load-bearing wall material. The best modern materials for building a private house - an overview

The purpose of this article is to help potential developers figure out which modern building materials are attractive not only in terms of their price, but also in terms of the expediency of their use in the construction of private houses.

The growth of individual construction has led to the appearance on the market of various materials, including those that no one had heard of before. The range of building materials is so large that even specialists are often lost, not knowing what is better to choose.

As a rule, individual developers are guided by the following indicators: the price of materials (including facing); the ability to perform all operations with your own hands to the maximum; the total weight of the structure, since the type of foundation and the cost of its installation largely depend on this; the cost of finishing work; durability; the frequency of current (major) repairs and operating costs (mainly for heating).

Firstly, comprehensive information on each sample is a topic for a separate review. Secondly, ideal materials do not exist. Each material has its pros and cons, which will be discussed. Thirdly, many of the shortcomings of materials are very relative, since the manifestation of their defects is mainly caused not by product quality, but by the builder's excessive self-confidence, elementary violations of the technology of construction and installation works and the technical illiteracy of builders on issues of thermal and waterproofing, thermal expansion of building materials , their compatibility, etc., etc.

What kind of house do you need? Need to decide

There are three main types of houses built by private developers.

to the first type refers to a residential building for permanent residence those who live in the countryside, but their labor activity is connected with the city and for those who want to run their household on their own land.

These are, as a rule, capital buildings with a full range of additional premises, such as a boiler room, workshop, sauna, garage. Such houses are designed for year-round use, so their walls must have thermal insulation properties in accordance with the climate of the region.

The engineering equipment of houses for permanent residence should provide maximum communal amenities, surpassing a city apartment in terms of comfort.

to the second type rank as a "second home" or the so-called cottage, serving for temporary residence in the suburban area. Buildings of this type usually take into account the possibility of year-round living, so their walls are treated with the same attention as in houses for permanent residence.

to the third type houses include dachas and garden houses - houses for seasonal living or short-term visits, where you can come to spend the weekend in the warm season. Most often, such houses are operated at temperatures not lower than -5 degrees, so the wall thickness rarely exceeds 25 cm (in one brick), and engineering support is reduced to installing a stove, an outdoor toilet and a well, usually for several houses.

All of these well-known wall designs have their pros and cons. Therefore, the developer needs to have at least a little idea not only about the total cost of building a house from this material, but also about the advantages of the material for which he makes his choice in favor of this wall design, and what disadvantages he will therefore be forced to put up with in further during the operation of the house.

Before starting the construction of a cottage, it should be remembered that the box of the house - the foundation, walls and roof - sometimes takes more than 60% of the cost of the house. And in these costs, about 50% are enclosing structures or walls.

If you decide to build your own house, the first thing you will need to figure out is the amount of materials you will need to build it. The process of counting all the necessary things is quite capacious, tedious and time-consuming, but it is essential for a stable and successful construction. So let's start with the calculations.

Decide on the size and volume of the house. Determine the exact footage you need for housing, distribute all the premises, rooms in this footage and select their arrangement.
Use the services of a specialist. You can study specialized forums or sites that provide statistics on how much each type of building material is needed for a certain size of a building or room.
If you could not find the necessary information on the network, go to the store and consult with the seller. Ask him which of the available materials suits you best, which materials have the highest quality ratings, and how much of a particular product you need to fill the entire footage.
Make the final choice between traditional and modern building materials. You evaluate not only the means, but also the manufacturability of construction and the duration of operation. Modern technologies make it possible to obtain material with higher indicators of "survivability", and at the same time at a very reasonable price. The assembly process can be much easier and the end result look neater and cleaner.
Review your notes before you go to the store. Make adjustments, calculate the quantity and price of all goods. Remember to order building materials with at least a five percent surplus for emergencies.

The strategic issue is the type of walls. To begin with, we will consider three options for wall structures that are widely used in private housing construction.

good old tree

The traditional material for Russian housing construction is wood. About 33% of our houses were built from it.

People who are wondering what it is better to build a private house from, this material often comes to mind. After all, a wooden house is health and comfort. Its walls not only “breathe”, but also make the air healing, retaining harmful substances. Wooden walls create optimal humidity in the room and smell pleasant.

The walls of the house made of wood have good thermal insulation and keep warm in winter and cool in summer. The heating costs of a wooden house can be significantly lower compared to brick walls.

A wooden house can be built from logs (rounded or profiled) and / or from timber (plain or glued).

Hand-cut log house

This method is the oldest, it was used by our grandfathers and great-grandfathers. It's a hand-crafted cut. The tree trunk is cut to the desired length, and then locks and grooves are made on it. Next, the logs are connected, laying out the outline of the house. You definitely need to wait for shrinkage - this is about a year, no less. Then they caulk the cracks and sheathe the boxes of windows and doors.

Today, this method of building a wooden house is not used. Everyone can build a house from round logs. Such a structure is assembled, like a designer, we will talk about this later.

It is easier and faster to build a house from a bar

Neat smooth logs are processed under production conditions and marked. Ready-made parts are delivered to the construction site from which the walls are assembled. The beam can have different sizes and sections (rectangular, square, in the form of the letter D). If it is profiled, then it has protrusions and grooves for connection. An oblique cut helps drain excess water. You can build a house from this material with your own hands.

There are several types of timber for building a house.

