The most profitable house to build. What is the cheapest material for building a house? Brick: pros and cons

At the current stage of development, there are more than 20 technologies used to build private houses. It is impossible to say unequivocally that this technology is the best, and this one is completely bad. They are all imperfect, they all have positive and negative aspects. To correctly answer the question “What kind of house to build”, you need to decide on the basic requirements that you place on your home. Choose a technology for them. Everyone has their own definition of the best home, and so do the materials and technologies.

What are houses made of?

All external walls can be divided into two large groups: inertial and non-inertial. Inertia houses are built from materials with high heat capacity. They tend to accumulate heat and then emit it. Moreover, the radiation comes in the infrared range. Such houses are warm even at relatively low air temperatures. The feeling is this: infrared heat is better perceived by our body.

The walls of non-inertial houses are a “pie” of materials of different composition and sequence. But they all have one property: the materials have good or excellent thermal insulation properties, but have low heat capacity. The main difference between houses of this type is that it is not the walls that heat up, but the air, and it warms up quickly, but also cools down. In order for the heat to last for a long time, the rooms are made airtight. And this has its downsides. Let's talk about the properties and materials of both in more detail.

Inertial materials

Inertial wall material tends to accumulate heat and remove moisture. To retain the accumulated heat for as long as possible, external insulation is required for them. The advantage of rooms made of inertial materials is that in the absence of heating they “hold” the temperature for quite a long time. It follows that such technologies are more appropriate for permanent residences. For temporary visits - for dachas - they are inconvenient and irrational: it takes a lot of time for the walls to warm up. In the meantime, the walls are cold and the rooms are chilly.

Materials for the construction of inertia houses:

• ceramic brick (solid and hollow);
• adobe;
• ceramic blocks;
• foam block and monolith from it;
• gas block;
• expanded clay concrete blocks and monolith;
• adobe houses;
• cinder block.

The main disadvantage of houses of this type is the relatively high cost and duration of construction. Somewhere these shortcomings are more pronounced, somewhere less, but in general they are like this: a strong foundation is required, the walls take a long time to build.

Inertia-free materials

Inertia-free houses are built from materials with low energy intensity. These are mainly modern materials and technologies that provide a multi-layer cake for walls. The main point is that almost all of them have low vapor permeability or do not conduct vapor at all. It’s the same with air: it doesn’t pass through walls. This means that to regulate humidity and ensure the flow of fresh air and remove carbon dioxide, a competent ventilation system is necessary.

The main requirement for inertia-free houses is compliance with the technology and the tightness of the room, and ventilation is necessary to regulate air conditions

Inertia-free houses are built from the following materials:

• 3D panel, MDM, SOTA - inside the system there is polystyrene foam, and outside there is densely reinforced concrete;
• Thermohouse, Izodom - concrete is poured into permanent formwork made of polystyrene foam;
• polystyrene concrete - a new type of material - concrete with polystyrene filler;
• sandwich panels - most often they are used to build industrial facilities, but sometimes, in order to save money, they build country houses;
• SIP panels - insulation (mineral wool or polystyrene) between two OSB boards;
• frame houses - insulation between plywood or OSB slabs:
• Vacuum panels are a new construction technology that is not yet used in private housing construction, but already exists.

The main advantage of non-inertial houses is the short time and low cost of construction. Since the walls are light, foundations for such buildings require inexpensive ones. Since they account for a significant part of construction costs, the overall reduction in construction costs is significant. If you are deciding what kind of house to build and the key constraint is money and/or time to build it, you may need to choose from these materials. But at the same time, we must not forget about the design of ventilation systems and be sure to take its cost into account when making calculations, otherwise living will be very uncomfortable, and in some cases, impossible.

This is a diagram used by sellers of new technologies to demonstrate their advantages, “forgetting” to talk about the disadvantages

Wooden houses

Wooden houses stand apart. These are houses made of logs or timber (regular, profiled, glued). On one side the walls breathe, on the other there is little inertia. Previously, such buildings could be classified as partially inertial due to the fact that in the center of the building there was a stove with a large heat capacity. The heat accumulated in it warmed the house until the fire burned.

When building wooden houses today, few people install a brick stove for heating. This is mainly water heating. Therefore, houses can be classified as non-inertial: if a large-diameter log still has at least some significant inertia, then the heat stored in a 150*150 mm beam is definitely not enough. You have to either add fuel at night, or install combination boilers that run on electricity at night. There is another way out - to do external insulation. The measure is understandable and quite effective, but only if the insulation and finishing material are vapor permeable.

