The main pros and cons of a log house made of wood. Modern building material: the pros and cons of rounded logs Log house pros

In fact, this material is made of milled logs, which have been carefully processed on special equipment. Depending on the type of machine used, it can be given a different profile. The entire production stage is conditionally divided into 6 steps:

sorting saw logs by diameter;
feed to the cylindering machine;
cut into house details using chain and circular saws;
parts enter the bowl-cutting machine under gusset- "cup";
treatment of all parts with an antiseptic;
packing in special bags for further transportation.

Moreover, the processing can be used different kinds machine tools - through-type, turning and milling (positional), center, broaching and others.

Rounded log: pros and cons

This material has both its pros and cons. The advantages of rounded logs, first of all, are completely ecological production. No chemical adhesives are used in the manufacturing process. Secondly, houses made of logs – very solid construction, since the log has the same diameter along the entire length. This also ensures a longer service life. Thirdly, has a high insulating capacity, thanks to the minimum gaps on the crowns.

The material itself has a high ability to accumulate heat and, moreover, a fairly low thermal conductivity. Fourth, log elements can be connected at any angle. This gives truly excellent opportunities for the implementation of any wooden structures.

Fifth, significantly saves money and labor during assembly, since the logs arrive at the construction site with ready-made channels and cups. All the craftsmen have to do is assemble them. At sixth, the material is aesthetically pleasing appearance and does not require further decorative finishing.

The disadvantages of rounded logs are due to the fact that the topmost protective layer removed during processing. Therefore, the following disadvantages appear: shrinkage of the first floor of the structure by an average of 10-20 cm; the appearance of cracks, twisting logs in a spiral under the influence of wind. In particular, the first drawback is noticeable. Shrinkage lasts from 6 months to 1 year, and during this period it is important to ensure a gentle operation of the house. The use of heating devices is undesirable.

How to determine the quality of logs?

The quality of round logs directly depends on the processing mechanisms, as well as on the qualifications of employees who carry out this work. So, we will describe those points that you should pay attention to when buying. Firstly, all parts must be made from the same type of wood. Secondly, the presence of rot, cracks, chips is not allowed on the products. Thirdly, the material must be perfectly even, curvature is excluded. Fourthly, the deviation in diameter and length between logs can exceed a maximum of 2 mm.

Fifthly, each product must have a marking confirming a particular specification. Sixthly, round log cabins are made only from growing (not dried before cutting) trees. This is necessary in order to ensure natural moisture. Seventhly, the entire surface is treated with an appropriate antiseptic for longer operation. If all these conditions are met, the service life of rounded logs can be more than 20 years.

Of all building materials for the construction of private houses, wood is the most environmentally friendly and safe. And most often now they began to use not raw round timber, but rounded logs of the same cross section. They are easier to work with, and they look more presentable. A cottage built from them does not even require wall insulation, the latter are generally left without sheathing. After all, the natural look of wood brings an atmosphere of comfort and naturalness to a residential building.

What is round log

To make this material for log house, a trunk without branches is processed on several woodworking machines. First, it is cleared of the bark. And then this workpiece is rounded to give it the desired diameter. At the exit from the primary cutting shop, rounds are smooth, even and the same in diameter.

Then this lumber is sawn into logs of the length required for the project of the house, at the ends of which bowls are cut. During processing, the machine removes most of the solid layer of wood from the trunk along with the bark. Only the core and core are taken into work. And because of their softness and porosity, they are prone to rotting.

To prevent rotting of rounded logs, it is impregnated with antiseptics, and at the same time fire retardants with fungicides. As a result, a completely finished part for the walls of log houses and other buildings receives the necessary protection against fungi, fire and various woodworms.

As wood for the manufacture is used:

Larch.

The main advantage of a pine log is its cheapness. Cedar is more resistant to changes in humidity and temperature, it is recommended to take it for the construction of baths. Spruce, in comparison with pine, has a lower strength and resistance to decay, but has a more presentable appearance. The advantages of larch are strength and durability. However, the larch log is also the most expensive and heaviest. A house made of it requires a more massive foundation.

