Are the floors cold? We understand the reasons. Cold floors in a private house - what to do? Why is it cold in a log house

Mistakes and “blunders” of builders most often appear in the cold season, when a seemingly prosperous house begins to behave strangely: it blows from under the floor, the windows “cry”, the corners freeze, snow accumulates on the roof. But it is not worth falling into despair.

We note right away that trying to correct errors on your own is not a good idea. It is much more reasonable to invite a specialist in the field of construction expertise - he will give recommendations on how to eliminate errors.

One of the most common problems is cold floors on the first floor. The reason lies in the incorrectly made insulation. In the conditions of Moscow and the region, the total thickness of the floor insulation should be at least 150 mm. But developers often save and put only 100 mm. Is there a solution to this problem? Yes. Floors can be additionally insulated by dismantling them and laying the missing layer of thermal insulation.

Drafts and cold in the house can also be associated with poor-quality insulation, but there are other reasons. So, cracks in the walls often formed due to hanging logs on the dowel. To prevent this from happening, for dowels you need to use a material that is more durable than a log: birch or oak wood. In addition, the moisture content of the pins should be the same as that of the logs, since both the fastener and the hole shrink at the same time when dry. However, sometimes workers assemble the frame using metal parts, including fittings. On their corrugated surface, the log will inevitably hang.

The second reason for the occurrence of cracks is the insufficient load on the logs. This is especially true of the gables, because they bear much less load than the walls of the house.

So that there are no gaps between the logs of the pediment, they are artificially “loaded”: they put chains with screws and pull them together, achieving uniform shrinkage.

In addition, cracks appear as a result of twisting of the logs, the cause of which lies in the twisting, that is, the spiral shape of the wood fibers. Typically, deformations occur with a sharp change in temperature, for example, during turning on the heating. The solution to the problem is careful caulking of the gaps.

Why else does it get cold in the house? The reason may lie in the wrong thickness of the walls. According to heat engineering calculations for a house of permanent residence in the Moscow region, the diameter of the log should be 26-28 cm, and the thickness of the timber should be at least 200 mm.

If at a temperature in the room of 24 ° C the outer wall is colder than 20 ° C, the building needs additional insulation.

But not all problems are related to the "weather in the house." Let's talk about the deflection of the floor due to insufficient rigidity. This usually happens when customers insist on an open studio space on the first floor and refuse unnecessary, in their opinion, load-bearing structures. To reinforce the sagging floor, supports on jacks are used, the section and installation locations of which must be determined by design engineers.

Another fixable trouble is the steel chimney of the fireplace, mounted without taking into account the draft of the house. Ideally, when installing this structure, one should use self-supporting vertical chimneys and fix them only in the lower part (to the wall or floor), without rigid fixation at the points of passage through the ceilings and roof. Then there will be no distortion. But if the chimney was fixed without taking into account sedimentary processes, after a year or two, distortions will inevitably arise, fraught with the most serious consequences. In this case, reconstruction will be required: rigid fasteners to the walls (namely, they are the cause of deformation) are removed and the chimney is re-fixed only at the bottom.

In all the above cases, we talked about the mistakes of the builders, but there are also those that the owners themselves make. One of them - violation of the heating regime of the house, because of which the logs of the log house are deformed. Ideally, heating is started at the beginning of the season and gradually, in increments of 5 ° C, is brought to 20-24 ° C. It is impossible to start immediately from the maximum temperature.

In a heated house, the air becomes dry, which is bad for the “health” of wood. It must be moistened to the normative 45%.

Another mistake is closing the air ducts for the winter due to the fact that it starts to blow from the underground, and the floors become cold. But the reason for this is insufficient thermal insulation of the floor. Produhi, on the contrary, are designed to fight freezing. By creating vortex flows, they prevent stagnation of air. If they are closed, the air in the underground will be at ground temperature, which will lead to condensation on the wooden surfaces, and the floor beams may rot.

At the end of the topic, let's talk about the elements of a wooden house, which either do not settle, or settle less than the log house itself. These are columns, racks, poles. Jacks are usually placed on them - screw mechanisms that make it possible to reduce the height of the supports so that it matches the height of the walls of the log house. This should be done during the period of shrinkage of the building (from 2 to 5 years), carrying out the procedure four times a year. It is simple, and the owner of the house can handle it himself: there is a screw and a nut on the compensation jack; the screw is turned, and the post is lowered to the position of free suspension (with a light blow with a mallet or hand, it shifts slightly), then the nut is turned, and it pinches the post. However, often the owners forget about the need to adjust the jacks. As a result, the shrinkage of the walls occurs unevenly, the screws are deformed and no longer fulfill their task. Remember: it is extremely undesirable to neglect the adjustment of the height of the supports.