Without proper care, a wooden house will look like this

There is another important aspect: in order for wooden houses to have a normal appearance, they require annual maintenance. This means that every year or every two years (depending on the type of processing) you will either have to work with a brush yourself or hire workers. Without this, a beautiful building will turn black and unattractive. Actually, then there is a way out - to do the exterior finishing, but this is also an expense, as is the maintenance of wood - impregnation, paint cost a lot.

As you can see, there really are no ideal technologies. To decide which house to build, you need to proceed from your situation, decide on the key points that will allow you to choose the material for the walls and the technology for its construction correctly and with awareness of all the nuances. Let's take a closer look at a few of the most typical home requirements.

Which house is cheaper to build?

Let's start with the fact that the costs of constructing the foundation and frame of a house from all industrially produced inertial materials are definitely more expensive than from non-inertial ones. They have a higher density, and this is reflected in the mass of the building, which leads to an increase in the cost of the foundation.

The most expensive house is brick. We will take it as a standard and compare the cost of construction using other technologies with it. The next most expensive is made from ceramic blocks - about 90% of the price of brick. The most inexpensive of this group are adobe and adobe houses.

An adobe house is 100% environmentally friendly, warm, and cheap. A fairy tale, not a technology

If you have time and the weather permits, over the summer you can make and dry adobe bricks for a very large house. In terms of the cost of materials, they can compete with many modern technologies. Especially if you have the opportunity to extract clay yourself. The remaining fillers are straw, manure, etc. - also either free or cost a little. The only point is that it takes time to make bricks, and sometimes it is more expensive than money - after all, there are no industrially made ones. Another limitation is the climate - not everyone’s weather will allow them to dry the clay to stone density. So this technology is available for low-cost construction in regions with hot summers.

More expensive than adobe, but significantly cheaper than brick and block buildings. Aerated concrete, expanded clay concrete and foam concrete blocks require approximately 70-75% of the estimate for the construction of a similar brick house. But aerated concrete requires excellent waterproofing and using it in areas with high groundwater levels is risky. Cinder concrete is inexpensive. By the way, you can also do it yourself. But the service life of slag concrete is about 50 years. Further it will be destroyed.

Even less - about 30-50% of the cost of a brick house is required for the construction of non-inertial houses. The cheapest so far are SIP panels. They cost no more than a third of the price of brick construction. For frames - about 40% will be required. But at the same time, the service life is about 25-50 years, depending on the quality of the materials and the accuracy of the technology. However, for this entire group, adherence to technology is key: even small deviations can have disastrous consequences.

Once again, please note that the cost of the ventilation system must be added to the cost of all non-inertial boxes. If it works out - natural, if not - forced will be necessary (it is much more expensive to install and maintain). But there must be ventilation, and it must be calculated correctly.

The construction of a wooden house will require about 60-70% of the cost of a brick one. But it is also necessary to include caulking and sanding of the frame. You won't be able to get by without them. However, if a wooden house is immediately planned for finishing, sanding is not required.

What is the fastest way to build?

The longest construction period is for a brick house (again). Its construction will take at least a year. This is if all technical processes proceed without delays. It will take about 6 months to make a box of building blocks from finished adobe. It takes 1-3 months to build a house from all types of panels. The same amount will be required to assemble frame houses.

Once again, wooden houses do not fit into any group. If you cut the corners on the spot, you will be assembling the walls for about a month, perhaps two. If you ordered a ready-made project and a layout with cut-out bowls was delivered to the site, you can put it together in a few days. Add time to the foundation and roof. The total will be up to six months. But you won’t be able to move in immediately after the walls have been removed - you will need to wait at least six months or even a year before finishing can begin - it depends on the initial importance of the material.

Only a house made of laminated veneer lumber can be finished immediately. All other wooden houses must stand for at least six months - the wood must dry out and shrink, take on its operational dimensions. The difference in height can be up to 15-20 cm per frame, and this is a lot. Therefore, finishing begins only after 9-12 months. So in this case, putting up a box and quickly moving into it will not work.

So, there is a sea of ​​features. But if you are deciding what kind of house to build in the country, and you plan to stay there only during the season, and you don’t want or have the opportunity to spend a lot of money, then pay attention to frames or SIP panels. They are inexpensive and can be built quickly. Just study the technology thoroughly: they don’t like mistakes.

My home is my castle

If we talk about the strength of the walls, then brick houses come first. These are definitely bulletproof walls. Quite strong - expanded clay concrete, cinder block, adobe technologies. Their density is also enough to stop a bullet. With other building blocks it is a little more difficult - you need to look at the density.