Hardwood is not used for the production of round logs for various reasons. Oak is too expensive, birch is highly susceptible to decay, and aspen is soft and short-lived. These are more materials for interior decoration of a log house. The walls of the cottage are best built from coniferous wood.

It is customary to build log cabins from lumber of the same species. But practice has already confirmed that the combination different breeds wood is quite justified and practical solution. The best option – lower crowns lay from expensive and moisture-resistant larch logs, and build the rest of the house from pine. It will not be too wasteful in terms of money, and more durable.

How to choose logs for the house

The pros and cons of the rounded log used in the construction of low-rise cottages are different. Given the high demand for this material among builders, the former are clearly more than the latter. Its diameter varies in the range of 160–320 mm. There are options for arranging a gazebo, and for building a small country house, and for the construction of a two-story residential building.

You can fold a house from a factory log that has passed rounding on your own without involving a hired construction team. Such lumber is usually sold in the form of a finished, but disassembled log house with numbered elements. This constructor only needs to be brought to the site and assembled in accordance with the project.

When choosing a rounded log for building a house, the main attention should be paid to:

The absence of even a hint is not rot and wormholes;

Compliance with its design specification in terms of length, cross section and curvature;

The presence of markings on the end;

The absence of chips and other mechanical damage;

Drying levels - natural humidity it or dried in the chamber.

When choosing a log for a house, it should be remembered that the past chamber drying blanks are more expensive than analogues subjected to atmospheric drying. The first have a humidity of about 12–18%, and the second - in the region of 18–23%.

Log houses made of artificially dried wood are less prone to shrinkage after construction. If the walls of a building made of atmospheric dry wood dry out and settle in the first year by 10–15 percent, then from artificially dry wood only by 1–2 percent.

Raw wood is more difficult to grind and otherwise process than dry wood. Wet lumber poorly absorbs antibacterial and flame retardant compounds. A house made of a log that has not been dried, after collecting a log house, is usually left for the winter to get rid of moisture in a natural way. A building made of dried round timber is immediately ready for finishing and occupancy.

Pros and cons of rounded logs

Among the advantages of rounded logs are:

Natural beauty of natural wood texture;

Natural air exchange through wooden walls, contributing to maintaining a comfortable atmosphere in the cottage;

High characteristics of heat and sound insulation of the house;

Saving time and money on finishing due to the absence of the need for additional processing of the walls;

Simplicity and high assembly speed log cabin- similar houses are assembled in just a couple of weeks;

Manifold finished projects cottages with different designs interior;

No harmful emissions and complete environmental Safety building materials;

Durability of the structure - a wooden building will last 60-80 years without any problems.

When choosing a rounded log for your home, you need to understand that without proper protection, the tree will quickly rot. In most industries, this lumber is impregnated and coated with various compounds. But additionally, it does not hurt to process the walls yourself.

According to the architecture and layout, a house made of this material can be anything. This material allows you to embody the most bizarre externally and internally projects. In terms of thermal insulation parameters and price, with equal wall thickness, wood will yield only to SIP panels. However, in terms of environmental friendliness, wood will surpass the composite of OSB and foam in all respects.

The disadvantages of rounded logs are as follows:

Natural shrinkage, leading to twisting and arching of the tree;

Cracking of round timber after laying in a log house;

Limitations in terms of finishing options in the house due to shrinkage of the latter;

The need to treat lumber with protective equipment;

Fire hazard.

sit down log house there will be at least a year during which you won’t turn around with the finish. Wooden walls in any scenario during shrinkage will change their geometry. It is not for nothing that logs in such low-rise buildings are often left without sheathing at all. Then definitely nothing will crack and will not lead.