Many will readily agree with this statement. Why, then, are there so few who want to build a wooden tower near a river or lake? What prevents a city dweller from moving from a stuffy city in summer and a slushy city in winter? Is it all the fault of laziness-mother? Can't be. What then is the matter? Let's try to figure it out together.

We will immediately note the link to the high cost of a wooden cottage. There are many sites on the network on the pages of which prices for the construction of houses from timber are quite affordable for most citizens. They are significantly lower than for similar brick houses and are much lower than the prices for city apartments. However, the cost of apartments does not frighten the Russians, and they voluntarily fall into bondage, called mortgages, and for decades meekly pay bankers loans taken at extortionate interest.

What else, then, can serve as a reason for further vegetation in the city cells? The answers may surprise anyone - they are so diverse. Among them there are quite exotic ones - it turns out that many people think that it is cold in wooden houses in winter! Like, the walls freeze through, the wind blows in the cracks, etc. fiction. In fact, this is naturally not the case, provided that the technology is followed.

Why is it cold?

It can be cold in a wooden house for several reasons. Firstly, what is cold for one person is quite comfortable for another. Secondly, in addition to subjective perception, there really are real air currents that cool the residents. Drafts appear from gaps in the structure, sealed poorly or completely left by negligent builders without caulking. Thirdly, the sensations are affected by the distribution of temperature along the vertical, the level of humidity and the fluxes of infrared radiation.

Let's consider each factor separately. Drafts occur when there are holes in the house that should not be there. Cold air enters the cottage and also leaves it unhindered from the other side, carrying away heat. The difference in air pressure on opposite sides of the house is always present, since there is always wind in our open spaces. This allows drafts to occur through all available cracks, reducing the internal temperature.

Careful sealing of rooms allows to reduce intensive air exchange. The main thing here is not to overdo it, since you don’t need to completely block access to air from the street - otherwise the optimal level of humidity will be violated, the ratio of oxygen and carbon dioxide will change for the worse. This process is controlled by controlled ventilation.

In addition, there is always a vertical air flow inside the premises, since the air in the underground is constantly colder than in the house. The warm current rises to the ceiling and exits through tiny cracks. Warm air always tends to rise. This is an objective physical law, therefore, in an improperly insulated room, the legs get cold and the head overheats. As a result, the person is uncomfortable. In order for the temperature to be evenly distributed along the height, it is necessary to carefully isolate the gaps between the walls and the floor and ceiling.

No one is surprised by people sunbathing at ski resorts when there is snow all around. They are warmed by the sun with its rays (infrared spectrum). It is also cozy in the house when a large heavy stove is built in it, creating thermal comfort. Attempts to replace it with infrared heaters do not bring the expected result, since they have short-wave radiation, and to create long-wave infrared radiation so beloved by people, an emitter weighing several tons is needed. If the house does not have a large stove, it will be uncomfortable.

The main ways of heat loss

There are two main directions of heat loss in a typical wooden meter or other size. These are drafts and radiation of heated objects. Together, these paths provide up to 90 percent of the loss of precious heat. It has already been said about drafts that they draw out heated air, replacing it with cold air, but we need to talk more about infrared radiation through walls.

If you look at an ordinary wooden house on a winter night through a night vision device, you can see that it glows brightly - almost like a living person. Such a house is poorly insulated from heat loss through infrared radiation. The fact is that all objects in a normally heated house are heated to room temperature and constantly radiate thermal energy into space. It penetrates walls, taking heat with it.

In order to avoid unnecessary spending on energy resources (wood, natural gas, diesel fuel or electricity), it is necessary to provide for the retention of thermal radiation. How is it done? The main type of combating heat loss from radiation is the use of a special film along the thermal contour of the house that reflects thermal energy. Aluminum foil is usually used, but not in its present form, but as part of special heat-insulating materials.

For example, an aluminum film, which perfectly reflects heat, is attached to a polyethylene foam base or to a fiberglass reinforcing mesh. Such a film helps not only to save money on heating in the winter, but also helps to mitigate the heat in the summer, preventing the house from heating up. If the joints of such sheets are glued, then this layer will also perform air-insulating functions (against drafts). Just do not use aluminum tape for this - it dries pretty quickly and falls off in a year or two. It is better to use a universal waterproof glue, smearing it with overlapped sheets.

