Quite often, when designing a private house, the future owner thinks about optimal choice materials for its construction. What is it cheap to build a house from, so that it does not affect the quality, thermal insulation, visual appeal and durability of the structure. Correct selection Using materials will help you not only build the desired home with your own hands, but also save a lot of money in the process.

Construction stages

From the very beginning, you should determine the order that must be followed when carrying out construction with your own hands:

1. The construction of the foundation begins first.
2. The construction of walls begins after checking the readiness of the foundation.
3. The next priority will be the installation of communications (heating, water supply, sewerage, electrification, gas supply) and pouring the floor.
4. The next step will be laying the floor.
5. At the very last resort a roof should be built. This kind construction work produced in spring or autumn.

The level of costs is affected by the house design, foundation, construction materials, hydro- and thermal insulation materials, installation of doors and windows

The following factors influence the level of costs:

• effective building layout;
• the depth of the foundation, materials for its construction and equipment used in its construction;
• use of inexpensive and quality materials for walls;
• heat-saving and waterproofing materials;
• view heating system;
• installation of door and window blocks;
• use of heat-saving and waterproofing agents.

Any construction must begin with drawing up a project. This approach makes it possible to initial stage avoid unnecessary expenses and optimize the project area. You should also decide what material the house will be built from.

Creating a Project

To reduce construction costs and materials, you can calculate the area of ​​the house in such a way as to comfortably place all the necessary premises in the smallest possible area and decide what material will become the basis for the walls.

To save money, when building a house, do extension-veranda, it will protect the building and serve as a wonderful summer vacation spot

To reduce heat loss, you can abandon pillars, bay windows, as well as all kinds of decorative partitions, as well as insulate basements, roofs and walls. The fewer walls a building has, the easier it is to heat it.

An excellent solution would be to build verandas and balconies that will protect the building and serve as a place to relax in summer time. It is also recommended to combine the hall with the dining room and kitchen; in this case, the total area will reduce heat loss, and minimal zoning will help create a cozy and original interior small room.

You can resist the cooling of rooms from the roof by installing an attic.

It is recommended to use reliable tile materials or tiles as roofing materials. Don't skimp on roofing material, since the service life of the building and the possibility of rational use attic floor. In addition, these materials look very decorative and improve general form buildings and are very durable, which more than pays for their high cost.

Wall materials

Because the inexpensive construction is intended not only to create beautiful and comfortable housing, but also to do it in a short time with your own hands at reasonable savings, then you should, if possible, use modern materials for interior decoration.

Scheme of insulated frame house

To build a strong frame, concrete, metal, brick or wood are used. One of the economical construction options is to install a wooden frame, which is then covered with soft insulation. This allows you to significantly lighten the structure and save on the construction of the foundation, as well as significantly reduce energy consumption for heating.

One more profitable option for the construction of walls is the construction of aerated concrete. A house made from such material is very quick and easiest to build, and you can reduce the cost of mortar and labor. The material is light and dimensional, and after finishing work it will acquire any required type, and will be no different from brick structures.

Wood is a favorite raw material for construction, but it is hardly possible to save money on it. The material itself is not that expensive, but since it is constantly subject to deformation, shrinkage, the appearance of cracks and gaps from exposure to weather conditions, and also requires careful insulation, its costs increase significantly.

The only economical material for a wooden house is the typesetting system. It is assembled in production conditions by specialists from solid structural elements.

In addition, such a house periodically requires sealing of cracks as a result of building subsidence, as well as other expensive maintenance and monitoring.

Foundation type

You can reduce the cost of building a foundation by using highly efficient structures that can reduce the weight of the walls of the house and allow you to use a lightweight version of the foundation.

The ability to build a low-lying foundation is determined by the condition of the soil and the proximity of the location groundwater.

A low foundation will save you a lot of money.

Under what conditions can a low-lying foundation be built:

1. Such a foundation is used only on non-heaving soils. Coarse sand is an ideal base for constructing a low-lying foundation.
2. Provided that a drainage system is installed. This will prevent the rise of groundwater and protect the base of the building from excess moisture.
3. It is also advisable to use waterproofing.

