Materials for making log cabins: rounded logs, profiled beams, glued beams

Recommendation points

• Rounded log
• Construction timber
• Profiled timber
• Glued laminated timber
• Prices for regular beams, profiled beams, glued beams and round logs

We will never get to know the authors of two of the greatest inventions of our time: the wheel and the wooden house. Probably, one of them was not, because it is quite logical – to take and create a shelter from rain or cold from the stems of plants that grow in abundance around. True, in Russia shrubs, leaves and burdocks did not help to survive the winter, and therefore a log house with smoked walls was created. The main structure of a wooden house is a log house, which is composed of horizontally stacked logs – crowns. At the corners, the logs are connected by cuts. The logs are connected to each other in such a way that the protection of the corners of the building from freezing would be guaranteed. For this, the ends of the logs go beyond the border of the log house..

When building a wooden house, pine or spruce is usually used. In a properly arranged wooden house, it will be warm in any frost, because when laying out a log house, a heater is placed inside each seam. Due to the tight fit of the logs to each other, the warmth in the house remains in any frost. This technology was developed by our distant ancestors and has survived to this day. Only the materials of which the frame is made have changed. Previously, they used shredded logs from felled trees. But such logs had different diameters at the butt and top, therefore, although the butt and tops alternated, the thickness of the crowns still remained different. Because of this, the grooves and elements of the locks turned out to be different, they had to be cut down in place, which increased the labor intensity and reduced the appearance of the walls. In addition, the gaps between the logs remained large, and they had to be carefully hammered..

Now such logs are rarely used, where the forest is closer than the timber processing enterprise. For a modern wooden individual residential building, new types of lumber are used: rounded logs, and glued profiled timber.

Rounded log

A rounded log has the shape of an almost ideal cylinder, as it is made on special machines that grind the original log to a given diameter, after which mounting grooves and locking joints are cut out in the corners. These cutouts are produced with high precision, which allows for minimal clearance during assembly. For the manufacture of rounded logs, wood is used after forced drying, while the moisture content of the finished product should not exceed 12 percent.

Rounded logs are produced in two ways. The first one is a method of processing raw materials on continuous type machines. In this case, the resulting log repeats all the irregularities and bends that were on it before processing. Such a product is much cheaper, but when working with it, difficulties may arise, in particular, cracks, protrusions, irregularities. Despite this, due to the price, such products are quite popular. The second method consists in the fact that the log is tightly clamped at the centers at the ends and cylindrical. As a result, an almost perfect cylinder is obtained, although this technology has a higher labor intensity and, accordingly, the products are more expensive. The log obtained after cylindering is sanded and coated with a special compound that increases fire resistance and prevents cracking, as well as protects against mold and mildew.

The woodworking factories of Rossi produce rounded logs for construction with a diameter of 160 – 320 mm, a length of 6 meters. Other lengths and diameters of logs are made on special order. Holes for pins are made locally, when constructing a wooden frame.

The construction of a wooden house in modern conditions is more like installation than the installation of a traditional log house. If the logs are made in accordance with the standards, then the device of the log house consists in laying the logs in the order established by the project, which is done quickly enough. For thermal insulation of the joints between the crowns and in the corners, as a rule, rolled flax fiber or synthetic insulation is used, the filling of which into the joint occurs 5-7 times faster than when using tow.

The advantages of rounded logs include the fact that the entire set of log houses consists of logs of the same diameter and design length, grooves and bowls in them are made with high accuracy. This design allows you to ensure a tight fit of the logs to each other, which makes it possible to quickly, with a minimum of labor, assembly of a log house. In addition, due to the high purity of the surface of the rounded logs, it is possible to abandon external finishing, while retaining the natural wood pattern on the facades of the house. This also includes the ecological purity of natural material, its strength and durability, and lower prices compared to brick houses. It should be recalled that log cabins made of natural wood “breathe”, which is an important factor when choosing the material from which an individual residential house will be built..

Construction timber

An ordinary wooden beam is a log that is hewn from four sides in such a way that its section becomes rectangular. The advantages of a bar over logs are that it already has a certain size, as a result of which any structure can be assembled from it without much hassle. The walls of the bar do not need insulation, because the crowns from the bar fit tightly to each other. For the manufacture of timber, deciduous and coniferous species of wood are used.