Now that the main factors for the appearance of cold in a wooden house and the main ways of losing heat have been clarified, you can use the knowledge gained to correct the existing shortcomings and only be surprised to round your eyes at the complaints of friends that it is cold in their houses made of timber and a lot of money is spent on heating. .

The house was built, the housewarming was celebrated - it would seem, to live and rejoice. But ... winter came, and the rooms got noticeably colder. This means that the insulation of the house from a bar was carried out with violations of technology, and cold air enters the room without encountering any special obstacles. There are not so many main causes of serious heat loss, and it is better to know about them in advance and do everything right right away than to eliminate flaws later - this is much more difficult.

Poorly or not at all insulated walls

It is a mistake to think that a wooden house does not need to be additionally insulated. In cold climatic zones, the walls of a house made of timber can freeze thoroughly if they are not securely isolated from the environment. If the surface is “crying”, mold and fungus have appeared, and it is cold to the touch, it is clear that the insulation of the house from the timber was done incorrectly. The best way out will be external thermal insulation, and far from the worst option - thermal panels with clinker tiles for a wooden house. Why is external insulation better than internal insulation?

• The dew point does not go inside the room, that is, the condensate remains on the "street" side of the building.
• When warming the house from the outside, there is no reduction in the usable area inside the room.

The walls of a log house are best protected using the technology of ventilated facades. This means that first a layer of thermal insulation is mounted, and on top of it - a finishing material. It can be thermal panels, semi-log, siding, porcelain stoneware or stone. Thermal panels with clinker tiles for a wooden house are a very good modern solution. They are lightweight and durable, in addition, they include a layer of polyurethane foam, which has an ultra-low thermal conductivity. The appearance of such facade panels imitates brick, that is, additional cladding is not required.

It should be remembered, and this is very important, that when mounting the cake, it is necessary to arrange vapor and waterproofing layers, otherwise all efforts to insulate the walls will go down the drain.

cold floor

If the floor in the house is cold, this undoubtedly indicates that its insulation leaves much to be desired. In order to find out what is wrong, you should disassemble a section of the floor covering and look inside. If the floor is made on logs, then it is quite possible that during the construction process they simply “forgot” to put the insulation or saved it - they made a thin layer, and even poorly joined. There is only one way out - to completely disassemble the floor and insulate everything again. A properly arranged thermal insulation pie includes:

• boards;
• waterproofing over boards;
• heat-insulating, best of all basalt, mats;
• vapor barrier layer;
• boards again;
• followed by plywood;
• final "fine" coating.

Basement can be a problem.

There is no need to specially remind about the waterproofing of the basement, but sometimes they simply forget about its insulation. In the cold season, such "forgetfulness" is fraught with problems - the building will freeze from below. The basement walls of a house made of timber must be insulated both from the inside and from the outside. Various types of mineral wool, polystyrene foam, polystyrene foam, polyurethane foam are suitable. When insulating polyurethane foam in the sprayed version, the problem of "cold bridges" is completely solved, since it creates a monolithic coating.

Ceiling and attic: do we heat the air?

In order not to really heat the air, the insulation of the attic space, and therefore the ceiling, must be correct. It would be a delusion to consider that having covered the floor of the attic with sawdust or expanded clay, you can calm down. A reliable barrier to the leakage of warm air is insulation with heat-insulating mats (without gaps!) Or the same polyurethane foam.

Heating system: the right choice

Before installing the heating system, it is necessary to conduct an examination in order to select pipes with a suitable cross section, otherwise their replacement will then be too expensive. One of the best options for a log house would be to install a boiler and, of course, you should focus on the most efficient radiators.

So, timely proper insulation of a house made of timber is one of the main points of construction. Compliance with the technology will save you from very unpleasant consequences that may puzzle homeowners already in the process of operation.

Wooden buildings are actively used not only in suburban construction: a house made of timber for winter is a completely warm and comfortable option, and a well-thought-out insulation system will not only protect the building from the cold, but also reduce heating costs. If you decide to build a house from a bar, is it possible to live in such a building in winter, and how convenient will it be?

The choice of timber for construction

The most important parameter when choosing wood materials is the thickness. The higher it is, the more reliable the walls will be, and the lower the risk of freezing.

In most regions of Russia, there are severe frosts in winter, and you need to take care in advance that the house is comfortable throughout the cold season. The answer to the question of whether it is cold in a house made of timber in winter depends on how much the owner took care of the insulation and whether he chose the right building material.

What thickness of timber can be used in construction? The material for the house from a bar for the winter is selected according to the following parameters:

You can also purchase a thicker beam, but it will cost much more, and its efficiency will only be slightly higher. 200x200 mm - sufficient wall thickness to withstand even frosts up to 40 degrees, so such buildings can be built in cold regions.