If the architect decides to build a low foundation and decides to use lightweight materials, then the amount saved will be quite significant.

In order to determine the appropriate type of foundation with your own hands, you should dig a hole about one meter deep. If there is no water in the hole, and the soil composition is sand, clay and stones, then we can say with certainty that it is possible to build a shallow foundation (60-80 cm). If water appears in the pit, then the foundation should be at a depth of more than one meter.

Roofing felt is used to waterproof the foundation

The solution should be thick enough and consist of cement, sand and crushed stone. Before pouring, formwork is constructed from boards. The width of the base should be 20 cm greater than the width of the walls. The use of reinforcing mesh is mandatory.

To ensure waterproofing, two layers of roofing material are laid into the foundation at ground level and then built to the required height.

After completion of construction work, the foundation should be given several months to mature, and only after that the walls should be built.

Window systems

When choosing and installing window systems with your own hands, you should pay attention not only to the quality of the window unit itself, but equally to the condition of the seals and fittings. They should provide a tight fit, high-quality warmth and sound insulation.

Poor-quality double-glazed windows will contribute to cooling the room and the formation of drafts.

The number of windows required for optimal lighting is calculated using the formula: floor area divided by 8. For example, for a room with an area of ​​40 meters, 5 windows are needed.

Heating system

The finished building requires installation of a gas or electric heating. Measures to insulate the walls, floors and basement of the building significantly reduce heat loss, but they are not able to provide comfortable temperature at home during the cold season.

The "warm floor" system is one of the most effective ways heating the room. There are two types of such flooring: electric and water. This system is quite cheap and provides pleasant warmth and comfort in the room. Purchasing and installing such a system with your own hands will allow you, without causing a significant increase in the cost of the project, to ensure savings and fit seamlessly into the interior of the house.

Comfortable distribution for this type of heating warm air from bottom to top, compared to other types, is the most correct. Whereas heating from radiators can be minimized by drafts circulating inside the room.

Knowing what is cheaper to build a house from, you can save a good amount and bring your dream home project to life with your own hands. Tips for arrangement inexpensive house They will help you build a comfortable, beautiful and ergonomic structure with your own hands, in which, using the remaining funds, you can pay maximum attention to the interior decoration of the room.

Home is what we leave behind, what connects generations. What this memory of us will be depends on us. True, the construction of a house greatly depends on both the amount of our money and the climate of the area where it will be located. And the variety of building materials today dazzles the eyes. Therefore, in order for the house to be strong, cozy and last a long time, it is necessary to take into account not only the advantages of this or that material, but also its disadvantages, so that our beauty does not decay and crumble in a few years.

Basic materials for building a house

Despite all the diversity and dissimilarity of houses, we build them from practically only two materials: wood and stone. To be fair, it is worth noting that they are specially processed and given the properties required in each specific case.

Let's look at the wood: rounded logs, plain and laminated timber, carriage. Everything seems to be made of the same material, but the characteristics of, for example, laminated veneer lumber and rounded logs differ like heaven and earth. But there are also frame houses, also consisting of wood and insulation.

By stone we generally mean not wild stone (it is mainly used for backfilling under the foundation or for decorative finishing), but artificially created. Well, since it was created by the mind and hands of a person, then the properties of the stone were given such as the person needed. And no matter how frightening the abundance of brands and standards of such stone may be, it easily fits into the following classification:

Brick;

Blocks where the binding component is cement;

Building blocks made without the use of cement, based on lime or clay.

The greatest variety of manufacturing technologies (and therefore types) exists in the second group, that is, the group of cement-based building blocks.In house construction, lightweight concrete is most often used, which differ in the brand of cement, the composition of the filler, and the composition of the heat-insulating component. And depending on these characteristics, we can distinguish cellular concrete, where air or gas bubbles serve as thermal insulation, and blocks, where expanded clay, wood chips or foam balls play this role. However, first things first...

Brick: pros and cons

Yes, brick is durable, frost-resistant, not afraid of fungus and does not rot. It is not afraid of precipitation and does not burn; solar ultraviolet radiation does not have any effect on the brick. The brick is durable and also complies with all environmental and aesthetic standards. The strength of the house is explained both by the quality of the material and the method of laying - each subsequent row of bricks knits the previous one, that is, there are no vertical seams passing through at least two rows.

