House sets from profiled timber: problems of choice

In the article we will try to figure out how to choose the right domokomplekt from the profiled bar. What wood should it be made of? Is it worth overpaying for dried timber or wood of natural moisture will do?

In general, how good is this building material?

Let's find out.

Reasoning pessimist

To begin, let's try to decide whether the game is worth the candle. What do we gain and what do we lose when buying a house set from a bar?

pros

• Wood is wood: it is an excellent natural material that provides natural ventilation of the house and is quite breathable. What does this mean? The fact that dampness, mold and stale air will not be problems.

However: properly calculated ventilation will perform the same functions as no worse than wooden walls.

• Thanks to the treated surface, the profiled bar is beautiful. It is enough to cover it with varnish - and the interior of the house is complete.
• Grooves and ridges impede wall blowing. Even if it is warped, the timber will not let through the drafts inside the house.
• Construction of the domokomplekt easy and does not require the involvement of heavy equipment. It can be done by hand even if you do not have much experience in carpentry.

These populist arguments in favor of wooden houses are easy to find on any merchant site of a profiled bar. However, sellers often forget to remind the buyer of several, so to speak, shadow sides of the use of this material.

Minuses

• The tree is rotting. Antiseptic impregnation can only delay the inevitable: they will not provide one hundred percent protection.

• The tree is burning. With fire retardants the same picture as with antiseptics: they will increase the time it takes to catch fire when wood comes into contact with open fire, but it will not be made with non-combustible material.
• Finally, the main thing: the walls of the timber requires insulation. If we start from the norms of thermal resistance of walls recommended by SNiP, even in a warm Krasnodar region, the minimum thickness of a wooden wall is 40-45 centimeters; in the North, it increases one and a half times.

The outer surface of the wooden wall looks great in the picture in the advertising brochure; in real life, even a 240-millimeter bar without external insulation will make you double - overpay for heating three times.

Note: outdoor insulation does not just hide the surface of the planed timber. It will also increase your costs for walls by 30-40 percent.

Alternatives

And what can be offered instead of timber?

Recall about several low-budget solutions.

• Foam concrete does not burn and does not rot, while providing good thermal insulation.
• Constructions of the vulture panels are built even faster than houses from a bar; at the same time they do not shrink and do not require additional thermal insulation.

• Finally, the dignity of the frame houses - a much lower price compared to solid wood.

Types of profiled timber

A significant part of potential buyers quite vaguely represents the material from which they intend to be built. What is it like?

Production method

If to lower technological subtleties, it is possible to allocate two categories of a bar:

1. Solid wood. Actually, it is used in most supporting structures.
2. Glued. It is assembled from lamellas — dried planed boards of equal thickness, from which all large knots and other defects are cut during processing. This material is more beautiful than solid wood, much stronger in bending, practically does not shrink. But, of course, costs more: the difference reaches 2 - 2.5 times.

Wood species

• The most popular material is, of course, cheap pine and spruce. They are easily processed and due to their low density they have good thermal insulation qualities. However, these breeds are the least resistant to rotting and wood borers.
• Cedar costs about half as much as pine; at the same time, it is noticeably stronger and more resistant to the adverse effects of dampness (see also the article What are the advantages of glued cedar beams).

• Larch expensive already eaten 2.5 times. It is valued for the fact that it does not rot even with the highest humidity (read also the article Lumber and Larch, especially the sawn timber from this tree).

Water content

By the way, about humidity: it can also be very different for solid wood.

• The so-called natural humidity - 50-100%. Natural moisture bar is a product of saw log processing that has not been pre-dried after the longitudinal sawing of logs.

Please note: it is customary to indicate humidity as a percentage not of the total mass of wood, but of the dry weight. It is clear that otherwise 100% humidity would look at least strange.

• Production of house sets from pre-dried profiled timber is more expensive; the output is a material with a moisture content of not more than 20%.

 Recommendations

So which prefabricated house sets should you prefer? How sensible is the savings?

Timber must be dried. No options.

What is the reason for this instruction?

• In this case, you do not have to preserve drying for six months or a year in anticipation of shrinkage (which occurs precisely as a result of evaporation of moisture).
• You insure yourself against deformed walls. Yes, it is quite possible that in the drying chamber the timber will lead; but in this case it will be rejected by the manufacturer.
• You avoid cracks. They will again be a manufacturer’s problem.

From wood species, cedar has an optimal balance between resistance to adverse factors and cost. Larch is not only significantly more expensive; it is denser and provides worse insulation.

Should I buy glued laminated timber? Subject to the previous recommendations, the cost of it seems unnecessary. He will not give a significant gain in durability, strength or appearance of the walls.

Conclusion

So, our choice is quite unequivocal: it is a solid wood cedar dried timber.

Of course, the stated point of view is the deeply subjective position of the author. In the video in this article you can find answers to the remaining questions on this topic.

Successes in construction!