Beam sawn made of logs with a moisture content of 50 to 70%. As soon as he is cut out, he immediately goes to the construction site. Because of this, the house is subject to shrinkage (up to 10 cm). And sometimes there are cracks on the walls.

Beam planed dried under production conditions. Humidity of the finished product - from 20 to 25%. After drying on a special machine, the products are planed. As a result, the shrinkage of the house, although it exists, is very small.

Glued timber made of several layers of lamellas (special boards dried to 6 or 10% humidity). They are glued under pressure, while the fibers of adjacent layers are perpendicular to each other. Finished products are up to 12 m long and 7.5 to 30 cm thick. They do not shrink, deform or crack. Therefore, many believe that glued laminated timber is the best material for the walls of a wooden house.

The positive aspects of wooden houses are obvious - these are environmental friendliness, frost resistance, speed of construction, seismic and wind resistance. In addition, wood does not need additional cladding, which promises good budget savings.

There are also disadvantages, but they are relatively few. Firstly, wood is a capricious material. For example, wooden houses often shrink. House shrinkage is a natural process of changing the volume of walls due to the drying of the material from which they are made. The maximum shrinkage is about 10% and is observed in houses from freshly cut logs. Such a building needs to stand without finishing for at least 8 months, and usually a year.

In the process of shrinkage, the house may crack, which are coated with special compounds. Minimum shrinkage is observed in houses made of glued laminated timber and ordinary dried timber. Such materials are almost immediately ready for finishing. However, it will take a lot of money to insulate a house from a bar.

Another disadvantage of wood is flammability, a fire can destroy such a structure in a matter of minutes. Therefore, wooden houses are impregnated with special compounds that increase their fire resistance.

Special compounds are also needed to protect against decay and insects. Impregnation is a necessary measure, and the special equipment themselves are not always environmentally friendly. In addition, a wooden house requires constant care, especially if it is intended for seasonal living, it must be heated, as damp wood begins to rot.

In general, the durability of wooden houses built by specialists, in compliance with all technological nuances, ranges from 70 to 100 years.

Briefly - the advantages of wood materials

This is one of the most environmentally friendly materials. Building a wooden house is not as expensive as a brick one. In terms of thermal conductivity, wood is significantly superior to brick. A wooden house is usually very beautiful. Often it does not require finishing either inside or outside. The foundation is required light and inexpensive. For example, columnar. A wooden house, especially a hand-cut one, serves for a very long time.

Briefly - the disadvantages of wood materials:

The tree burns, can rot and be "eaten" by the fungus. To prevent this, all parts must be treated with special preparations. Shrinkage of a log house can go from 3 to 5 years. Planed timber and log cabins can crack.

Brick - he is a brick

Brick is one of the most popular materials on the market. More than 50% of houses in Russia are built of brick

Ceramic brick and silicate brick. What is the difference?

Two types of bricks are used in construction: silicate (white) and ceramic (red) bricks.

ceramic brick has a red color. Such material is not afraid of frost and does not pass water. It can be full-bodied (no more than 13% of voids) and hollow (up to 49% of voids). The shape of the holes in the brick can be round, square, oval, horizontally or vertically. With an increase in their number, thermal insulation properties improve.

For the construction of external fences, construction teams prefer ceramic bricks. Seven grades of ceramic bricks are produced: from M75 to M300. The higher the numbers, the stronger the brick. You should also pay attention to frost resistance, denoted by the letter F. The lowest quality is F15, the highest is F75.

silicate brick consists of a mixture of quartz sand, water and air lime. It is strong enough, resistant to frost, has good sound insulation. The silicate brick is white. Its main components are lime, sand and a small proportion of additives.

This type of brick is also produced both solid and with cavities inside. The latter is lighter, and the walls made of it are much warmer (air is an excellent heat insulator). But a solid silicate brick may interest the developer in a variety of colors. For the strength of a brick, it does not matter whether it is full-bodied or with cavities inside.

Ordinary and front brick and their purpose.

Both types of bricks are used for different purposes. Ordinary brick is also called building brick - it is used for interior masonry walls. For him, small cracks are not considered marriage. It does not matter if the corners or ribs are slightly beaten off and there are notches in the corners.

The front (facing) brick must have an impeccable appearance, not have notches and flaws.

On the strength of bricks and resistance to frost

Strength determines the brand of brick. There is a special marking for this indicator: the letter M and a number nearby (from 75 to 300). This number is the load that this brand can withstand per square centimeter. The higher this number, the heavier the brick. For the walls of a two-story or three-story house, the M100 and M125 brands are suitable. The plinth or foundation is laid with bricks M150 or M175.

When choosing which brick to build a house from, frost resistance should also be taken into account (the ability to freeze and thaw without being damaged). The letter F was chosen to denote this indicator, next to which there is a number from 15 to 100. It means the number of freeze and thaw cycles without damaging the material. In warmer areas, F15 is sufficient for external walls, where it is colder - F25. The cladding is usually made with F50 brand bricks.

The main advantages of brick are strength, fire resistance, a wide variety and choice on the market, as well as an acceptable price. A small brick house can sometimes cost less than a wooden cottage. Brick keeps the temperature well and in this sense, it is ideal for houses where year-round living is planned. But at the same time, in terms of heat transfer, brick is seriously inferior to wood.