This masonry requires certain skills, especially when linking corners and laying a wall more than one brick thick. Thus, the complexity of building a brick house requires highly skilled labor. Another significant drawback is the weight of the brick: a reinforced, strong foundation is needed.Due to the high thermal conductivity of brick, the house cools down quickly, and it takes several days to warm it up so that it doesn’t seem damp in the house. This can be explained quite simply: when laying, the thickness of the mortar is somewhere around 1 cm , and with small brick sizes, such a thickness of mortar is no longer a “bridge”, but a real “bridge” of cold. The delivery time for brick houses is usually delayed, since they cannot be immediately plastered for two reasons: shrinkage of the house (and the house will certainly settle due to its significant weight) and the moisture in the solution, which takes several months to completely evaporate. In addition to all these disadvantages, brick can deteriorate if it absorbs moisture before winter. And this can be possible even if all brick production technologies are followed, if you come across clay with salts dissolved in it: the water will wash the salt out of the brick and will itself occupy the voids. This is the beginning of a destructive process.

And one moment. The cost of producing bricks is no less than one and a half times more expensive than the production of other materials from which walls are built. Considering that brick is several times smaller than any other building block, the labor intensity of construction increases significantly. Together, price and labor intensity make brick house quite expensive.

Properties of cellular concrete

Cellular concrete includes foam concrete and aerated concrete blocks. Inside the concrete in the first case there are cells with air, in the second - with hydrogen. In the first case, bubbles are formed as a result of foaming; the concrete hardens under normal conditions. In the second, aluminum powder or paste is added to the solution, which, when interacting with water, releases gas (hydrogen). The solution “grows” and is sent to an autoclave, where it hardens at a certain temperature and pressure. Let's look at the pros and cons of these materials separately.

Foam concrete we knew in the middle of the last century, but we started building with it recently, when people started talking about heat conservation everywhere. Of course, air is an excellent heat insulator. At the same time, almost no sounds pass through foam concrete. Since foam blocks are light and larger in size than bricks, masonry does not become a labor-intensive process. Yes, and it’s easy to ditch walls for communication systems. How easy it is to give the block different shapes, which means you can create bay windows, make an oval wall, etc. In addition, foam concrete does not burn and is easy to transport.

The disadvantages include fairly high moisture absorption (albeit to a shallow depth). The walls require annual settlement, and they must stand on stable slab foundations, otherwise significant cracks will appear on the blocks as a result of deformations.

Aerated concrete even lighter than foam concrete, perfectly processed (it can be cutwith an ordinary hacksaw, drill with ordinary drills, etc.). Thermal insulation and noise protection functions are also excellent. Lightness requires less labor, and good heat-shielding properties reduce the number of required material. With all this, do not forget about high strength at a relatively low price.

Disadvantages can appear in two cases. The wall breathes and therefore gradually accumulates moisture. To eliminate this phenomenon, you need to finish the wall with good waterproofing. The second disadvantage is the fragility of aerated concrete, that is, the wall should not experience any movement in order to avoid cracks. And for this you need a solid strip foundation.

Other lightweight concretes

These concretes are heavier than cellular ones: instead of gas or air, which changes the properties of the wall material, they contain heavier components. Therefore, these concretes are approximately 1.2 - 1.5 times heavier than water, while dry foam concrete and aerated concrete can float on the surface of the water. However, these components are not crushed stone, gravel, but wood, expanded clay, that is, compared to heavy concrete, this material has a significantly lower specific gravity.

Expanded clay concrete contains a relatively light component(foamed and baked clay). Despite the low weight of the blocks, this material is durable and versatile (it is used not only for load-bearing walls, but also partitions, and also fill frames in monolithic housing construction). The material is an excellent sound insulator, it is more moisture resistant than concrete, and has better resistance to aggressive environments, in other best qualities it is not inferior to cellular concrete.

The porosity of expanded clay concrete, while improving its thermal and noise-proof qualities, reduces frost resistance due to moisture entering the pores. Porosity also affects strength: you always have to accurately calculate whether the lower blocks can withstand the load of the rest of the structure (does our private developer know the strength of materials?).

