The cost of restoring a private house is made up of various factors. This is both the season and the remoteness of the building from the city limits. After all, if you hire foremen for work, then they need to somehow get to the workplace. In the cold season, this is more difficult to do.
If the house stood for a long time without tenants and unattended, then the premises inside and the outer facade could come into complete disrepair. The craftsmen will have to make a lot of effort to return the building to a decent look and all the qualities necessary for a home.
The scale of the proposed work also affects the final cost of the restoration.
After all, it is one thing to repair individual elements of a small building, and quite another to overhaul with the reconstruction of a large two-story dwelling. Of course, minor restoration work will cost a lot less.
VIDEO
How to restore a wooden house - work algorithm, technologies used, practical recommendations of users.
With a lot of undeniable advantages, wooden houses are an expensive pleasure, so not everyone can build or buy such a "nest" for themselves. However, a house with "experience" can be inherited or purchased much cheaper, although its condition will be far from satisfactory. Reconstruction of a wooden house will make it suitable for comfortable living and will restore its former appearance. And where to start, how to continue and how to finish, FORUMHOUSE users who have experience with wood and are engaged in the reconstruction of their own households will tell you.
The age of the bulk of the wooden houses of the secondary housing stock is approaching half a century or has already passed this figure, which inevitably leads to decrepitude of the main units. If during the construction mistakes were made or the technology was violated, then certain parts of the building become completely unusable. The mode of operation is of great importance - they lived in the house permanently, or in the winter it was heated from time to time and serviced with the same frequency. Based on these conditions, the following work may be required:
complete or partial replacement of the foundation or its strengthening;
replacement of the lower rims;
complete or partial replacement of individual elements or large wall segments;
repair or replacement of the roofing system;
outdoor decoration.
Even if during the initial examination it seems that it is easier to demolish than to try to restore, do not despair, it is not for nothing that the proverb “Eyes are afraid, but hands do” serves as the leitmotif of portal users.
For aged wooden houses, a strip or columnar foundation is characteristic. It is very rare if the tape is poured to the depth of freezing, mainly this is a shallow deepening, which over time, under the weight of the structure, decently sank into the ground. The front of the work depends on the condition of the foundation. To assess it, a thorough examination of the aboveground part, if any, is carried out, and the buried elements are dug out and examined.The user of the portal and concurrently the head of the team engaged in the repair and replacement of the foundations of wooden structures, Igor Bekkerev, classified the possible scope of work in this way.
The main task of the foundation is to transfer the load from the house to the ground. There are various defects in foundations, and there are also different repair methods. This can be one type of work, or more often you have to use a complex.
Insulation of the foundation and blind area; Foundation waterproofing; Drainage works (water disposal); Strengthening the foundation with an armored belt from above; Strengthening the foundation with an external armored belt; Replacing the foundation with hanging the building or moving the building; Leveling the foundation or leveling the structure on the foundation. To gain access to the foundation, the box of the house is raised to the required height - it is hung, less often it is moved. For lifting, hydraulic jacks are used, the walls are lifted one by one, or the whole box at once. Due to the ability of wood to withstand certain deformations when properly executed, this operation does not violate the integrity of the house. Based on the state of the foundation and the proposed work, jacks are installed directly on the base (strip foundation) or on the ground, on a previously placed thick board or other support. The number of jacks on the wall depends on the dimensions of the box; cuts are made under the jack in predetermined places.
Usually a team of several people is hired for such work, but one skilled craftsman is also able to raise a wooden house in a short time. With such a professional, a member of the forum was lucky Arty-CooL , which is engaged in the reconstruction of a log cabin. The foundation under the house is in good condition, but it was decided to strengthen it, build it up and immediately fill in a new contour for the extension.
Today we finished lifting the house and replacing the lower crown, the foreman worked alone, after work I tried to help, although, probably, I was more distracting from work. When replacing the crown, the overlap joists were simultaneously cut into the new crown. I did it in 3 days, this is how the masters work!
User's family Greens in a similar situation, there was no need for the involvement of masters - the husband and sons were used as labor force. The foundation was shallow, rubble, after hanging the box, it was partially dismantled, a new wide tape was poured in, and then the basement part was laid out of bricks.
The foundation there is rubble, very shallow, 40-50 cm, at the outer corner the house apparently began to sag, a rubble was taken out from under the corner and replaced with facing brick. When we got it out of there, it crumbled into small shards. The bottom two crowns are just rubbish, we raked out part of the rubble, put the formwork, poured it in and laid the brickwork.
