Pine house

Thanks to its relative low cost, pinewood is one of the most widely used construction materials. It is easy to handle and undemanding. Knowing its characteristics helps to choose high-quality material, properly process and treat it, and ensure strength and durability of a future pine log shell.

Physical and mechanical properties of pine log shells

Pine is one of the most widespread woods not only in Russia, but also across the world. In Russia it makes up about ⅙ of the total forest area. The height of a pine tree ranges from 20 to 40 metres. A pine tree lives for 300-500 years on average. It is a fast growing wood type. Its annual growth under favourable conditions amounts to 0.8-1m.

Pinewood exhibits distinct growth rings in all sections; it has a core and resinous canals. The texture is even. Pinewood has a relatively low average density due to  the vast differences in structure of early and late wood. The density of early wood is 2-3 times lower than the density of late wood in the annual growth zone. The average content of late wood in the growth zone is 27%. The average number of growth rings in 1 cm ranges from 4 to 14 for pinewood on the Russian territory. A larger number of growth rings is representative of trees from the northern regions of the country.

Physical properties of pine

Moisture content

The average moisture content in a growing tree amounts to 112% in sapwood and 33% in heartwood. The moisture content of sapwood increases proportionally with the tree height, while in the tree core the moisture levels remain relatively the same. 

Drying process

Wood is usually dried before usage. Pinewood shrinkage to its standard moisture content of 12% on average amounts to 6.7% for early wood and 7.5% for late wood in the tangential direction. 

Density

Like the majority of softwood, pinewood exhibits relatively low-density levels. The average estimate for pinewood density with 12% moisture content is 505 kg/m³, while the density of totally dry wood amounts to 480 kg/m³.

Gas and liquid permeability

Pinewood possesses high levels of air and moisture permeability.

High levels of moisture permeability make it possible to extensively and successfully use various protective substances. The way pinewood absorbs protective elements indicates that pine sapwood belongs to high absorption woods, pine heartwood — to medium absorption woods, while spruce and larch belong to low absorption woods.

Thermal properties

Heat conductivity increases proportionally with density. Heat expansion of pinewood is hard to detect as it is often overshadowed by the processes of drying and moisture absorption. 

Hardness

The best hardness properties are exhibited by pinewood that is indigenous to the northern part of the European Russia. Only Caucasian fir surpasses it in this quality.

Breaking point:

• static bending — 70-92 MPa;
• stretching along the grain — 100-116 MPa
• compression along the grain — 40-49 MPa
• shearing along the tangential plane — 6.6-8.1 MPa
• elasticity coefficient during static bending — 8.0-13.1 GPa

Technical and functional properties

Impact elasticity — 28-51 kJ/m²

Durability:​

• face plate — 28-33 N/mm²
• radial — 21-25 N/mm²
• tangential — 16-23 N/mm²

Pinewood belongs to softwoods — up to 40 N/mm² (hardwood — 41-80 N/mm², extremely hard wood — more than 80 N/mm²).

Due to its softness, pinewood easily yields to cutting tools.

It responds really well to polishing — the size its micro asperities amounts to 8-60 micrometres, while for ash and maple trees it is up to 200 micrometres (due to characteristics of their structural asperities).

Pinewood is also highly resistant to biological influence (such as fungal infections).

Wood is the eldest companion of humans; it has always been our source of heat and energy, and a reliable and incomparable construction material.

Wood comprises cellulose, lignin, ash-forming mineral and organic elements, whose varying qualities and combinations as well as differences in cellular structure result in wood types being light or heavy, rigid or flexible, hard or soft. Thus, wood exhibits various characteristics, which put it at the forefront of the raw material market. 

Fire resistant wood (excerpt from Johanna Paungger's book)

Anyone who has visited a "museum village" (such as Kramsach in Tyrol), with its up to seven hundred centuries old buildings, barns, equipment and tools, will have certainly also seen benches next to stoves, wooden potholders, bread paddles, and wooden fireplaces. What is strange is that hardly anyone asks why the semi-circular potholders used for lifting red-hot pots and pans from the stove lasted for so long - for centuries even - without burning. Or why wood exposed directly to fire did not burn (e.g. wooden fireplaces, and the wooden tools used to scrape the sides of lime kilns). Admittedly it was blackened, but it neither burned nor glowed. Perhaps you, too, have come across a box of matches that absolutely refuse to burn. The solution to the puzzle is this: there are specific times whose impulses ensure that wood is non-inflammable.

Wood that is cut on March 1, especially after sunset, is fire-resistant - regardless of the position of the moon and the sign through which it is currently passing.

A strange and yet valid rule: whoever tries it out will find it confirmed. Many implements, farmyard buildings, barns, log cabins, and mountain huts were built out of such timber in order to make them fireproof.

If you want to build a turnkey pine house, you are in the right place! We offer only the best materials and experts - commission us to design and realise a pine house project at an optimal price!