IN polystyrene concrete The role of heat and sound insulator is played by polystyrene beads evenly distributed in the concrete. It seems that everyone likes the material: it is warm and durable, it blocks noise well, it is light and not expensive, but it all cancels out one drawback. But what...When there is a fire, polystyrene begins to melt, releasing toxins.

Cinder concrete the name is more collective than specific. The point is that inThe filler in this building material can be either slag, coal, ash, an admixture of expanded clay with something, screenings, etc. Specifically, slag is used from waste from metallurgical production. To comply with environmental standards, it is kept under conditions for a year. open air. Blocks with a coarse filler fraction are ideal for external walls, and fine ones for internal walls. Voids to improve thermal qualities are created using special molds for the production of this type of concrete. The material is strong, cheap, very durable. The high speed of construction of cinder block walls is important.

The disadvantages include low sound insulation. It is more understandable dense material- higher sound conductivity. Also, the material is afraid of water, so it is advisable to cover it. But if you line a house made of cinder blocks with bricks, this will significantly increase the cost of construction. In addition, it is difficult to lay communications in cinder concrete, and if some kind of groove or hole is needed, it is better to provide them in advance and place a block in the cinder block blank in the right place.

Arbolite blocks - This construction material, the main components of which are concrete and organic filler: wood chips, flax fiber or seed cake from which the oil has already been squeezed out. Of course, most often it is wood chips. A characteristic feature of wood concrete is that, unlike other lightweight concretes, it contains only 10 - 20% concrete, the rest is wood chips.A house made from such blocks is more reminiscent in properties wooden house, but unlike it, it is practically not susceptible to microorganisms and fungi. One of its interesting properties of the material is that the wood concrete block is able to restore its shape when the maximum loads are removed. It retains heat and keeps out noise. It does not burn, but when exposed to open fire it begins to smolder. Once the source of the flame is removed, the smoldering stops. Eco-friendly, breathable material.

The disadvantage of wood concrete is its increased moisture permeability, and therefore the relative humidity inside the room cannot exceed 75%, while the outside must be lined. The foundation must rise above the blind area by at least half a meter so that splashes do not fly onto the wood concrete blocks. The roof overhangs should extend beyond the walls by the same half a meter so that water is less likely to hit the wall.

Blocks without cement

When choosing a material for building walls, you may come acrossgas silicate . Attention! It should not be confused with aerated concrete. We already know that cement is needed to produce aerated concrete. In the production of gas silicate, lime acts as a binding element. The porous structure is acquired due to the gases released during the interaction of quicklime with aluminum particles. What is the difference between the qualities of gas silicate and aerated concrete? Aerated concrete, thanks to cement, is more durable, gas silicate, thanks to lime, reduces heat loss and better protects against noise. In front of everyone high quality gas silicate blocks (lightness, insulating properties, low cost, etc.) in them, as in foam concrete, the formation of fungus is possible due to the porous structure.

Ceramic blocks also do not contain cement. In addition to clay, their composition may include sand and sawdust. The voids inside the blocks resemble honeycombs. The blocks have grooves and protrusions on the outside of their side faces. This allows masonry to be done without vertical seams. As a building material, ceramic blocks are durable and can be used to construct multi-story buildings. They are very lightgood noise protection and thermal insulation. A significant disadvantage of walls made of this material is the impossibility of perforating (and often simply drilling) and attaching anything to the walls, since the abundance of voids and the fragility of thin partitions do not allow even the installation of cork.

It's time to explain why aerated concrete is the most the right material for walls country house and no other material can compete with it in terms of its totality of characteristics. I propose to consider together all existing this moment building materials (including rare and exotic) on the market and ensure that better material I can’t think of anything better than aerated concrete for low-rise construction.

But in any case, made of wood wall materials a frame house is the best thing to choose in our time. Thus, we actually get the fact that with all the variety of existing building materials, we have only two options left:

House made of cellular concrete (aerated concrete)
Frame house

All other building materials are, in principle, untenable and there is no point in considering them if you are building a house for the future for long-term and comfortable use. And now is the time to make a comparison direct comparison houses made of aerated concrete and frame.