Brick also has a lot of drawbacks. To build a brick house, sometimes one and a half times more time must be spent than to build a wooden house. Brick is a heavy material, which complicates its logistics and storage. A brick building needs a strong and powerful foundation, and these are additional costs.

A brick house can stand for 100 - 150 years. He will perfectly survive the rains with hurricanes and hail, and severe frosts, and withering heat. Brick walls have been laid since ancient times, so the technology for their construction has been worked out to the smallest detail. But a good master is not easy to find.

Briefly - the advantages of brick: Attractive look. Durability. The ability to bring to life any complex project. Resistant to corrosion, mold and mildew. Fire resistance. Noise protection. Good heat retention.

Briefly - the disadvantages of bricks: Big weight. High demands on professionalism in laying. The need for a solid foundation. The need for a heat insulator

Inexpensive frame house

And from what cheaper build a house? For some, the answer to this question is the most important. In this case, take a closer look at the wireframe technology. In addition to the cheapness of such a home, the speed of assembly is also impressive. Just a few weeks - and you can move into a house that will be warm and comfortable.

The basis of such buildings is a frame made of wood or metal. It includes rafters, racks, trusses and other elements. Then a heater is placed, and on top all this is sheathed with dense sheets of chipboard or OSB. The wall of such a house weighs 15 times less than a brick one.

There is not much expensive wood for the frame - 5 or 10 times less than for a log house. Insulation is the main item of expenditure. However, he, even the best, gives the cost of the wall 1.5 times cheaper than from timber, and compared to brick - 2.7 times.

Frame houses can be of two types:

Frame-panel house- assembled from ready-made shields. First they connect them, then they make partitions between the rooms. The final stage is the construction of the roof.

Frame house- made on the basis of the "frame" - a frame of beams and logs, based on the foundation. Next, they put the rafters and make the crate. After the roof is made, the frame is sheathed with insulation (mineral wool or PPS). At the end, the outer skin is made.

Since the main material in the construction of a frame house is a heater, when making the correct calculations of the required amount, the building turns out to be warm enough, which will allow you to significantly save on heating.

Briefly - the advantages of a frame house: Extremely low price and fast installation. Good heat saving (when the heating is turned off in the cold at minus 10 ° C, the temperature will decrease by 2 ° C per day). There is no need for interior decoration, which reduces costs. Communications can be hidden inside the walls, which saves space. No special skills are required to build a frame house cheaply and quickly. With a wooden frame, the most incredible designs become possible. A real flight of fancy is possible. A small shallow foundation is enough for a frame house.

Briefly - the disadvantages of a frame house: a frame house is considered not very environmentally friendly due to the large amount of insulation. Another problem of these houses is various insects and rodents. Like all wooden houses, they are combustible, unstable to natural disasters. Another problem of frame houses is that they are stuffy, so supply and exhaust ventilation is required. A house on a frame will last less than a brick or wooden one.

Instead of a conclusion

What you need to know when choosing material for the walls of the house?

Wall materials and the production of works on the construction of enclosing structures is a third of all the costs of building a house. And if you, like the piglets Nif-Nif and Nuf-Nuf, carelessly treat this serious choice, you will inevitably incur serious expenses in the future.

Therefore, we will consider the most important criteria and factors that must be considered when choosing a material for building walls at home.

A) The question of price. Costs can be reduced by using lightweight material for the walls. Then you do not have to build a powerful and expensive foundation.

B) Thermal insulation. Cold walls will cost too much in winter. Therefore, before choosing a material, you need to make all the calculations, focusing on local climatic conditions. To achieve the desired degree of thermal insulation, you can resort to the help of heaters. If you take a material with good thermal insulation properties, then the walls can not be insulated, but it all depends on the region of development.

B) labor costs. Time and effort can be reduced by building walls from large blocks, and not from small pieces. Such walls are erected 3-4 times faster and easier. The highest speed is when erecting frame panel walls.

D) Subsequent finishing costs. Modern smooth and aesthetic materials do not require additional wall decoration - this saves money.

In order to decide what is better to build the walls of a house from, it is necessary to consider the main types of suitable building materials, determine and compare their characteristics, advantages and disadvantages.

Comparison of different wall materials

№	materials	Advantages	disadvantages	Cost of materials and works $/M2
1	2	3	4	5
1	Brick (minimum thickness - 380 mm)	Reliability, durability, environmental friendliness.	The need for insulation, labor intensity, heavy walls, you need a powerful foundation	75
2	Keramoblock (thickness - 380 mm)	Reliability, durability, environmental friendliness, erection speed.	brittleness of the material, need a highly qualified specialist.	82
3	Rounded timber (diameter - 200 mm)	environmental friendliness, rapidity erection.	Shrinkage of walls, great dependence on the quality of the material and specialists, combustibility, decay.	44
4	Glued profiled timber (200/230 mm)	environmental friendliness, construction speed, lightweight foundation.	Flammability, decay.	111
5	Aerated concrete (thickness - 380)	construction speed, durability, reliability, environmental friendliness, thermal insulation.	A solid foundation is needed; low bending strength.	60
6	Wooden frame + sandwich panels with insulation.	construction speed, good thermal insulation, lightweight foundation	The durability of a house depends on technology and construction quality.	44

And more advice. When choosing a material for building a house, you should not approach the upcoming construction “in a big way”. A person, in fact, does not need so much space for complete happiness, especially outside the city. All the savings that you achieve by reducing the cost of materials and construction technologies can be crossed out by extra floors, rooms and spaces.