Expanded clay concrete is a good choice - dense enough to be reliable, average in price and construction speed (about 6 months)

Houses with concrete components 3D panel, MDM, SOTA, Thermod, Izod are quite durable. All other technologies are in no way an obstacle to serious shock loads. Of course, nothing can break through them, but they are definitely not a fortress.

As you can see, it is impossible to say unequivocally that any technology is the best. Weigh the advantages and disadvantages, choose the most important points and determine for yourself what kind of house will be built so that it meets your requirements.

It is believed that stone is the best material for building a country house. Due to its durability, strength and adaptability to almost any geographical area, stone is very popular in the construction industry. However, is stone really the best material?

Despite the fact that everything seems to be in order with oil and gas production in Russia, the price of energy resources in our country is steadily rising. And so, following the countries of Europe, the Russian Federation adopted in 2003 new standards for thermal resistance of enclosing and load-bearing structures (SNiP 23-02-2003 “Thermal protection of buildings”).

But even before the adoption of new SNiPs, new effective building materials and technologies came to us (and continue to come).

What should the walls (enclosing structures) of a house be like in order to comply with building heating standards? The answer to this question is not entirely clear.

If you carry out calculations, it turns out that, for example, a brick wall should be 2.3 m thick, and a concrete wall – 6 m. Therefore, the wall structure should be combined, that is, multi-layered. Moreover, one “layer” in this case will perform a load-bearing function, and the other will provide heat conservation.

A certain difficulty lies in the fact that the parts of this “layer cake” are too different in their physical and chemical properties. Therefore, in order to combine them, we have to come up with ingenious construction technologies.

A little physics

What parameters seem to be the most important when choosing a material for building an energy-efficient warm house? This is, first of all, the load-bearing capacity of the material, as well as its heat capacity and thermal conductivity. Let's focus on the latter.

The unit of measurement for heat capacity - kJ/(kg °C) - indicates how much thermal energy is contained in 1 kg of material with a temperature of 1 degree Celsius. For example, consider two building materials known to everyone - wood and concrete. The heat capacity of the first is 2.3, and the second is 0.84 kJ/(kg °C) (according to SNiP II-3-79).

It turns out that wood is a much more heat-intensive material, and heating it will require more thermal energy, and when cooling it will release more joules into the environment. The concrete will heat up faster and cool down faster. However, these figures can only be obtained in theory if you compare 1 kg of absolutely dry wood and 1 kg of concrete.

For construction practice, these conditional values ​​are practically useless, because if you recalculate per square meter of a real wooden or concrete wall, for example, 20 cm, the picture changes. Here is a small table in which, for comparison, we take 1 m² of a 20 cm thick wall made of different materials (at a temperature of 20 ° C).

From the given figures it is clear that to heat 1 m² of concrete wall by 1 degree, it will be necessary to generate almost 20 times more thermal energy than to heat a wooden one. That is, a wooden or frame house can be heated to the required temperature much faster than a concrete or brick one, because the weight (mass) of brick and concrete is greater.

Let us also remember that in addition to specific heat capacity, there is also thermal conductivity of building materials. This is a property that characterizes the intensity of heat transfer in a material. With increasing temperature, humidity and density of a substance, the thermal conductivity coefficient increases.

The thermal resistance of a homogeneous enclosing structure, defined as the ratio of the thermal conductivity coefficient of the wall material to the wall thickness in meters, must be no less than the required heat transfer resistance (depending on the temperature of the coldest five-day period in the region and other climatic parameters).

For the Moscow region, heat transfer resistance is in the range of 3.1–3.2 m °C/W. And in Novosibirsk, where frosts in winter reach an average of 42 °C, this figure is much higher. It should also be taken into account that not only walls take part in the heating processes, but also everything that is inside the house - ceiling structures, floors, windows, furniture, as well as air. Architectural features of enclosing structures and the presence of “cold bridges” play a significant role.

Wood as a building material

For comfort in the house, a combination of sufficient heat capacity and low thermal conductivity of the wall material is important. In this regard, wood has no equal. This is also a good material for seasonal homes, where the owners come only occasionally in winter.

A wooden house that is not heated for a long time is better able to withstand sudden changes in temperature.

The condensation that forms when the heating is turned on is partially absorbed by the wood. Then the walls gradually release the accumulated moisture to the heated air, thereby helping to maintain a favorable microclimate in the living quarters.

Coniferous species are used in construction: spruce, pine, larch, fir, and cedar. In terms of price/quality ratio, pine is the most in demand. Its heat capacity is 2.3–2.7 kJ/(kg K). Along with the ancient technology of manual felling, houses built from rounded logs, profiled and ordinary timber, gun carriages, and laminated veneer lumber have also gained popularity.

