, the owners will have the opportunity to create the interior of any architectural style.
The interior of the wooden house from the rounded log of the lower price category of Archiline Houses:
The disadvantages of a frame house
Toxicity. The fact that frame houses do not have the best effect on the health of the people living in them is an indisputable fact. The cheaper such a house is during construction, the higher the likelihood that its constituent elements are highly toxic. For example, oriented strand boards (OSB-3) are widely used.
They contain phenol-formaldehyde resins that emit dangerous volatile substances into the surrounding space. In addition, mineral wool - a source of carcinogenic dust, which becomes more from year to year due to wear of the material.
HOUSES ARCHILINE FROM MASSIF TREE:
FRAME FROM OSB:
Fireproof. The frame house is built of timber and boards, which are sheathed inside with clapboard. These materials are highly flammable.
Additional treatment with fire retardant solutions only increases the carcinogenic component of the frame house. Many will notice that houses made of profiled timber are also flammable, but this fact is not confirmed by practice: thin lining on a vertical frame lights up and collapses, causing structural collapse much faster than profiled timber or glued timber with a section of 150 mm. Massive wooden walls from a log or timber practically do not collapse during a fire and do not emit toxic compounds when burning, allowing the owner of the house to get out is not more dangerous than from a stone house, especially if the house is equipped with a noise alarm.
Strength. The project of the frame house should be created with the expectation of an additional load - wind, snow. Frame houses are not resistant to hurricanes. It is enough to refer to the frames of video reports about hurricanes raging in the USA in order to make sure of this: the frame houses scatter like card houses. Also, wall panels of a frame house have minimal vandal resistance and, if desired, they can be punched / destroyed without using equipment. All this together provides a frame house with a service life of 20-30 years.
Rodents The frame house is often inhabited by mice and rats. Mineral wool in the wall - the perfect place to stay rodents.
In this article, we describe the disadvantages of a frame house. It is important to understand all the features of this type of residential structure, the disadvantages always weigh on the advantages and it is very difficult to live with the fact that you spent money on the construction of a frame house and now your health is deteriorating due to the fact that you breathe dust from mineral wool.
The advantages of houses from the array
A wooden house will last for many decades, and maybe centuries. The process of dilapidation will be extremely slow, which can not be said about the frame houses. If necessary, the house of the timber can be disassembled and transported to another place, collecting a new one without any problems.
With the frame house to make such manipulations can not.
The wooden house is environmentally friendly and contributes to health promotion: conifers emit volatile substances into the environment that neutralize allergens, dust, and so on. The technology of a frame house cannot provide for this, as the use of coniferous wood is negligible to achieve the desired therapeutic effect.
A house of profiled timber is built in a matter of months, does not require additional costly finishing of the facades and walls inside the premises: the wood texture looks beautiful and goes well with any style of interior.
The timber is securely interconnected, which provides the structure with the highest possible durability, resistance to bad weather - wind and precipitation.
Even slanting rains are not able to drive water into the inter-bar space due to the tight connection of wall materials. Additional processing of wood with protective compounds works on the principle of a fatty film: moisture simply rolls off the surface of the timber. Consequently, such walls are not frozen, and the wooden house itself remains warm even in the most severe frosts. Canadian houses are made exactly on this technology. When asking the question: where to buy a high-quality, low-cost house, you should refer to the time-tested methods, for example, wooden house-building with a professional construction company - Archiline Log Houses
Total:
Frame houses - an option for the implementation of a valid, but requiring a lot of work on the choice of building materials, assessing their safety - sanitary and fire. It is not always possible to do this on their own and developers do not have to believe too: in the pursuit of profits, many companies tend to use cheap materials.
This does not happen, there is to build a house of profiled timber or a house of glued timber. Wood is wood - it is a natural material that is only machined. To protect the timber we use Finnish oils and resins, which are also of natural origin, and in general they are applied outside, that is, on the facades of the house, therefore the effect on human health is minimal.
Frame construction is suitable only in cases where it is necessary to have temporary housing, when there are no hard claims to the level of comfort and safety, temporary shelters, country houses, construction change houses.
Frame houses are not cheaper than wooden ones, contact our architectural department and we will show you projects of houses from an array not more expensive than frame houses, but the joy of a frame house will quickly darken its operational properties, and a house from an array will delight you and your great-grandchildren for many, many years.
Some more wooden houses from the massif of a tree of an average price category from the ArchiLine company:
You can see the look of prefab houses of the Highest Price Category HERE!
Construction of turnkey frame houses the most popular offer in the construction market of Belarus!
Turnkey frame houses initially require the construction of the foundation. Because of its features, frame houses are very light and do not require powerful foundations. Usually create the foundations of the column or ribbon type and begin construction of a frame house.
During the construction of a turnkey frame house make reinforced concrete monolithic foundation, based on hollow blocks. This material is physically neutral and has good thermal insulation properties - it allows you to use the house for year-round living in the presence of good heating.
Building a turnkey frame house, on the finished foundation, a lined wooden beam is mounted, on which wooden walls are subsequently installed - this beam is called lining. To build a good frame residential house in Belarus requires waterproofing between the foundation and the backing bar. When erecting frame houses it is necessary to use wood of local species, treated with antiseptics, for a bedpan. Due to the climatic features of Belarus, in order to use a frame house for permanent residence, you need to take care of good heating.
Production of frame houses in the city of Minsk is widespread due to the average quality of building materials and the advertised low cost. Buy low-rise frame houses or order their individual construction on credit is offered by advertising for almost everyone.
Technologies of assembly of turnkey frame houses
The projects of frame houses and prices for them are calculated on the basis of the individual financial possibilities of the customer, but all of them are united by the fact that at the base of the house a wooden frame is mounted, on which the rest of the frame house is mounted. Making a frame house requires such a type of wood as pine, dried to a moisture content of 18 to 27%. In addition, it is treated with special antiseptics that prevent the formation of mold, which allows you to build frame houses sheathed with turnkey glued panels. All building materials from which frame houses are built are treated with a special compound that significantly increases their resistance to decay.
Cheap turnkey frame houses in creating the roof use vertical and horizontal rafters, fastened with galvanized plates. When installing the roof of a turnkey frame house, the price may depend on the materials, based on the length of the span of the house, which is covered by rafters.
Construction of turnkey frame houses requires an individual selection of OSB. For high-quality construction of a turnkey frame house, the construction company in the selection of materials takes into account the wishes of customers and its financial capabilities.
Companies build both expensive frame houses and not expensive housing. In the online catalogs, visitors will see beautiful frame houses, choose a project and materials for construction.
Good Wooden House since 2004
Frame house or house of glued laminated timber?
