Types of timber for building a house - we select building

Bar-shaped houses today are quite popular because they are environmentally friendly, have an attractive appearance and relative cheapness. In order to save money, many home masters erect buildings from a bar with their own hands.

To date, there are different types of timber for building a house, and each of them has its differences, which we will discuss in this article.

Bar as a modern building material

Log buildings were built in Russia from time immemorial. The wood produced warm, strong and durable houses that for many years did not need any repairs.

The beam has all the advantages of a log, while being very simple in operation. In addition, this material has many advantages, which should be considered in more detail.

The advantages of timber

1. Lumber buildings are distinguished by simplicity and high speed of construction.
2. Low price.
3. The buildings made of wood are distinguished by their high performance characteristics, which are preserved throughout the entire period of operation.

1. Lumber buildings "breathe", creating a unique microclimate, a country house.
2. Use of a bar as building material excludes internal and external finishing. These walls are quite warm and have an excellent appearance. Therefore, if you do not plan to operate the building throughout the year, then wall decoration is not needed.

Tip! The usual construction timber, unlike glued and profiled, needs finishing. The fact is that such walls need a caulking iron, which is almost impossible to carry out evenly.

1. Various sizes and types of timber allow you to embody any design projects. This building material is very flexible in work, so that today the types of houses from a bar are limited only by the imagination of the designer.

Types of timber

Now consider the species of timber. The great popularity of this building material was the reason for creating several of its types, each of which has both visual differences and unique technical characteristics.

To date, there are three types of timber:

1. Construction (ordinary) timber.

It is a log, which is scoured from four sides to give a rectangular cross-section. It is the cheapest and simplest material option.

It has the following advantages over the log:

• Faster construction process.
• Great strength and heat capacity.
• Great ease of corner joints.
• Lower cost. Many experts argue that this material is an excellent example of the optimal ratio of price and quality.

The disadvantages of building materials can be attributed to the need for finishing work. However, there is one nuance here that turns a disadvantage into an advantage. The fact is that in the process of finishing the wall can be further warmed, which will allow to use such a house for year-round living.

Tip! Since buildings from conventional timber are subject to significant shrinkage (about 20 cm for a building on two floors), the walls should be finished at least six months after the completion of construction work.

1. Profiled timber differs from the usual one in that it has a more complex section. It is necessary for better joining of elements, which makes the walls warmer and stronger.

The types of profiled timber differ only in the structure of the profile, but in any case, the elements are calculated in such a way as to prevent moisture from entering the inter-heater insulation for the timber.

Tip! The walls of the profiled bar you do not have to caulk, because they have a great appearance and without finishing. However, such houses are suitable only for seasonal living, because without additional insulation, log walls are rather difficult to heat in winter.

1. Glued laminated timber. This type of material is the most expensive because it combines extremely high quality with an attractive appearance. Glued construction material is the result of gluing together several pre-dried slats. After gluing the material is placed under the press. Before gluing, the lamellae are carefully selected, and those areas that have at least the slightest defects should be removed immediately. In order to increase the strength of glued bars, the lamellae are stacked with perpendicular alternation of fibers. This method of laying allows you to compensate for the stress arising from the effects of weather conditions.

There are various types of laminated veneer lumber, which depend on wood serving as a raw material. The highest quality is considered to be a combined glued timber. Its peculiarity is as follows: the outer lamellas consist of larch wood, and the inner ones - of pine.

Larch for timber is famous for its resistance to rotting and various external influences, and therefore the material is very strong and durable.

Glued timber is attributed to the properties of natural wood, while it does not have the disadvantages of wood, in particular, and shrinkage, which allows for finishing work immediately after the completion of construction work. Another advantage of the material is the increased heat and sound insulation characteristics.

Types of corner joints for timber and logs

One of the main stages of the construction of log houses is laying a log house. And before proceeding with the construction work, you need to know how to connect the bars between each other, for which the material is subject to special training.

Connection log may be necessary in two cases:

1. When chopping the corner of the building.
2. In the case of elongation of the beam, when the element was cut not in length.

Methods of joining bars are different from logs. Therefore, we consider some types of cutting corners from a bar.

To date, practiced in two ways:

1. With the remainder. In the people it is called "in the bowl."
2. No residue. The popular name is “to the tooth”.

Consider both options in more detail:

1. Connection with residue. There may be three types:

• One way. In each element, on one side, a filler is made - a perpendicular groove. Such a fillet should correspond to the width perpendicular to the cross section of the beam. Most developers use this technology when working with a profiled bar, because such an attachment requires a minimum of effort.
• Bilateral.

The bilateral grooving lock assumes cuts from both sides of a bar (from above and from below). The depth of the perpendicular cuts should be equal to a quarter of the height of the element. This technology allows you to achieve high quality connections, but requires a lot of experience from carpenters, since chips and cracks in the kerf are unacceptable.

• Quadrilateral. In this case, the grooves are cut from all sides of the timber. This technology allows you to achieve high strength log. The saw blades, provided on all sides, greatly simplify the process of erection - all the crowns fit like a designer.

Connecting the corners of the timber in this way significantly increases the reliability of the building. Like the previous version, a quadrilateral connection requires high skill from a carpenter.

1. If we talk about the connection without a trace, then there are much more options. Consider the most popular:

• Butt. The simplest type of connection. Two elements are joined and fixed with steel studded plates that can be hammered with nails or staples. This option provides a perfect fit of the ends of the joined bars, which requires a flat surface.
• With the help of dowels. Fixing with the use of keys allows to exclude the movement of the joints of the connected bars.

• The connection in the root spike is effective and heat-consuming, and therefore quite common. The instruction provides for cutting a groove on one bar, while a thorn is cut down on the other, the size of which should correspond to the groove.

Tip! When connecting in a similar way, an intervene liner should be laid in the groove, which can be made from vegetable felt or flax.

Conclusion

In this article, we reviewed the types of log cabins from timber and the features of fixing the elements together during construction work. You can find more information on this topic in the presented video in this article.