Whatever you choose, keep in mind the general rule for wooden walls - the thicker the better. And here you will have to proceed from the capabilities of your wallet, since as the thickness of the log increases, the cost of the material and the price of work increase.

In order to meet the required heat-technical standards, the log (rounded or hand-cut) must have a diameter of at least 28 cm, and the profiled beam must have a thickness of at least 24 cm. Then the house does not need to be insulated from the outside.

Meanwhile, the most common size of profiled timber is 20×20 cm, length up to 6 m. So the developer will have to immediately calculate and decide what thickness of walls to build: 20×20 cm, followed by insulation with mineral wool and cladding (siding, lining, façade panels) or thicker ones without insulation and cladding.

Separately, let's say about ordinary (not profiled) timber measuring 15x15 cm. It is very popular in country house construction, but nevertheless, it is better not to build a house for year-round use from such material. It is only suitable for a small summer garden house. However, the appearance of such a house is unlikely to please you.

No matter how hard you try to caulk the gaps between the crowns, they still appear due to warping and uneven shrinkage of the wood. Birds take away caulk to make nests. Under slanting summer rain, the wall gets wet through and through, and there is no need to talk about freezing in winter.

If you still choose this type of construction, then first wait for the new log structure to settle (six months or a year) and begin its external insulation and cladding. A suspended insulation system (ventilated façade) would be optimal. Let us note that it is undesirable and even harmful to insulate wooden walls from the inside.

Glued laminated timber...

It is somewhat superior to massive timber and rounded logs in strength and hardness. Due to its layered structure, the product is not subject to cracking and warping, and is resistant to rotting. Nevertheless, the thermal characteristics of laminated veneer lumber are only slightly better than those of ordinary pine logs.

You can live in a house made of timber, where the walls are 20 cm thick, even in winter. However, heating will require high costs. Such housing also does not comply with the requirements of SNiP 23.02–2003 “Thermal protection of buildings” (for the middle zone Ro = 3.49 m²·°C/W).

Meanwhile, the cost of houses made of laminated veneer lumber varies between 40-80 thousand rubles. per m². The question arises: is it worth spending money on 20 cm thick walls first, and then on insulation and cladding?

And it’s a pity to cover the very decorative surface of laminated timber with a curtain wall. So you need to think hard here. For comparison, a house made of hand-cut logs will cost 40–70 thousand rubles. per m², the average cost of a house made of rounded logs and profiled timber will be about 20–25 thousand rubles. for 1 m².

Proper insulation of wooden walls

Using special dowels, thermal insulation slabs made of basalt wool are attached to the walls. To prevent atmospheric moisture from penetrating into the insulation, the slabs are covered with a superdiffusion hydro-windproof membrane (film).

Such membranes protect the facade from rain, snow, condensation and wind. At the same time, they allow steam coming from inside the house to pass through well. Next, guide rails are nailed to the walls at a certain pitch for attaching the finishing material.

The finishing can be vinyl siding, wooden lining of different widths and thicknesses, block house (planed board made in the form of a segment of a rounded log) and other materials. It is important to leave vents at the top and bottom to ensure air circulation in the ventilation ducts formed by the wooden guide rails.

Frame construction technologies

Perhaps not everyone knows, but the frame structure is one of the oldest. An example of this is half-timbered houses, which have a rigid supporting frame of posts, beams and braces. Our ancestors filled the space between the frame elements with a kind of insulation - reeds or straw mixed with clay, or a more reliable material - raw brick.

The frame was covered with tar to prevent it from rotting, and the clay filling was plastered and whitewashed. Part of the frame was usually left visible, which is why half-timbered houses have a characteristic black and white appearance. The thermal characteristics of such a house are excellent; they are cool in summer and warm in winter. Today there are many options for frame technology.

Many countries, primarily the northern ones, contributed to their creation and development: Canada, the USA, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries. However, the principle is the same: wooden or metal racks, united by horizontal strapping, are sheathed on the outside with sheet materials (oriented strand boards, cement-bonded particle boards, waterproof plywood, etc.). The internal space is filled with effective insulation - mineral basalt wool.

A vapor barrier film is installed on the inside, and a hydro-windproof membrane is stretched on the outside. Next comes the decorative decoration of the walls.

A frame or frame-panel house built according to all the rules will serve you faithfully for decades. Frame and frame-panel houses can be partially or completely made from factory-produced elements, brought to the construction site and quickly assembled on site. They do not require powerful foundations; pile and bored structures are suitable.