We wish you success in finding and finding the only right solution!

Text: Valery Bordyuzhenko -

It's time to explain why aerated concrete is the most correct material for the walls of a country house and no other material can compete with it in terms of its characteristics. I propose to consider together all the building materials currently on the market (including rare and exotic ones) and make sure that there is no better material than aerated concrete for low-rise construction.

But in any case, a frame house made of wooden wall materials is the best thing to choose in our time. Thus, we actually get that with all the variety of existing building materials, we are left with only two options:

House made of cellular concrete (aerated concrete)
Frame house

All other building materials, in principle, are not consistent and it makes no sense to consider them if you are building a house for the long term for long-term and comfortable operation. And now is the time to make a direct comparison of a house made of aerated concrete and a frame.

Let me remind you that in both cases we are guided by the fact that the house will be built on a monolithic foundation slab, that is, the low heat capacity of the walls of a frame house is not relevant in our case. If you decide to build a frame house on a pile foundation, then soberly understand that the heat capacity of such a house will tend to zero and any shutdown of heating in winter will lead to almost instant freezing of the whole house. If we are talking about a house for permanent residence and year-round operation, it must have an extremely high heat capacity of the building envelope, because. it is on this parameter that the comfort of operating such a house directly depends.

The main advantage of a frame house is the ability to get an incredibly “warm” wall at a minimum cost. This is directly related to the fact that for light insulation, the resistance to heat transfer per centimeter of thickness is 2-3 times less than that of solid wood or even aerated concrete.

The second predominantly frame houses is the speed of erection of the supporting frame of walls and roofs. In fact, the advantage is rather doubtful if you approach the house as a complex object. Because the subsequent finishing of the frame house, firstly, will no longer be so fast, and secondly, you will also have to tinker with the engineering systems. But if you want to get a roof over your head here and now (it doesn’t matter that you still have to work and work under this roof so that the house finally looks like a house), then you can also agree to a frame house. The same applies to the recently popular modular houses assembled in production. Their manufacturers position the assembly in the hangar as an advantage for the customer, although in fact the customer should not care at all, because. This does not affect the production time in any way. But for the performer, the assembly under the roof of the hangar is a big plus, because. allows to reduce costs and downtime associated with the unpredictability of the weather, if we consider the option of building on the customer's site. But on the other hand, the customer becomes severely limited by the too small dimensions of individual modules, which are completely uncomfortable for subsequent operation (for example, ceilings in a normal house should be at least 2.8 meters).

This is where the advantages of frame houses end and the disadvantages begin.

First, and most important. Frame houses are now being built by everyone who is not too lazy (because the cost of building a frame house is extremely low and you can “weld” well), which requires special control over compliance with construction technology. Otherwise, you can get such a barn, which will collapse at the slightest gust of wind. According to the link in the video, everything that could be broken was broken, but in fact, during a hurricane, it is very likely that a well-built frame house will collapse to one degree or another, and one must be prepared for this. The calculation of loads for a frame house must be done more carefully than for a stone house, paradoxical as it may seem.

The second disadvantage of frame houses is the expensive finishing and laying of engineering systems in an open way. After all, it is forbidden to lay electrical wiring in combustible structures, and therefore it will have to be conducted in an open way, which is very doubtful from an aesthetic point of view. In a house made of cellular concrete, everything is much simpler - all communications and wires are laid in the walls, which are then plastered. Absolutely the same as they do in apartments.

By the way, about ventilation. If you “forget” to do it in an aerated concrete house, then the high vapor permeability of the walls will allow you to somehow cope with excess humidity in the house, and in a frame thermos house without ventilation with a microclimate, everything will be very bad.

What else?
The sound insulation of a frame house is just as bad as that of an unplastered cellular concrete house.
Hanging heavy objects on the walls is possible only on the supporting frame.
Mice and other pests can start in the walls of a frame house.
Fire hazard. Stone houses also burn, but this rarely leads to the collapse of walls and ceilings. The frame house burns down instantly, despite various impregnations for wood (remember that the electrician in the frame house can only be carried out in an open way).
The durability of a frame house rests on the service life of a wooden frame (and without protection, the tree will begin to rot). While stone building materials (including cellular concrete) are eternal, cement-based materials only become stronger over the years.

If we compare completely finished houses of the same area, with engineering systems and finishes, we can make an amazing discovery. The cost of work and materials for a frame house is almost identical to the cost of work and materials for building a house from aerated concrete. Of course, an aerated concrete house will turn out to be a little more expensive, because. during its construction, mechanization will be required, but this will be less than 10% of the total cost of all work.

Thus, we can conclude that aerated concrete is an ideal building material, which has no alternatives in principle. A frame house should be considered only if, for one reason or another, you do not have the opportunity to build a house from cellular concrete.

In the next part, we will choose the perfect roof for a country house. Don't switch!

Hello! Tell me, what material is now best to build a country house? I want to build myself a small house in the country.
- Sergey, Moscow.

Hello! The choice of material for building a house is a key issue. From this will depend on the period of work, the cost and durability of the building. It is impossible to give an unequivocal answer, a lot depends on climatic conditions and financial capabilities. To help you with the choice, we compare the characteristics of houses made of brick, foam blocks, wood, SIP panels and determine the advantages and disadvantages of each building material.