Photos of log houses

A wooden house made of logs is an environmentally friendly, elegant and comfortable home. It is difficult to find a more practical and relatively inexpensive building material. Comparing the pros and cons of gas silicate blocks, brick and concrete with the advantages of this type of lumber, we can definitely say that the tree is the best option in terms of the totality of parameters. Its only significant drawback is flammability. But for this there are fire retardant impregnations.

And finally, a real work of art from rounded logs

For construction wooden houses At present, more and more often they began to use rounded logs, which have excellent aesthetic and operational properties.
It is much easier to work with rounded logs than with other material. This is because the logs are standardized on special machines.

This building material is well suited for the construction of residential and country houses, bath complexes. However, in order to give preference to the specified building material, you should find out all the pros and cons of round logs.
The general concept of rounded logs, the technology of its production

Such a modern building material as a rounded log is a tree trunk, freed from branches, specially processed on a complex of woodworking machines, having a smooth and even cylindrical shape, the same along its entire length.

To obtain this building material, larch and almost all coniferous trees are used. The diameter of the logs can be different and is in the range from 160 mm to 320 mm.
All stages of the production of rounded logs can be divided into the following:

sorting;

cylindering;

cutting;

cup;

final.

The sorting stage of production includes the distribution of the incoming wood by diameter, delimbing, trimming the butt, and surface treatment of the trunks.

The rounding stage of production consists in the actual rounding, i.e. giving the tree trunk, peeled from the top layer, a perfectly even and smooth appearance. The entire production process is fully mechanized. Raw material the hoist is fed into the processing zone, where it is securely clamped by strong mechanisms and processed on special machines, which are of a through-flow or positional type. It should be noted that on through-type machines, the processing process is much faster, but the log is obtained with a slight curvature. Positional type woodworking machines give the log an ideal shape, but this process will take much more time.
The cutting stage of log processing includes cutting into trimming machine blanks of special sizes in accordance with the required project of the house.

At the cup stage of production, the connecting elements of the logs are made - bowls. Here, laser marking is used for greater accuracy. The bowls can have a Russian and a Finnish profile, each with its own adherents. When using high-quality heaters and with proper installation, any profile will be good.
And, finally, the final stage of work includes the processing of round logs ready for building a house with flame retardant and antiseptic compounds, fungicides, which significantly increases their service life.

Ready-made sets of wooden houses are packed in transport packages and sent to the assembly site.

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Requirements for the quality of rounded logs

When rounding wood different manufacturers you may get a different result. You should understand what to look for when choosing a rounded log, explore all the pros and cons. The main requirements for the quality of the specified building material, the following:

all blanks for one housing construction must be of the same breed;

not allowed on the logs of wormholes, rot, various mechanical damage;

logs to ensure their natural moisture should not be harvested from dead wood;

diameter, longitudinal dimensions, curvature, etc. must be within the allowable values specified in the specification;

at the end of each product there must be a marking corresponding to the specification;

storage, warehousing, transportation, unloading of logs must exclude any contamination and mechanical damage surfaces.

Knowing the basic requirements when choosing high-quality rounded wood, it is necessary to take into account its pros and cons.

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Cons of rounded logs

The main disadvantages of rounded logs include a small number of shortcomings identified in the process of its use. These include:

log cracking;

twisting it;

arching;

high humidity in the house;

fire hazard;

exposure to natural phenomena.

During the first years of operation of a building made of logs, as a result of shrinkage, they may crack, leading to a lack of protection of the tree from natural phenomena: rain, wind, sun, etc., and the loss of the aesthetic appearance of the house. This is due to violations in production technology.

Many people know that as a tree grows, as a result of the action of winds, the tree trunk twists like a spiral. After felling, the tree trunk can unwind in reverse side, forming big gaps, adversely affecting the entire building as a whole. A cut down tree keeps its protective layer from unwinding.

In case of violation of the technology for the production of rounding of logs, in the future, their arching from general structure, which will adversely affect the thermal insulation of the room and aesthetically pleasing at home. Therefore, when buying such a building material, you should carefully choose its manufacturers.