A frame house can take on any form and look like wood, brick, stone, or plastered. The same can be said about the interior decoration. The choice is huge: fiberboard, plaster, drywall, wallpaper, painting, wooden lining, panels and other materials. It is convenient to place communications, electrical wires, and heating pipes in the depths of frame walls, which has a positive effect on interior design.

After installing the equipment and completing the finishing, the frame house is completely ready for living. If you visit your country house on short visits, on weekends and holidays, there is practically no alternative to a frame structure. It can be warmed up quickly, literally overnight.

But if the heating is turned off, the “ice age” will come just as quickly. This happens because, unlike concrete and brick, a frame wall has virtually no place to retain heat. Even wooden cladding cannot cope with this function due to its low mass.

But mineral wool has a different vocation: it plays the role of a reliable boundary between two temperature environments - cold external and warm internal. So it won’t be possible to heat a frame house for future use. As for the price, the general rule “Cheap is never good” applies here too.

Excessive savings on construction are inappropriate. The price per square meter greatly depends on the manufacturer of building elements, the distance to the construction site, and the wages of workers. On average, a turnkey house will cost approximately 19–24 thousand rubles. for 1 m² of total area.

Brick

Clay brick has always been a symbol of something stable and indestructible. Indeed, brick is durable, frost-resistant, and immune to atmospheric influences. But the thermal performance of the material leaves much to be desired.

Brick products can be divided into three groups:

1. Solid products:

• ordinary brick (density 1700–1800 kg/m³, thermal conductivity coefficient 0.6–0.7 W/m°C);
• conditionally efficient brick (density 1400–1600 kg/m³, thermal conductivity coefficient 0.35–0.5 W/m°C);
• efficient brick (density less than 1100 kg/m³, thermal conductivity coefficient 0.18–0.25 W/m°C).

2. Hollow bricks with a percentage of voids from 5 to 40%. This also includes facing products.

3. Porous bricks, including large-format stone bricks. The low thermal conductivity coefficient of the latter is achieved due to closed air pores, as well as the special structure of the material with honeycomb-shaped voids.

If we take into account walls with a thickness of 510 mm or 640 mm, covered with the necessary layer of “warm” plaster, then only effective ceramic products reach the standard. Walls made of solid and conditionally efficient bricks require additional insulation.

To solve this problem, three options are proposed: installing a plaster heat-insulating system, installing a suspended facade insulation system (ventilated façade) and constructing three-layer walls with a heat-insulating layer. A brick house is good for permanent residence. Brick structures “breathe”, that is, they are able to provide air exchange in the thickness of the walls, and have solid thermal inertia.

Once heated, such a wall retains heat for a long time even with minimal heating, gradually releasing it into the surrounding space. That is, if the heating unit suddenly breaks down, it will be possible to hold out for a long time until the repair specialists arrive in a more or less comfortable atmosphere.

Cellular concrete

Cellular concrete is a collective term that combines finely porous building materials based on a mineral binder (lime, cement). This includes large-format blocks made of aerated concrete, gas silicate, foam concrete and foam silicate. Expanded polystyrene concrete is classified as a separate category.

The structure of the listed materials is formed by small air pores (cells). They give products made from cellular concrete a high thermal insulation capacity and a relatively low volumetric mass.

Walls built using single-row block masonry technology do not require additional insulation. They also do not need a powerful foundation. In terms of its environmental and other characteristics, this material is close to wood, but differs favorably from it in that it does not burn or deform when humidity changes. At the same time, in terms of its thermal performance, a wall made of cellular concrete is superior to a brick one.

Cellular concrete is divided into thermal insulation (density up to 400 kg/m³, porosity 92%), structural and thermal insulation (density 400–800 kg/m³, porosity 82%) and structural (density 800–1400 kg/m³, porosity up to 66%) .

That is, the higher the density of the material, the lower its thermal insulation ability. It is the finely porous structure that provides the material, with a relatively low weight, good heat and sound insulation ability, as well as vapor permeability (which is generally not characteristic of monolithic concrete structures).

If we talk about high-quality aerated concrete products, then for the construction of a country house you should use blocks with a density of at least 500 kg/m³. Such aerated concrete is produced in large high-tech industries. The blocks are distinguished by geometric accuracy and compliance of the actual characteristics of the material with the indicators declared by the manufacturer.

To ensure that aerated concrete walls are of the required quality, the masonry is laid using a special mineral glue. This ensures a joint thickness of only 1–3 mm (for comparison, masonry with cement-sand mortar produces joints of 12–15 mm).

