Choose which timber is better for a home built by yourself

The question of which timber is better for the house is more relevant today than ever before. First of all, the number of wooden buildings is increasing everywhere, and besides, the range of sawn timber is also becoming increasingly diverse. As a result, a person who decides to buy building materials is not at fault with his choice.

What is timber

Let's try to figure out what timber is better to build a house for all-season living. Wooden beam is a long-length beams with a rectangular cross-sectional shape.

The standard material length is 6 or 9 meters with a thickness of from 100 to 300 mm.

Such standard sizes are recognized as optimum for construction. If there is a need for greater length, you can pay attention to Finnish lumber with a length of up to 12 meters.

According to the degree of processing, the timber is divided into the following modifications:

• edged or sawn (untreated);
• planed;
• ground;
• profiled

All lengthy lumber, in accordance with the method of manufacture, are divided into solid, glued and hollow bars with a variety of insulating fillers.

Therefore, there is no unequivocal answer to the question of whether a house made of lumber or foam block is better, because the characteristics of lumber are diverse. Again, the statistics of the construction of housing objects made of wood clearly shows that lumber is not inferior in terms of thermal conductivity to most traditional building materials.

Cut timber

Picked up the best projects of houses from a bar and looking for inexpensive, but high-quality material for their implementation? In this case, you probably will be interested in the classic edging modification.

In fact, this is a wooden product obtained in the process of cutting a tree trunk. Edges are sawed off from a solid log in the horizontal and vertical plane. As a result, it turns out a beam with a square section with four flat, but rough sides.

As a rule, this type of sawn timber is sold with a natural moisture level. Therefore, in the acquisition process, it is advisable to consider the product for the presence of distortions from improper storage.

The range of sizes includes cross-sections of 250 x 250, 150 x 200, 150 x 150, 100 x 150 and 100 x 100 mm.

Thus, you can pick up the material, as required by the instructions for the construction of a full-fledged cottage or the construction of outbuildings.

One of the many drawbacks of this type of timber is the need to use mezhventsovyh seals based on jute canvas or natural moss. In the latter case, warmed walls are necessarily caulked with jute or hemp-flax twine. The fact is that the lack of additional compaction allows precipitation when it hits the walls to leak into the cracks.

As a result, dampness may appear at the junction of the bars and the fungus will spread. No less significant problem of such material is the deformation in the process of drying.

Planed and ground material

You do not know which timber is better for building a house? Pay attention to planed and sanded lumber. Such products are not only cut from all sides, but they also cut or even grind them to a state of optimal smoothness.

Depending on the production technology, the bars can be processed from one, two or all sides. Moreover, a chamfer can be removed from the corners of the product. The advantages of this timber is the optimal appearance, combined with ease of use when building a house. From such a bar are obtained quite beautiful houses.

Important: You need to be careful when choosing these lumber, because instead of polished timber often sold planed.

Profiled timber

Sometimes it is not easy to decide which size of timber is better for building a house, but it is equally important to determine the shape of the cross section. Profile timber is the most progressive and technological category of timber. These lumber differ from others in the presence of the castle connection.

Thanks to this constructive difference, the crown of one beam with maximum density enters the other. The design of the product is such that the two sides are smooth - internal and external. Upper and lower sides are equipped with fasteners.

Despite the fact that the price of profiled bars of natural moisture content is slightly higher than the cost of raw edged beams, their purchase is a profitable and reasonable investment.

Currently on the market are sawn timber with two main types of profile: “German” tongue-and-groove (multi-grooved) and “Finnish” with special grooves (crown cups). Based on two types of profiles, various manufacturers are developing new modifications corresponding to the features of a particular construction.

What is it made of

If you have selected the best projects of wooden houses from a bar, it's time to decide on what material the construction material should be made of. In order to build a cottage was reliable, durable and comfortable it is advisable to use a drier winter wood.

How to distinguish high-quality dry lumber from raw beams? If you decide to build a house with your own hands, use materials with bright ends. Such wood is easily sawn, and there is no waviness on the longitudinal saws.

Tip: the core of the tree harvested in the winter, has a high content of starch. Make sure it is not so difficult, for this you need to drop iodine on the cut and the stain should turn blue.

In order not to wonder afterwards which house is better from timber or foam blocks, pay attention to the side surface of each beam. If possible, the wood should have a straight line of angular cut, be smooth, without knots and bark residues.

Features of the Finnish timber

Do not decide which house is the best brick or timber? In this case, pay attention to the elite lumber, manufactured by Finnish technology.

Among the characteristic features of this material, we note the following:

• Annual rings in the lamellae are directed to the center of the section, that is, in opposite directions from each other.
• In the manufacture of these sawn timber gluing is used, in the process of which fragments of wood of the same color are joined.
• Lamels are spliced ​​vertically every 4–6 meters, thereby achieving the best look and the greatest strength of the finished product.
• In the manufacture of used extremely thick slats. The question of what thickness of timber is better for building a house in this case is more relevant than ever. After all, this is done so that, after gluing, the wood does not lose its initial breathability. In accordance with the technology, wood is impregnated with glue to a depth of 2 cm. As a result of the use of thick lamellas, lumber is not completely impregnated with glue, but superficially.
• Glued laminated timber manufactured by Finnish technology abroad is twice as expensive as domestic products.

Composite materials

Everywhere the best houses are built of timber. As the main building material are used as traditional lumber, and products manufactured in accordance with the most advanced technologies. In the last couple of years hollow batch and bag varieties have appeared on the market.

Both that and other modification represents the wooden block hollow from within. This design consists of two boards of a certain thickness with end elements and jumpers. The difference between the two modifications is that the hollow timber is used with the air space inside, while the package modification is filled with insulation (based on foam glass or mineral wool).

The advantage of building materials with an air gap is low thermal conductivity and, as a result, energy efficiency at home. When it comes to modifications with filler, the question of which house is better from foam blocks or from a bar is not at all appropriate. According to the latest data, composite walls retain heat 1.5 times better than masonry from traditional building materials.

Another new development of the composite type is a thermal bar made of two boards with a polyurethane foam layer. Manufacturers of these materials claim that the degree of thermal conductivity of such walls with a thickness of 160 mm corresponds to the parameters of glued solid timber 390 mm wide. In addition, the cost of the two types of buildings is the same.

Thus, the benefits of technology are obvious. As for the shortcomings, in all likelihood they are also there, but, since the statistics on the use of such materials is insignificant, it is too early to draw any conclusions.

Chamber drying

You do not know when it is better to build a house from a bar? Yes, actually anytime, the main thing is that there is no precipitation, and that the material does not lose the initial degree of moisture. Optimum humidity is the condition by which construction is carried out quickly without prolonged shrinkage.

The best parameters of moisture content in construction wood range from 15 to 20%. To achieve such parameters allows drying in special chambers. As a rule, the billet is dried immediately after cutting the log. Later, dry wood is polished, profiled, etc.

Bar, depending on the selected modification, has the following advantages:

• relative cheapness;
• a wide range of sizes, of which the most suitable option is possible;
• environmental cleanliness and safety;
• no deformation during shrinkage;
• no need for cauldron;
• additional processing of walls is not required;
• the possibility of settlement through a short period of time after the settlement;
• optimal aesthetics of the exterior and interior of the finished house.

All these and many other advantages are characterized by the profile bar. Of course, a lot of good can be said about composite double modifications, but to be sure of their durability can be no earlier than half a century.

Additional information about the wooden beam is presented in the video in this article.