We have long wanted to write about wooden structures that are most common in Russia today. About types of these structures, how they are built nowadays, what is happening with them on the construction market and what is the difference between them. We would like to say in advance that this applies only to those structures that are crafted by hand.
The most popular wooden structures in Russia are certainly round-log houses. Everyone for a grandfather living in a village to construction companies builds log houses. The difference between them lies in the construction experience, method and client’s requirements for the final product. This distinction is obvious if you look at these two photographs.
If it is not clear, then we will list what is missing in the log house №1:
- Mansard floor
- Log gables
- Log beams;
- Girders
- Window and door openings
- Work and materials related to missing elements of a log building
These log houses are relatively the same size, but differ greatly in their construction complexity and cost. The work that was immediately done in the second option becomes the next stage in the first option and thus equilises the costs of buildings. Of course, the first house will be cheaper as it is assumed that a client will either finish this work on their own or hire unskilled workers. However, no matter how much you want it and how much money you invest, you will never get a house like a second one.
In the log house №1, you will be forced to adjust everything to the existing structure. This clearly exemplifies the difference in construction, and a client should have known what they were getting for the money they had agreed to pay. It is much more difficult to understand the construction of log houses of average quality, which have flooded the market and unfortunately are responsible for creating a negative image of wooden houses in general. It is challenging to do it on your own, because the quality of a wooden house depends less on what you see when the house is finished and more on how it is going to look in 3 years, which in turn depends on concealed work with grooves and notches that in fact play the most important role in the correct house settling process. It is easier to say how a log house should be built and what you should pay attention to in order to avoid mistakes when choosing a contractor.
Planing should be as neat as possible, with barely visible edges. Without clear signs of wood smoothing. You should not have an immediate desire to grind a log house when you look at it.
There should be a gap of 5-12 mm (depending on the diameter) in the notch, otherwise the log row will jam during the settling process. The notch itself should have an undercut of up to 20mm for the installation of insulation.
The notch can be with or without an internal tenon. It is not recommended to use it for large diameters, because it is an extra element in the joint, which can cause jamming during the shrinking process and the possible misalignment of some logs. The principle of wooden house construction is this - the simpler the joint, the lower the possibility of jamming during shrinkage; the main thing is to properly make internal gaps with a slight margin, which are filled with insulation that is compressed when the logs shrink and settle.
If we use a traditional Canadian notch as a basis, then it has no tenon, but there is one allowance - Canadian houses are built from dry logs, whose diameters start at 360mm. The tenon is more typical for two-edged cant structures. Exterior log tails have small gaps and are loose-fitting. Water leakage is inevitable in the rain, so if the fit is too tight, the water will evaporate slower and cause dampness. Therefore, it is better to position log tails with 5-7mm gaps between them for speedy weathering. You must not install insulation between them.
Girders between the ground and the first floor, depending on their shape (dimensional timber, log), should have their top in the same plane +/- 5mm and be embedded in the wall by ⅓ of its thickness. The overlapping beams, just as the notches, should have shrinkage gaps. When choosing the shape of floor girders, you need focus on what rooms they are meant for and your own ideas about the look of these rooms. For example, there is not reason to have visible beams in a steam room, as it has a vapour barrier on its ceiling. Meanwhile, in a living room log girders look quite raw. Here personal preferences play a greater role than structural choices.