At the same time, heat loss is significantly reduced, because thick seams are real “cold bridges” through which heat leaves the house. Foam concrete is more affordable than aerated concrete (for comparison, the first will cost 1,300 rubles/m³, and the second – 2,800 rubles/m³), so many developers are turning their attention to it.

But the fact is that foam concrete blocks can be produced on special mobile installations in a rather artisanal way. Therefore, small businesses are often involved in their production. To obtain a finely porous structure, special substances are used - foaming agents.

These are mainly tanning extracts from the leather industry, various lyes, etc., that is, organic compounds that have a limited shelf life and different foaming abilities.

To reduce production costs, instead of quartz sand, manufacturers use substitutes in the form of industrial waste: fly ash, slag, etc. Hardening of the blocks occurs under natural conditions. The process proceeds unevenly, causing shrinkage deformations.

All this leads to, to put it mildly, vague technical characteristics of the final product. The material has sufficient strength and retains heat well, but only if it is manufactured according to all the rules.

Expanded polystyrene concrete (from RUB 3,500/m³) has a cellular structure, which is formed by specially treated polystyrene granules. Polymer “grains”, consisting of 90% air, provide expanded polystyrene concrete with the highest heat saving indicators among cellular concrete.

Its thermal conductivity coefficient is 0.055–0.175 W/m² °C. In addition, this filling is water-repellent, which increases the water resistance of the material as a whole. In this review, we looked at the main, most common building materials and technologies.

Every good owner sooner or later faces some type of construction. Some are building a garage, some are building a bathhouse, and some are planning to build a large mansion on their own. This is where the question arises about what is the best material to choose for building a house.

The main stages of construction include pouring the foundation and erecting walls. For any owner, it is important that the aesthetic appearance of the building is of a high level, the walls are warm, strong, and in general the costs of building materials are not very high.

The most popular materials for building a house

The modern construction market is rich and diverse. Let's take a closer look at the top five most popular building materials for building a house.

• Solid profiled timber.
• Rounded log.
• Brick.
• Foam blocks.
• Thermal panels.

What to give preference to? Each owner makes this decision independently, but for this it is worth studying all the pros and cons of each of the materials.

Tree

Wooden building materials for building a house have become very popular these days. Wood walls have low thermal conductivity, but stable heat capacity. Even if the house has not been heated for some time, with the furnace running, the resulting condensation will be absorbed into the wood. After this, the already heated air draws out moisture, and a special, favorable microclimate is created in the room. Coniferous species (pine, spruce, fir, larch, cedar) are often used in construction. In addition to the popular solid profiled timber, rounded logs, glued laminated timber, regular timber and carriages are used.

Solid profiled timber

Material that has undergone special processing. The content of wood resin in profiled timber is very high, thanks to which buildings made from it are durable and are not exposed to aggressive environmental influences.

Even in the last century, when choosing finishing and building materials, rarely did anyone choose profiled timber. When erecting the walls, manual adjustment was required. Now, thanks to modern technologies, beams are processed on machines in such a way that they simply fit together perfectly, the gaps between them are minimal.

This environmentally friendly material is not too expensive. The walls retain heat inside for a long time; they can be erected in a matter of days. Smooth, machine-processed beams allow you to assemble a house like a puzzle.

Rounded log

When studying building materials for building a house, pay attention to rounded logs. Like timber, this building material is made from coniferous trees. Unlike the first, rounded logs allow the construction of more durable structures, all thanks to the shape of the material. Construction from rounded logs is also carried out in a short time.

Brick

The most popular building material for building walls is brick. Brick buildings are quite acceptable in appearance, very strong in strength, durable, and also environmentally friendly.

Sand-lime brick. This building material is very common. Buildings made from such bricks can last for decades.

Clay brick. It has always been considered a symbol of something stable, indestructible. This brick has increased strength, frost resistance, and immunity to aggressive atmospheric influences. However, the thermal characteristics of such building materials do not always meet expectations.

To build reliable buildings, high-quality building materials are required. Brick factories offer a wide range of their products, which can be divided into three categories:

1. Solid bricks, these include the following types: conditionally effective, ordinary, effective.
2. Hollow bricks, the proportion of voids in them reaches 40%. Cladding products also fall into this category.
3. as well as large-format stone-bricks. The high thermal conductivity of this category is ensured thanks to the honeycomb-shaped structural material.

Disadvantages and advantages of brick

During transportation, especially over long distances, a small percentage of products lose their presentation, and brick materials for building the walls of a house crumble. Their cost is quite high.