Brick as a building material has great architectural potential. A brick house can be of any shape, from a simple rectangular structure to a complex Gothic structure. Therefore, if you want to bring to life the most daring design projects, then the brick will do just fine.

brick house

Like any other building material, brick has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages of a brick house

Prestige - a house made of good brick is still considered an indicator of the financial security of the owners.
Thermal insulation - brick houses perfectly retain heat in harsh climatic zones.
Service life - with proper observance of the construction technology, a brick house is able to stand for a long time without major repairs.
Fire safety - brick is not a highly flammable material, so the risk of a serious fire in the house is reduced.

American style brick house

Cons of a brick house

The weight of the material - a brick is a rather heavy building material, therefore, for the construction of walls, it is necessary to make a very strong foundation, which in turn requires significant financial costs.
Hygroscopicity - brick walls are very prone to moisture absorption. Therefore, when building a brick house, a significant part of the money and time is spent on waterproofing.
The need for wall decoration - when using inexpensive bricks (or with improper masonry), there is a need for internal and external wall decoration.
The price of a brick - depending on the type and quality, the cost of this building material is very high.

Brick house in the English style

The table contains information for buildings made of brick and foam concrete blocks.

A brick house is comfortable for living and aesthetically mature structure, which is achieved with a competent approach to construction. High technical characteristics make it possible to live in such a house at any time of the year and under various climatic conditions.

wooden houses

Wealthy owners often opt for wooden beams or logs. This is explained by the fact that such houses have a beautiful appearance and have operational advantages compared to other types of buildings. To find out the characteristics of a wooden house, let's look at its advantages and disadvantages.

wooden house

Advantages of a wooden house

The cost of construction - if you calculate the total estimate of wooden and brick houses, then the construction of a wooden house will cost less. This is due to the lack of need for external and internal decoration. Also, walls made of timber or logs are lighter than brick walls, so there is no need for a reinforced foundation.
Mobility - the walls of a wooden house can be disassembled and, if necessary, assembled in a new place. Construction speed - the construction of a wooden house is almost twice as fast as a brick one.
Appearance - of course, everyone has their own preferences, but for most people, wooden houses look more beautiful than others.
Thermal insulation - depending on the thickness of the walls, wooden houses sometimes outperform brick and frame houses in thermal insulation properties.
Environmental safety - the walls in a wooden house do not emit harmful substances that are dangerous to human health.

log house

Disadvantages of a wooden house

Wall shrinkage - the final shrinkage of the wooden house structure occurs only after three years.
Fire safety - although now there are many refractory liquids that are used to treat wooden parts of the house, but still a wooden house in terms of fire safety is inferior to a brick or stone one.
Pest and rot treatment - wooden houses require regular treatment from insects and fungi living on the tree.

Timber house

* Fine finishing of a log house can be done only 2-3 years after construction.
As you can see, a tree has its pros and cons, which should be considered when choosing building materials for a country house.

Houses from SIP panels

SIP panels are a high-quality and convenient building material for a country house, which allows you to build large structures in a short time.

Sandwich panel building technology came to Russia from North America, where it is very popular.
SIP-panel is a plate of two sheets of rigid material (fibreboard, OSB, PVC) and a layer of insulation, which is located between them. The panels are mounted on a wooden or metal frame, and as a result, a solid structure of the house is obtained.
The construction of houses from SIP panels has its fans and opponents. To determine which category you fall into, check out the advantages and disadvantages of sandwich panels.

House from SIP panels

Advantages of SIP panels

Excellent heat and noise insulation - due to their design, sandwich panels perfectly retain heat and isolate noise.
Lightweight - Being lighter than brick, concrete and even wood, SIP walls do not require the construction of a strong foundation.
Short construction time - thanks to the frame technology, a house from sandwich panels is built very quickly.
Low cost of construction - SIP panels have an affordable price and, combined with quick installation, building a house as a whole will not cost much.

Scheme of a house from sandwich panels

Cons of SIP panels

Short service life - compared to other building materials, sandwich panels have a relatively short service life of 30-50 years.
Environmental safety - materials capable of releasing harmful substances are used for the manufacture of SIP panels. This factor is especially important if you plan to permanently live in the house.
Low fire safety - sandwich panels burn well and emit a lot of harmful substances during combustion, so houses built from this building material require additional measures to ensure fire safety.
Rodents - in the space where the insulation is located, representatives of the rodent family are very fond of arranging their homes. So be sure to regularly check and treat your home for mice, rats and other pests.
Not prestigious real estate - SIP-panel houses are not considered prestigious and durable housing, for this reason you can sell your property only at a price inferior to the cost of construction.

Building a house from sandwich panels

Despite all the shortcomings, accessibility, the speed of building a house and its high thermal insulation properties make sandwich panels very popular today.

Monolithic concrete houses

A concrete house is a monolithic structure that creates the shape of a house and carries all the loads. Monolithic houses are popular due to their strength and durability. Also, the pouring technology allows you to give the house the most daring and unique design. A reinforced concrete house is especially recommended for building in seismically active areas, as it is able to withstand a serious earthquake.
According to the technology of building a monolithic house, liquid concrete is poured into the formwork in which there is a frame of reinforcement. After the solution has dried, the formwork is removed and placed on the next section of the pour.
Monolithic houses are very popular in high-rise construction, but in addition to large buildings, reinforced concrete houses can be found in suburban areas. If you want to use the technology of pouring concrete to build your own home, then first read the pros and cons of this building material.