Profiled timber

Recently, some woodworking enterprises have launched the production of a modern version of timber – profiled timber. It also has a rectangular cross-section, but it has a groove on one side, and a ridge on the opposite side. Such a joint strictly fixes the position of the crowns relative to each other, greatly simplifies the assembly of the frame and excludes the possibility of atmospheric precipitation entering the gap between adjacent crowns. The peculiarities of the manufacture of profiled beams involves surface treatment according to the first class of cleanliness, as a result of which the walls of a house erected from a profiled beam do not need finishing.

Glued laminated timber

A big drawback of conventional and profiled timber is its bulkiness, which does not allow it to dry to a state where deformations during shrinkage of a log house made from a timber will be minimal. In addition, ordinary wooden and profiled beams are not moisture resistant, do not possess the required fire resistance, are not resistant to fungus and rot..

Long-term study of the properties of wood-based materials has shown that both logs and beams have one property – their strength varies from the periphery to the center. Glued laminated timber is free from this disadvantage. Its production is carried out on modern technological lines. The manufacturing process of laminated veneer lumber after sawing the logs and drying the boards includes 10 more operations. In contrast to solid timber, it is much easier to dry the boards, which makes it possible to achieve a low degree of moisture content of the starting material. The dried boards are calibrated and then cut to the width of the workpiece on thicknessing and multi-sawing machines. The defects hidden in the wood noticed at this stage are removed, and the remaining sections are joined together along the length on mini-studs into boards on the end join line. The workpieces made in this way are called lamellas..

The lamellas are glued together with special high-strength, waterproof, environmentally friendly adhesives that do not interfere with the wood “breathing”. When collecting timber, the lamellas are laid out in such a way that the wood fibers in the adjacent lamellas are directed in different directions. This allows you to increase the strength of the timber and reduce to almost zero the risk that the timber will “lead” when the humidity increases or decreases. There are other subtleties in the manufacture of laminated veneer lumber. Lamellas can be solid or spliced, have no defects or have healed defects, there can be combined options – one-piece lamellas outside, and composite ones inside.

Sometimes wood of a different species is used for the outer lamellas, for example, a larch lamella is glued on the outside of a set of pine lamellas. All this affects the quality and, accordingly, the price of products. For the manufacture of laminated veneer lumber, coniferous wood is used – spruce or pine. Their strength indicators are identical, but pine can be of different colors and has many oblong knots, while spruce constantly has a solid white color with a large number of small knots. Therefore, so that the walls of the house have the same color, the outer lamellas of laminated veneer lumber are made of spruce, and all the others are made of pine. In order to protect the walls of the house from atmospheric influences, glued laminated timber is made with larch outer lamella, since larch is less prone to rotting than other types of wood..

After receiving the finished laminated veneer lumber using four-sided machines, it is given a profile. This is a very important process, since the tightness of the connection between the crowns and, ultimately, the moisture, air and cold resistance of the joints depends on the quality of the groove and the ridge. The last stages in the manufacture of glued profiled timber is trimming the timber – cutting along the length, cutting out crown cups on special machines, and drilling holes for pins.

Assembling a log house from glued profiled timber does not require qualified personnel, since all the basic operations have already been completed at the factory, it remains only to install the timber in place. With a ready-made foundation, the assembly of a log house with a total area of ​​about 200 square meters will take no more than 15 working days for unskilled performers, and professionals will be able to do it even faster.

The advantages of houses assembled from glued profiled timber include:

• no wall deformation and cracking. You can start finishing the interiors immediately after installing the roof;
• invariability of geometric dimensions throughout the entire operation;
• high rates of thermal insulation;
• satisfactory fire resistance;
• the presence of front surfaces that do not require additional finishing;
• increased strength and seismic resistance relative to ordinary wood;
• durability and environmental friendliness;
• low labor costs during assembly.

Now that we have talked about the pros and cons of the main nomenclature of materials that are used in the construction of wooden individual residential buildings, the buyer should get involved, only he can say what he needs.

Prices for regular beams, profiled beams, glued beams and round logs

All prices are as of May 5, 2009