The ability of brick to retain heat is much less than that of wood. Walls built from conditionally efficient or solid brick always require additional insulation. This problem is solved by three options: a ventilated facade - installation of a suspended insulation system, a heat-insulating plaster system, as well as three-layer walls with a thermal layer.

The brick house is comfortable to live in. This design “breathes”, provides air exchange, and at the same time has active thermal inertia. Once heated, brick walls retain heat for a long time and gradually release it into the room.

Foam blocks

If you need high-quality and at the same time inexpensive building materials to build a house, then pay attention to foam blocks.

Foam blocks have such qualities as heat resistance, high strength, and low weight. Sudden temperature changes do not affect walls built from foam blocks in any way. They do not crack or expand. There are many air bubbles inside the block, which increase the thermal insulation effect. For comparison: foam concrete walls have a thermal conductivity eight times higher than conventional concrete walls. The material is good not only for the construction of main walls, but also for internal floors. Thanks to this, the entire structure retains heat perfectly. Foam concrete structures do not require additional insulation. Heating costs are significantly reduced, by approximately 30%.

Advantages of foam concrete structures

• Due to the low weight, the pressure on the foundation is reduced.
• Savings in finishing. Regular wall putty is sufficient; plaster is not necessary.
• Reduced labor intensity. One 15 kg foam block replaces 20 bricks, the total weight of which is 80 kg.
• Cellular foam concrete blocks have excellent sound insulation properties.
• Brick factories produce such building materials in sufficient quantities. The popularity of foam blocks is growing every day.
• In terms of environmental friendliness, this material resembles wood. The room maintains optimal humidity and the walls breathe. Unlike wood, blocks do not rot, do not burn, and do not rust like metal.
• Foam concrete is often used as a heat insulator; it can withstand high temperatures (up to +400 degrees).
• The blocks are very easy to process using ordinary hand tools.

Disadvantages of foam concrete

When we choose materials for the walls of a house, we try to study not only the advantages, but also their inherent disadvantages; foam concrete also has some. These include:

• Fragility of the material.
• Every three rows of walls must be reinforced.
• Foam concrete quickly absorbs moisture, which somewhat reduces thermal conductivity.
• To avoid dampness, you need to create waterproofing, moisture-resistant protection between the foundation and the walls.
• Vapor permeability of foam concrete. Vapor barrier is required.

Frame thermal panels

If you need inexpensive building materials to build a house, then you should pay attention to frame thermal panels. The advantages of this material include low thermal conductivity, relative strength and quick assembly. The downside is the lack of naturalness.

Thermal panels today are very often used for finishing frame-panel houses. Their design consists of extruded polystyrene foam (as a thermal insulation substrate) and high performance properties allow the use of thermal panels in the construction of houses using Canadian technologies. The most important characteristics of this façade material, which have ensured wide demand, certainly include the absence of moisture absorption, low thermal conductivity, high compressive and impact strength, resistance to fire and any biological effects. The material is easy to install and further use.

The finishing and construction walls of the house must meet all modern requirements, then the structure will delight the owners for many years. Frame thermal panels provide an attractive, aesthetic, solid appearance to the building. It is for this reason that this material is very often used for the construction of cottages. built using Canadian technology, the finished structure looks like smooth, flawless brickwork.

If a building is lined with thermal panels, heat loss is immediately reduced by 30%, all thanks to the substrate, which consists of extruded polystyrene foam. The clinker tiles are connected to the insulation under high pressure with heavy-duty adhesive. The finest cutting of expanded polystyrene sheets allows for high-quality tight joints. In order for the facade to acquire a finished look, in addition to the main panels, you can purchase various additional elements to neatly decorate the corners.

We presented the most common building materials on the modern market. How and what material to choose for building a house, whether to give preference to price, naturalness, aesthetic qualities or technical characteristics, is up to you to decide.

The costs of building a house of the same area can vary by two or more times.

You can reduce the construction budget if you invest your own labor, knowledge, energy, and talents into this matter.

An inexpensive house should not be:

• Very small. Its size should suit your family's needs.
• Inconvenient. It should suit your family's lifestyle.
• Low quality. You can use cheaper, but high-quality traditional solutions. Typically, such decisions are easier to implement.

What can you save on?

1. You can save a lot by choosing a house design which should have economical solutions for the layout and structural elements of the house.

Architects offering ready-made projects are not interested in the cost of the house. Their task is to charm the developer with a beautiful facade and sell the project.

A beautiful picture acts like a drug - the developer decides at all costs build a large, complex and therefore very expensive house.