Monolithic private house

Advantages of a monolithic house

Structural integrity - a monolithic house does not need to fit the elements of the house to each other, as in conventional construction.
Long-term operation - if high-quality concrete is used when pouring, then a monolithic house can stand longer than similar houses made of brick or stone.
Fire safety - houses made of reinforced concrete are not subject to destruction during a fire.
Many forms - a monolithic house can be given any look, depending on your imagination.
Seismic safety - a properly built reinforced concrete house is able to withstand an earthquake of up to 8-10 points without damaging the structure.

The process of building a monolithic house

Disadvantages of a monolithic house

Construction cost - building a monolithic house is the most expensive option. Significant financial costs will be required for high-quality formwork, reinforced foundation, reinforcement and delivery or production of concrete.
The need for wall decoration - if you do not go to have a gloomy bunker instead of a house, then you will have to make efforts for external and internal wall decoration.
Heating - Concrete is concrete, and powerful heating systems will be required to maintain a comfortable temperature in winter.

Unusual design of a monolithic house

If there are opportunities for building a monolithic house, then this option is preferable, especially in areas of increased seismic activity.

Alternative building materials for the home

In addition to the popular construction options listed above, there are less well-known, but also materials used for building walls, we will consider some of them.

adobe house

- Saman - adobe houses are popular in the southern regions of Russia and Central Asia. A house made of adobe keeps cool in summer and “keeps” warm in winter. Walls made of adobe are not very durable and are very afraid of water, because adobe is made from a mixture of clay and straw. Therefore, this building material cannot be used in harsh climatic zones. But for a dry climate with little rain, adobe is quite suitable for building a simple dwelling.

Wood concrete house

- A mixture of sawdust, shavings, chemical additives and cement - such blocks are called wood concrete. This material is ideal for building walls with low load, it is used for the construction of the last floors of buildings, one-story houses and household buildings. Arbolite is an inexpensive building material, it is produced in the form of blocks. In some cases, wood concrete, like concrete, is poured directly into the formwork. The main disadvantage of wood concrete is that it has low strength and cannot be used in the manufacture of foundations and load-bearing walls.

Natural stone house

- Natural stone is a building material for those who love old traditions and have the finances to implement them. Building a house from natural stone will be very expensive, but your great-great-grandchildren will probably get the house. Natural stone used for construction can be either in its natural form or in the form of processed blocks.

cinder block house

Cinder block - as the name implies, this is a block pressed from waste slag and cement. Not a very environmentally friendly material because you don't know the origin of the slag. Cinder block is a cheap alternative to brick and is used to build houses and outbuildings. The strength of the cinder block largely depends on the conscience of the manufacturer, there are times when the blocks fall apart right during the masonry.

We hope that our article helped you decide on the choice of building materials for building a house!

Despite the fact that everything seems to be in order with oil and gas production in Russia, the price of energy resources in our country is steadily growing. And now, following the countries of Europe, the Russian Federation adopted in 2003 new norms for the thermal resistance of enclosing and load-bearing structures (SNiP 23-02-2003 "Thermal protection of buildings"). But even before the adoption of new SNiPs, new effective building materials and technologies came to us (and continue to come).

What should be the walls (enclosing structures) of the house in order to comply with the norms of building heat engineering? The answer to this question is not entirely clear. If we carry out calculations, it turns out that, for example, a brick wall should be 2.3 m thick, and a concrete wall should be 6 m thick. Therefore, the wall structure should be combined, that is, multi-layered. Moreover, one "layer" in this case will perform a bearing function, and the other - to ensure heat conservation. A certain difficulty lies in the fact that the parts of this "layer cake" are too different in their physical and chemical properties. Therefore, in order to combine them, one has to come up with ingenious construction technologies.

A bit of physics

What parameters seem to be the most important when choosing a material for building an energy-efficient warm house? This is, first of all, the bearing capacity of the material, as well as its heat capacity and thermal conductivity. Let's dwell on the latter.

The heat capacity unit - kJ / (kg ° C) - indicates how much thermal energy is contained in 1 kg of material with a temperature of 1 degree Celsius. For example, consider two well-known building materials - wood and concrete. The heat capacity of the first is 2.3, and the second is 0.84 kJ / (kg ° C) (according to SNiPam II-3-79). It turns out that wood is a much more heat-intensive material, and it will require more thermal energy to heat it, and when it cools, it will release more joules into the environment. Concrete heats up faster and cools down faster. However, these figures can only be obtained in theory if we compare 1 kg of absolutely dry wood and 1 kg of concrete. For building practice, these conditional values are practically useless, because if you make a conversion per square meter of a real wooden or concrete wall, for example, 20 cm, then the picture changes. Here is a small table in which, for comparison, 1 m² of a wall 20 cm thick is taken from different materials (at a temperature of 20 ° C).

From the above figures, it can be seen that for heating 1 m² of a concrete wall by 1 degree, it will be necessary to generate almost 20 times more thermal energy than for heating a wooden one. That is, a wooden or frame house can be heated to the desired temperature much faster than a concrete or brick house, because the weight (mass) of brick and concrete is greater. Let us also recall that in addition to specific heat capacity, there is also thermal conductivity of building materials. This property characterizes the intensity of heat transfer in the material. With an increase in temperature, humidity and density of the substance, the thermal conductivity coefficient increases. The thermal resistance of a homogeneous building envelope, defined as the ratio of the thermal conductivity coefficient of the wall material to the wall thickness in meters, should not be less than the required heat transfer resistance (depends on the temperature of the coldest five-day period in the region and other climatic parameters).