Any wood material must be of high quality. The owner must carefully select a timber free of knots and other defects, as well as without curvature that occurs during drying. The material in the warehouse must be stored according to the rules, and the seller must have documents for each type of lumber.

Low thermal conductivity is one of the reasons why people choose a house from a bar: it will be warm to live in it in winter, and in summer it will be cool and comfortable in the rooms, as the building will warm up very slowly.

Fundamentals of proper insulation

Warming is a whole range of measures so that it is constantly comfortable in a house made of glued laminated timber in winter. Of all the wood materials, it is glued timber that is the most heat-efficient, since it is possible to build perfectly even walls without gaps from it. In order for the house made of timber to be warm in winter, it is necessary to carry out the following types of work:

As a result of such work for a house made of glued laminated timber, heat in winter will not be wasted, and this will allow you to constantly spend less on heating. All costs for insulation pay off within a few years, since energy carriers are expensive.

The market for heaters is now actively expanding, as both Europe and Russia continue to search for the most energy-efficient solutions.

Total score: 10 Voted: 17

A winter house made of timber is often called a building designed for comfortable living all year round. And one of the most important conditions that must be observed is its compliance with thermal requirements. Simply put, in such a house it should be warm even in the most severe winter, and the heating system should not “heat the street”. What should be the thickness of the beam for such a house and is it worth getting attached to it? We will try to discuss these and other thematic issues in this note.

From which timber to build a "winter" house

There are 2 fundamental approaches in the construction of country houses for permanent residence:

• when the calculation is based on the thickness of the beam used for the walls of the log house. For example, the opinion of many private developers is that the sufficient thickness of a beam for the Moscow Region is 200 mm, although this contradicts the approved SNiP. In fact, in order for a wooden wall to retain heat as much as possible, it must be more than half a meter thick - for these purposes, even a beam of 300 × 300 mm looks unconvincing. This is without insulation;
• when timber is not considered as the main material that retains heat in the house. This function is transferred to the thermal insulation layer. On average, it is believed that with this approach, a 50 mm thick insulation is equivalent to using a 150 mm beam. Therefore, a layer of thermal insulation with a thickness of 50, 100 or 150 mm is used, depending on the climatic conditions at the site of operation of the building.

As a small digression. It must be understood that the maximum heat losses are associated not so much with the thickness of the wall (or the degree of its insulation), but with errors in the installation of roof insulation, installation of windows and doors. Only cumulative work on all places of construction that are weak in the thermotechnical sense can have a positive effect on its energy efficiency.

Options without insulation

If you do not intend to carry out exterior finishing work and want to preserve the natural beauty of a wooden house, then there is only one choice - to use profiled timber. The budget option involves the use of a material of natural moisture with a section size of 150 × 200 mm, where 150 is the height of the crowns. True, in this case, the housewarming will have to be celebrated only after 1–1.5 years, when the log house dries up and it will be possible to proceed to the final stages of construction. The use of dry timber will cost more: from 20 thousand rubles per square meter. And this is taking into account the fact that the communication device is not included in the price. Well, if the chickens don’t peck for money, then you can look towards the house made of glued laminated timber with a section of 200 × 200 mm. On average, sets of profiled timber are manufactured in the factory within 2-4 weeks. Specialists can build a log house in about the same time.

For thermal insulation

A budget developer can take a different path: use the cheapest timber of natural moisture and small cross-section, but then take care of the insulation. To calculate the thickness of thermal insulation, you can use one of the online calculators that can be found on the Web.

Or you can do all the calculations yourself by looking at SNiP II-3-79 *. It remains only to find out the heat transfer resistance of structures for a certain area, which should be equal to the sum of the heat transfer resistances of individual layers of the “wall pie”: the beam itself (divide the thickness by thermal conductivity) and the selected insulation (similarly, as for the beam). There will be only one unknown in the equation - the thickness of the insulation.

In this case, a 100 × 100 mm timber or a 100 × 200 mm timber can be used as a wall material. In the second case, the number of crowns will be less (with a thickness of 100 mm), respectively, and the complexity of construction will be lower. On average, this option provides a price of 10-13 thousand rubles. per square meter of the house, and the duration of the work is largely determined by the moisture content of the lumber.

Finally

From the foregoing, it follows that any thickness of timber for a winter house cannot ensure the absence of heat loss through the walls. You have to compromise: use the thickest materials on the market for the sake of the “natural” design of a wooden house, or save on wall building materials, but at the same time spend additional money on external thermal insulation and subsequent finishing.