The project for an inexpensive house is a one-story house with a gable roof on a shallow foundation with floors on the ground. Total area 123 m 2 . The house has no internal load-bearing walls. There is no attic ceiling - the suspended ceiling is attached to the roof trusses. The angle of inclination of the roof slopes is 20 degrees. In summer, the living space increases due to the large, more than 20 m², a terrace completely covered and protected by walls, pos. 13.

An inexpensive house project is:

A rectangular house with a gable roof;
a one-story house without expensive interfloor ceilings, stairs and numerous windows;
a house without a basement, because if there is one, costs will increase by at least 30%;
house on low and ;
a house without unusual elements - bay windows, arched windows, tympanums, columns, balconies, pilasters, stairs, two-level rooms, winter gardens;
a roof with two, or at most five slopes (sometimes there are fifteen of these slopes!). Corners, valleys, hatches, roof windows and many tin elements - such a roof can cost 40% of construction costs;
external walls, the simplest to construct;
standard size windows;
simple interior and exterior wall decoration;
traditional facade made of cement-lime plaster.

The simple form of the house is the embodiment of the ultra-modern architectural style of the Barn house. A distinctive feature of the style is its exquisite laconicism, which is achieved by the correct choice of proportions, as well as the texture and color of the exterior decoration, in harmony with the surrounding space.

Devote maximum time and energy to choosing an economical home design.

Read articles on choosing the main parameters of a house project:

2. At finishing works. Option “minimum”: walls with traditional plaster or plaster, laminate on the floor, simple plumbing in the bathroom.

3. On materials. You can entrust the selection, purchase and delivery of materials to the construction site to the construction contractor - you have less worries. But if you want to save money, then take on this work yourself.

You can buy materials from well-known brands, or you can purchase the same materials from local or lesser-known manufacturers. Moreover, they will not be inferior in quality to the first ones, but their price will be lower. To save money and not make a mistake in choosing, collect all available information about the manufacturer, prices on the construction market in your and neighboring cities, as well as reviews about the quality of the product.

However, remember the basic rule of the market - quality costs money.

Many sellers give seasonal discounts from prices during a period when demand for building materials falls. This usually happens from November to February. Keep an eye on prices and purchase expensive materials during this period.

What to build a house from, what material?

SNiP 02/23/2003 proposes to carry out, by making appropriate calculations, optimization of the building shell according to.

For different structures of house shells (walls, floors), the total cost of construction is calculated 1 m 2 wall or ceiling surfaces, rub/m 2. The heating costs of a house built using these different shell designs are then determined. For each design, a payback period is found - the period of time during which construction costs will be recouped.

In different regions, depending on the cost of the fuel and building materials used, as well as the severity of the climate, different results are obtained for the payback period of a particular wall or ceiling structure.

If you do not have specific preferences on what to build a house from, then find out the results of such calculations from local designers. Choose the wall and ceiling design option with the shortest payback period for construction costs in your region.

Calculations and construction practice show that in places with a harsh climate and/or expensive fuel It is more profitable to invest in highly efficient insulation materials.

Advantageous in harsh climates or when heating with electricity build double-layer walls with a thin but durable, and therefore relatively cheap, load-bearing layer (, etc.) with a masonry thickness of 180-250 mm. and insulate them with a fairly thick layer of effective insulation - 100-300 mm.

In areas with very harsh winters in a double-layer wall It may be advantageous to lay the load-bearing part from less durable but warmer blocks: aerated concrete, gas silicate, foam concrete or porous ceramics, density 600 - 1200 kg/m 3. This solution will reduce the thickness of the layer of highly efficient insulation, but due to the lower strength of the wall material, the thickness of the walls will have to be increased.

One square meter frame wall contains the maximum amount of highly effective insulation. This is probably the most profitable wall design in terms of return on construction costs.

Frame wall of an inexpensive house for a harsh climate:

• Between the frame posts there is a mineral wool insulation board with a density of at least 45 kg/m 3, thickness 100-200 mm.
• On the outside, insulation slabs made of extruded polystyrene foam (EPS) or polystyrene foam or facade slabs made of mineral wool with a density of at least 125 kg/m 3, thickness 40 - 100 mm.

However, a frame house has features that not all developers like.

It is profitable to build a house with frame walls and in areas with less severe winters. The outer layer of insulation on a frame wall in areas with a milder climate can be omitted.

In areas with mild winters houses made from lightweight, warm porous ceramics or without additional insulation and masonry thickness no more than 510 mm.

Wooden walls made of timber or logs in most climatic zones of Russia do not meet modern requirements for heat conservation. Wooden walls of houses for year-round use require additional insulation.

In the comments, please justify your choice: cheaper, warmer, more durable, etc.

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