For the Moscow region, the resistance to heat transfer is in the range of 3.1–3.2 m·°С/W. And in Novosibirsk, where winter frosts reach an average of 42 ° C, this figure is much higher. It should also be borne in mind that not only walls take part in the heating processes, but in general everything that is inside the house - ceiling structures, floors, windows, furniture, as well as air. The architectural features of the enclosing structures and the presence of "cold bridges" play a significant role.

Wood as a building material

For comfort in the house, a combination of sufficient heat capacity and low thermal conductivity of the wall material is important. In this regard, the tree has no equal. It is also a good material for seasonal houses, where the owners come only occasionally in winter. A wooden house that has not been heated for a long time perceives a sharp change in temperature better. The condensate formed when the heating is turned on is partially absorbed by the wood. Then the walls gradually release the accumulated moisture to the heated air, thereby helping to maintain a favorable microclimate in the living quarters. Coniferous species are used in construction: spruce, pine, larch, fir, and cedar. In terms of price / quality ratio, pine is the most in demand. Its heat capacity is 2.3–2.7 kJ/(kg K). Along with the ancient technology of manual felling, houses built from rounded logs, profiled and ordinary timber, gun carriage, and glued timber have also gained popularity.

Whatever you choose, keep in mind the general rule for wooden walls - the thicker the better. And here you will have to proceed from the capabilities of your wallet, since with an increase in the thickness of the log, the cost of the material and the price of work increase. In order to meet the required heat engineering standard, a log (rounded or hand-cut) must be at least 28 cm in diameter, and a profiled beam must be at least 24 cm thick. Then the house can not be insulated from the outside. Meanwhile, the most common size of profiled timber is 20 × 20 cm, length up to 6 m.

So the developer will have to immediately calculate and decide what wall thickness to build: 20 × 20 cm, followed by insulation with mineral wool and cladding (siding, clapboard, facade panels) or thicker ones without insulation and cladding. Separately, let's say about the usual (not profiled) timber measuring 15 × 15 cm. It is very popular in summer cottage construction, but nevertheless it is better not to build a house for year-round use from such material. It is only suitable for a small summer garden house. However, the appearance of such a house is unlikely to please you. No matter how hard you try to caulk the gaps between the crowns, they still appear due to warping and uneven shrinkage of the wood. Birds take away caulking for nesting. Under the slanting summer rain, the wall gets wet through, and there is no need to talk about freezing in winter.

If you nevertheless chose this type of construction, then first wait for the new log house to settle (six months or a year) and proceed to its external insulation and cladding. The hinged insulation system (ventilated facade) will be optimal. Note that it is undesirable and even harmful to insulate wooden walls from the inside. Glued laminated timber is somewhat superior to massive timber and round logs in terms of strength and hardness. Due to its layered structure, the product is not subject to cracking and warping, and is resistant to decay. However, the thermal performance of laminated veneer lumber is only slightly better than that of a conventional pine log. In a house made of timber, where the walls are 20 cm thick, you can live in winter. However, heating will be expensive.

Such housing also does not meet the requirements of SNiP 23.02–2003 "Thermal protection of buildings" (for the middle band Ro = 3.49 m² °C / W). Meanwhile, the cost of houses made of glued laminated timber varies between 40-80 thousand rubles. per m². The question arises, is it worth spending first on walls 20 cm thick, and then on insulation and cladding? Yes, and it's a pity to cover a very decorative surface of glued laminated timber with a hinged facade. So this is where you need to think hard. For comparison, a house made of hand-cut logs will cost 40–70 thousand rubles. per m², the average cost of a house made of logs and profiled timber will be about 20-25 thousand rubles. for 1 m².

Competent insulation of wooden walls

With the help of special dowels, heat-insulating basalt wool slabs are attached to the walls. To prevent atmospheric moisture from penetrating into the insulation, the plates are tightened with a superdiffusion hydro-windproof membrane (film). Such membranes protect the facade from rain, snow, condensation and wind. At the same time, they pass well the steam coming from inside the house. Further, guide rails are nailed to the walls with a certain step for attaching the finishing material. Finishing can be vinyl siding, wooden lining of different widths and thicknesses, block house (planed board, made in the form of a rounded log segment) and other materials. It is important to leave air at the top and bottom to ensure air circulation in the ventilation ducts formed by the wooden guide rails.

Frame construction technologies

Perhaps not everyone knows, but the frame structure is one of the oldest. An example of this is half-timbered houses with a rigid supporting frame made of racks, beams and braces. Our ancestors filled the space between the frame elements with a kind of insulation - reeds or straw mixed with clay, or more reliable material - raw bricks. The frame was covered with tar so that it would not rot, and the clay filling was plastered and whitewashed. Part of the frame was usually left in plain sight, so half-timbered houses have a distinctive black and white appearance. The thermal performance of such a house is excellent, it is cool in summer and warm in winter.