Undried rounded logs before installation due to the lack of a protective layer during the first years of use will actively release moisture as a result of natural drying. In such a house it will be damp and uncomfortable.

To mitigate some of the shortcomings identified during the operation of such a building, a number of measures can be taken:

drying logs up to 5 years before rounding will avoid increased release of moisture and their cracking;

when collecting a log house from logs, metal studs are installed ( Finnish technology) or staggered dowels to help reduce buckling and twisting of the logs.

In order to avoid a fire hazard, a house made of rounded material should be treated with special fire-fighting impregnations, the installation of electrical wiring should be entrusted to professionals, and electrical appliances should be used carefully.

To natural phenomena- the sun, rain, wind, etc. - did not destroy the logs, it is necessary to take care of the walls of the house in a timely manner: to clad, paint or varnish.

During the debate that flared up after the publication of the article "Ours in America", a reader who wished to tell about his personal experience. Vyacheslav has been living with his family in a house made of a solid log for four years now. And according to him, if he knew all the "nuances" at the time of choosing the material, he would build a house of brick or blocks. Below in the text - his personal "Top reasons why you should not build a house from a log house." To maintain authenticity, we left the text almost unchanged, making only light stylistic changes.

Why did we want a wooden house?

1. Once we saw with our own eyes a log house - we immediately liked it, it looked very beautiful, we wanted the same one for ourselves.

2. For practical reasons: initially it was assumed that we would come on weekends, heat a solid fuel boiler and quickly warm up the house (the concept changed during the construction process).

3. Environmental friendliness: I wanted the house to breathe easily, smell like a pine forest. In general, I liked the traditional concept of living in a private house: wooden frame, grass near the house, forest nearby, etc.

summer house

Start of construction

back view

Here we managed to learn a little from the mistakes of others. My friend, in order to save money, bought the wood himself. As a result, a timber truck came to him, the cutters selected suitable logs, half of the timber truck went back ... As a result, 120 cubic meters of timber turned into 200. I worked with contractors who sorted the wood at their base, and they brought to the site only what which really went to work.

view from the yard

Initially, I did not worry about the construction process, as I trusted the contractors. In the course of the work, they nevertheless “screwed up” in places, but not much (more on that below). The logs were laid on the moss. Chopped and hewn - by hand. After they made a “box” with a roof, the house stood for a year.

from the entrance

Of the interesting things in the construction process, I can note the discrepancy between the actual dimensions of the rooms and their visual perception until the moment the ceilings are covered. I personally measured a 19-meter kitchen with a tape measure, because visually it seemed that there were 7-8 meters. And so - with all the rooms.

Finishing

The most interesting thing began at this stage. Firstly, the whole house needs to be sanded from two sides. This work is dreary and not cheap - you can look for prices for work on the Internet, four years ago it cost us a pretty penny (375 sq. M. At $ 5 per 1 sq. M.). Moreover, when estimating the area of work, the bend of the log is added to the formula "height for length" - the area increases.

top plinth - curved fit

Then - impregnation ($ 0.7 per 1 sq.m.). Then - painting in one layer. Then - in the second (both - $ 1 per 1 sq.m.). Moreover, in order for the materials to lay down with high quality, paint the house by hand(which stretches the process in time). After all these procedures, the question of a "breathing house" and "the smell of pine" was removed by itself.
We did not make a basement, so our foundation is simple: PGS pillow, insulation, concrete. The builders pouring the floor did not cut the lower logs to the end in doorways. As a result, a year later, in these places, the floor tiles (ceramic granite) were “torn”. I had to remove the entire damaged tile, cut out the logs, fill the floor with a new one. It turned out to be easier than somehow cutting out the laid tiles - not every tile cutter takes porcelain stoneware.

a crack in the tile remained in the doorway

To the "pleasant" moments of finishing is added regular finishing off the moss stolen by birds, and sealing joints with sealant. This work is long, costly and dreary. Fortunately, there is a sealant manufacturer in Belarus that offers products at reasonable prices. If I had missed the import, I would have gone bankrupt to hell.