Let me remind you that in both cases we are guided by the fact that the house will be built on a monolithic foundation slab, that is, the low heat capacity of the walls of a frame house is not relevant in our case. If you decide to build a frame house on pile foundation, then soberly understand that the heat capacity of such a house will tend to zero and any shutdown of heating in winter will lead to almost instant freezing of the entire house. If we're talking about about the house for permanent residence and year-round operation, it must have an extremely high heat capacity of the enclosing structures, because The comfort of using such a house directly depends on this parameter.

The main advantage of a frame house is the opportunity to get an incredibly “warm” wall at a minimum cost. This is directly related to the fact that lightweight insulation has a heat transfer resistance per centimeter of thickness that is 2-3 times less than that of solid wood or even aerated concrete.

The second is predominantly frame houses- speed of construction of the load-bearing frame of walls and roof. In fact, the advantage is quite dubious if you approach the house as a complex object. Because the subsequent finishing of the frame house, firstly, will no longer be so fast, and secondly, with engineering systems You'll also have to tinker. But if you want to get a roof over your head here and now (it doesn’t matter that you still have to work and work under this roof so that the house finally looks like a home), then you can agree to a frame house. The same applies to popular Lately modular houses, assembled in production. Their manufacturers position assembly in a hangar as an advantage for the customer, although in fact the customer should absolutely not care, because This does not affect production times in any way. But for the performer, assembly under the hangar roof is a big plus, because allows you to reduce costs and downtime associated with unpredictability of weather, if you consider the option of construction on the customer’s site. But on the other hand, the customer becomes severely limited by the too small sizes of individual modules, which are completely uncomfortable for subsequent use (for example, ceilings in a normal house should be at least 2.8 meters).

This is where the advantages of frame houses end and the disadvantages begin.

First and most important. Frame houses are now being built by all and sundry (since the cost of building a frame house is extremely low and you can make a lot of money), which requires special control over compliance with construction technology. Otherwise you can get this such a "barn", which will collapse at the slightest gust of wind. According to the link in the video, everything that could be violated was violated, but in fact, during a hurricane, with a very high probability, a well-built frame house will collapse to one degree or another and you need to be prepared for this. The calculation of loads for a frame house must be done more carefully than for a stone one, paradoxically as it may seem.

The second disadvantage of frame houses is the expensive finishing and installation of utility systems open method. After all, it is forbidden to lay in combustible structures electrical wiring, and therefore it will have to be carried out in an open way, which is very doubtful from an aesthetic point of view. In a house made of cellular concrete, everything is much simpler - all communications and wires are laid in the walls, which are then plastered. Absolutely the same as they do in apartments.

By the way, about ventilation. If you “forget” to do it in an aerated concrete house, then the high vapor permeability of the walls will allow you to somehow cope with excess humidity in the house, and in frame house- in a thermos without ventilation with a microclimate everything will be very bad.

What else?
The sound insulation of a frame house is as bad as that of an unplastered house made of cellular concrete.
Hanging heavy objects on walls is only possible with load-bearing frame.
Mice and other pests can infest the walls of a frame house.
Fire hazard. Stone houses they also burn, but extremely rarely this leads to the collapse of walls and ceilings. A frame house burns down instantly, despite various impregnations for wood (remember that electrical wiring in a frame house can only be carried out using the open method).
The durability of a frame house depends on its service life wooden frame(and without protection the tree will begin to rot). While stone building materials (including cellular concrete) are eternal, and cement-based materials only become stronger over the years.

If we compare completely ready-made houses the same area, with engineering systems and finishing, then you can make an amazing discovery. The cost of work and materials for a frame house is almost completely identical to the cost of work and materials for building a house made of aerated concrete. Of course aerated concrete house It will be a little more expensive, because... during its construction it will be necessary to use mechanization, but this will be less than 10% of the total cost of all work.

Thus, we can conclude that aerated concrete is an ideal building material, which has no alternatives in principle. A frame house should only be considered if, for one reason or another, you do not have the opportunity to build a house from cellular concrete.

In the next part we will choose ideal roof for a country house. Don't switch!