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Typical mistakes when designing a wooden house. Or what to expect from unscrupulous contractors (part 1)

The creation of a house project from round timber is an important phase in the construction of a wooden house, which requires careful attention to details and nuances. A competent designer takes into account the pros and cons of wood, analyzes the features of the site.

wooden house

Unscrupulous contractors sometimes erect log cabins without calculations and drawings, while making typical mistakes, which should be known in advance.

Snap to terrain

To create a workable model of a house and ensure comfortable living in it, the landscape of the area and the properties of the soil are taken into account when designing.

  • Area and relief of the building site. Depending on them, the dimensions of the future structure are selected and determined with its location. The layout is coordinated with building codes, maintaining the required distance from the house to the boundaries of the site. Do not forget that there must be an interval of at least 15 m between wooden houses – in the event of a fire, this will reduce the risk of the fire being thrown to a neighboring building.
  • The direction of the cardinal points. By agreement with the customer, the location of the rooms and the orientation of their windows to the south, north, east or west are determined.
  • Physical properties and the degree of soil freezing, the level of occurrence of subsoil waters. This information is important for choosing the type of foundation, the depth of its foundation, the degree of protection against moisture, the possibility of building a basement floor.

Features of wood

A specialist in the design of wooden houses takes into account the tendency of natural material to

decay, susceptibility to fire, fluctuations in size due to changes in humidity, natural shrinkage. When developing drawings and technology, you should remember a number of important points.

  • Log length. Manufacturers usually offer 6-meter cylinders. It is more affordable and easier to transport than 12-meter logs, but it must be properly connected to obtain the desired wall length. For this purpose, the designer chooses a joint option, if possible, without a metal pin.
  • Shrinkage. It reduces the final height of the house by 3-4%, causes subsidence of door and window openings, distortions, cracks in logs, gaps between crowns, gaps between the roof and walls. Correct design solutions are required to minimize these disadvantages.
  • Open it. If you do not make a cut pattern, the percentage of waste will be too high, contributing to an increase in construction costs.
  • Protection of wood from moisture and fire. The developer introduces into the technological process the obligatory impregnation of workpieces with antiseptic and fire-retardant materials.

    typical mistakes when building a house

Typical design mistakes

At the stage of developing a project for a round timber building, inexperienced architects often make typical mistakes, explained by a lack of theoretical knowledge and practical skills. Here are the main miscalculations made by designers.

  1. Uneven load on supporting structures – leads to the formation of cracks and cracks after shrinkage of the logs.
  2. Incorrect dressing of mating elements – because of it, the structure of the house loses its strength, the walls crack.
  3. Rigid ligament of the rafter system. The designer must provide for layered rafters and sliding fasteners that compensate for shrinkage, otherwise gaps will appear in the pediment, or the walls will bend when moving.
  4. Fastening of rims with steel pins (or clamping brackets). During shrinkage, rigid metal elements “squeeze” the logs, causing them to crack. It is better to include wooden pins in the project or provide for drilling compensation channels for free movement of vertical connecting rods.
  5. No 5% gaps between log walls and door (window) frames. If the designer ignored this requirement, during shrinkage doors jam, glass breaks, interior walls warp.
  6. Misalignment of the first and second floors. This is a gross violation, entailing the sagging of the ceiling beams and the destruction of the house during the shrinkage process.

1. Uneven load on supporting structures

2. Incorrect dressing of conjugated elements

3. Rigid ligament of the truss system

4. Fastening the crowns with steel pins

5. No gaps between log walls and window frames

6. Misalignment of the first and second floors

To avoid miscalculations, it is best to entrust the development of documentation to a professional. The finished project combines an explanatory note, drawings of units with cuts and sections, facades, plans of the foundation, floors, floors and roofs, a rafter system diagram. The documentation contains unfolded walls along the axes with attached specifications, which indicate the number, length and diameter of each log. The presence of a working draft allows you to issue a building permit without any special delays.

Read the continuation here “Typical mistakes of shabashniki in the process of building a wooden house. Or what to expect from unscrupulous contractors. (Part 2)”

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