Laying communications in a log house also becomes a problem. Plug socket into round log- the same task (and the "tariff" is appropriate). You can't hide pipes inside. Attaching a plinth to an uneven log is also not an easy task, you will have to “think” and work with your hands.

plinth - plank + mastic

Due to the long shrinkage of the house, doors and windows were inserted into the frame of the boards. If you try to bet on a "live log" - the risks of getting "sloppy" increase significantly. Like risk of damage to the door or window. But even this “trick” did not help us personally: for 4 years of operation, the doors were adjusted twice. And some windows still "siphon".

House operation

kitchen box (on the left against the wall)

The house is constantly "breathing". When the heating is on, when it's not, everything moves. To hang the kitchen, it was necessary to build a metal frame, sheathe it with drywall, and only attach the kitchen to it. No other way. So loved by our citizens sliding wardrobes it is absolutely impossible to establish - there is nothing to "attach" to, and the wall and ceiling live their own lives. The ladder, which was “tied” to the wall, ended up warped, the railing was torn out.

instead of wardrobe...

Any decorative boxes that cover communications turn into a work of art - they need to be somehow combine with log wall , and this process turns into a jewelry fit with a construction cutter in hand.

The joints smeared with sealant were greased twice in 4 years. Does not matter - cracks appear. The wooden floor on the 2nd floor also dries out, there are also cracks, and this is inevitable.

crack between logs

By autumn mice enter the house, in the gap between the lower log and the foundation. It is not yet possible to block this road for them, since the interface line is very uneven. And if on the main "animal paths" this phenomenon can be "nullified" with the help of poison and mousetraps, then when mice frolic between logs without coming "to visit" - nothing can be done with them. Damn it.

Also between logs every year wasps make their nests. The issue is resolved with the help of Dichlorvos. But it still has to be decided.

In autumn and early winter on the second floor - the kingdom of flies. First flies get in the cracks for the winter. Then the house becomes warm - and they climb inside. Against this brethren, we have not yet come up with any other means than a vacuum cleaner.

And also we - best friends sellers of Tikkurila paint. There need to tint, here you need to tint: steps, joints, terrace. They did not keep accurate records of production, but a lot of buckets of paint were bought over 4 years.

In spring, when pine blossoms (and then also birch), the whole the house is covered yellow pollen. And - a thick layer. On a flat vertical wall, it would simply not accumulate so much. This issue is solved by washing the walls with a jet from Karcher. But again, it needs to be addressed.

Bath

Inside the house dust accumulates on the bend of the logs. There are no universal means here - dust can only be removed manually, in the old fashioned way.

Sometimes spontaneous, inexplicable bursts of life happen inside the house - some bugs, midges, insects appear, but I have not installed any system here yet.

In the bath, near the bed for guests, some perky creature lives in a log, crunching on a log all night. It is not possible to find and kill her.

And finally - about the famous "winter" forest. My house was cut down from February. Bath - from the August. Haven't noticed a difference yet.

Issue price

Given all of the above, such housing cannot be called cheap. House with a total area of 240 sq. m. (with a small attic floor) cost me $ 40,000 only at the first stage: foundation, box and roof. Then the project expanded, we also built a utility building, a bathhouse from the same “round timber”, ennobled the territory, the street next to the house. All this (together with materials, finishes, windows, doors and a geothermal boiler) cost us $ 180,000 in total.

shrinkage to the roof

Conclusion: What we got for these torments is very beautiful house. And some indescribable pleasure from the feeling of a thick, uneven log, its rough appearance, rich texture ... Friends who began to build across the site from mine listened to approximately the same text, my complaints and advice to build from blocks. And in the end ... they also cut down the log house. Here, of course, everyone decides for himself. But I gave you fair warning.

Interviewed by: Dmitry Malakhov