To date, there are a lot of options for frame technology. Many countries, primarily northern ones, have contributed to their creation and development: these are Canada, the USA, Germany, Scandinavian countries. However, the principle is still the same: wooden or metal racks, united by horizontal strapping, are sheathed on the outside with sheet materials (oriented strand board, cement-bonded particle board, waterproof plywood, etc.). The internal space is filled with an effective insulation - mineral basalt wool. A vapor barrier film is mounted on the inside, and a hydro-windproof membrane is pulled on the outside. This is followed by decorative wall decoration.

A frame or frame-panel house built in accordance with all the rules will serve you faithfully for decades. Frame and frame-panel houses can be partially or completely made from prefabricated elements, brought to the construction site and quickly assembled on site. They do not need powerful foundations; pile and bored structures are suitable.

A frame house can take on any appearance and look like wood, brick, stone, plastered. The same can be said about the interior decoration. The choice is huge: fiberboard, plaster, drywall, wallpaper, painting, wooden lining, panels and other materials. It is convenient to place communications, electrical wires, heating pipes in the depths of frame walls, which has a positive effect on interior design.

After the installation of the equipment and the completion of the finishing, the frame house is completely ready for living. If you visit your country house on short visits, on weekends and holidays, there is practically no alternative to a frame structure. It can be quickly, literally in the evening, warmed up. But if the heating is turned off, the "ice age" will come just as quickly. This is because, unlike concrete and brick, there is practically nowhere for a frame wall to retain heat. Even wood paneling cannot cope with this function due to its low mass. And mineral wool has a different vocation: it plays the role of a reliable boundary between two temperature environments - cold external and warm internal. So it will not work to heat the frame house for the future.

As for the price, the general rule "Cheap is not good" applies here too. Excessive savings on the construction site is inappropriate. The price per square meter strongly depends on the manufacturer of building elements, on the distance to the construction site, and on the wages of workers. On average, a turnkey house will cost about 19-24 thousand rubles. per 1 m² of total area.

Clay brick has always been a symbol of something stable and indestructible. Indeed, the brick is durable, frost-resistant, immune to atmospheric influences. But the thermal performance of the material leaves much to be desired. Brick products can be divided into three groups:

1. Full-bodied products: ordinary brick (density 1700–1800 kg / m³, thermal conductivity coefficient 0.6–0.7 W / m ° C); conditionally effective brick (density 1400–1600 kg / m³, thermal conductivity coefficient 0, 35–0.5 W / m ° C); efficient brick (density less than 1100 kg / m³, thermal conductivity coefficient 0.18–0.25 W / m ° C).

2. Hollow bricks with a share of voids from 5 to 40%. This can also include facing products.

3. Porous bricks, including large-format stone bricks. The low coefficient of thermal conductivity of the latter is achieved due to closed air pores, as well as the special structure of the material with voids in the form of honeycombs.

If we take into account walls with a thickness of 510 mm or 640 mm, covered with the necessary layer of "warm" plaster, then only effective ceramic products reach the norm. Walls made of solid and conditionally efficient bricks need additional insulation. To solve this problem, three options are proposed: the installation of a plaster heat-insulating system, the installation of a hinged facade insulation system (ventilated facade) and the construction of three-layer walls with a heat-insulating layer.

A brick house is good for permanent living. Brick structures "breathe", that is, they are able to provide air exchange in the thickness of the walls, and have a solid thermal inertia. Having warmed up, such a wall retains heat for a long time even with minimal heating, gradually releasing it into the surrounding space. That is, if the heating unit suddenly breaks down, then it will be possible to hold out for a long time until the arrival of repairmen in a more or less comfortable atmosphere.

Cellular concrete

Aerated concrete is a collective term that combines finely porous building materials based on a mineral binder (lime, cement). This includes large-format blocks made of aerated concrete, gas silicate, foam concrete and foam silicate. Expanded polystyrene concrete is distinguished into an independent category. The structure of the listed materials is formed by small air pores (cells). It is they that give products made of cellular concrete a high thermal insulation capacity and a relatively small volumetric mass.

Walls built using the technology of single-row block masonry do not require additional insulation. They also do not need a strong foundation. In terms of its environmental and other characteristics, this material is close to wood, but compares favorably with it in that it does not burn and does not deform when humidity changes. At the same time, in terms of its thermal performance, a wall made of cellular concrete is superior to a brick one.

In order for the walls of aerated concrete to be of the desired quality, the masonry is carried out on a special mineral glue. This ensures the thickness of the joints is only 1–3 mm (for comparison, masonry on a cement-sand mortar gives joints of 12–15 mm). At the same time, heat losses are significantly reduced, because thick seams are real "cold bridges" through which heat leaves the house. Foam concrete is more affordable than aerated concrete (for comparison, the first one will cost 1300 rubles / m³, and the second - 2800 rubles / m³), so many developers turn their eyes to it. But the fact is that foam concrete blocks can be produced on special mobile plants in a rather artisanal way. Therefore, small businesses are often engaged in their manufacture.

To obtain a finely porous structure, special substances are used - foaming agents. For the most part, these are tanning extracts from the leather industry, various lyes, etc., that is, organic compounds that have a limited shelf life and different foaming abilities. To reduce the cost of production, instead of quartz sand, manufacturers use substitutes in the form of industrial waste: fly ash, slag, etc. The hardening of the blocks occurs in natural conditions. The process proceeds unevenly, causing shrinkage deformations. All this leads to, to put it mildly, vague technical characteristics of the final product. The material has sufficient strength and retains heat well, but subject to manufacturing in accordance with all the rules.