To strengthen the foundation with an external armored belt, a monolithic reinforced concrete tape is poured around the perimeter. The depth of the tape exceeds the depth of the old foundation by the size of the sand and gravel cushion, the average width is 40-50 cm. The surface of the old foundation is carefully cleaned, all exfoliating elements are removed.To increase adhesion with the new mortar, the foundation is impregnated with a high-penetrating primer. As a binder, reinforcing pins are used, hammered into the old foundation at a distance of 20 - 25 cm, in several rows. With the new frame, the pins are welded or tied, the solution is poured into the formwork in layers.
The replacement of the foundation is carried out in stages or immediately; in the first case, the old foundation is dismantled in parts, with the gradual pouring of new fragments. In the second case, everything is dismantled at once, a monolithic tape is poured, pillars are cast or piles are twisted. Forum user under the nickname Andryukha052 offered a phased replacement, but he preferred a simultaneous one, fearing possible problems with the foundation in the future.
They suggested removing the logs between the posts, digging trenches between the posts and pouring the foundation there, laying the masonry up to the frame between the posts, putting the house on the masonry. Then remove the pillars, dig trenches under the pillars and pour - connect the masonry. I did not really like this idea, the foundation will turn out from several sections. If there are any shifts in the ground, everything may crack. Even if nothing happens, but I thought it was better to play it safe. Therefore, the house was hung on U-shaped supports, everything was removed at once, a single tape was poured in and a single masonry was made.
The lower rims of wooden houses rot, gradually becoming saturated with moisture through the foundation. This happens both due to the lack of a waterproofing layer and due to technology violations. Several members of the forum, including val-lel.
My log house was built in the 50s, on the foundation strip there was just a waterproofing between the log and the base, but! along the first crown, the edges of this waterproofing were raised and attached to the log itself, and the segment between the foundation and the crown, with the edges of the waterproofing neatly nailed to it, was “carefully slapped” with cement mortar along the entire first crown, both outside the frame and inside, apparently so that the log does not move anywhere.
The replacement of the crowns is usually carried out together with the foundation work, when the box is hung. Whenever possible, materials are used that are as close to the original as possible - a log or a bar, some replace the rotted parts with brickwork. Arty-CooL used the sleepers.
I put the sleepers, since I got it for nothing, and it is easier to work with them (although I didn’t do it), they will not go anywhere under the weight of the house, but I will mount galvanized studs into the foundation, and I will plant the house on them. The cost of concrete in terms of the volume of sleepers will definitely be more expensive.
Waterproofing must be laid between the foundation and the new crowns, the wood is pre-treated with an antiseptic.
In addition to the crowns, other parts of the structure may need to be replaced when the wood is exposed to moisture. Most often this happens with the upper crowns, if the roof leaks and water accumulates in the insulation. It is also common for walls around windows to get wet, although the outside of the tree may appear whole.
One point that would not hurt to pay attention to - the logs under the windows. If the windows “cried” in winter, the logs could rot. Moreover, I saw such that the log rotted from the inside, and from the outside there was quite good wood, only rot was diagnosed by drilling.
It was like that when I changed the windows in my house for plastic ones. After dismantling the old ones, I had to make inserts, since the log under the window had rotted, but it was not visible from the outside.
It is possible to reveal rot in externally normal wood by tapping with the butt of an ax or a hammer - the rotting filling gives a dull sound, the whole log is ringing. As an alternative to drilling, an awl is used - it will not enter a normal tree by more than a few millimeters, and it will plunge into a rotten tree without resistance.
Replacement of one element of the box or part of the wall is carried out piece by piece - the damaged ones are cut out, new ones are inserted, all cracks are necessarily sealed, the wood is pre-processed, as well as the insertion points. To save time and money, one of the users did the following.
I cut out all the rot from the inside with a chainsaw to a “living” tree, impregnated it with an antiseptic 2 times and drove inside an antiseptic bar, sawn to fit the size of a “hollow” and propped with flax, then fixed it with 150 mm self-tapping screws on both sides.
This is exactly what I did WAB57, converted a useless superstructure into a functional room. The result is a bedroom and a bathroom.
The attic was being remodeled for a painfully long time: we had to leave the old rafters made of thin gauge, with a step of 100-115 cm and supported by outrigger beams. We did not dare to touch them, so we added new rafters from a board of 50x200 mm, thereby reducing the step. The new beams were made of 100x200 mm timber. We made a crossbar and side supports (racks) for all rafters. Then all this had to be leveled under the crate for the roof and effective insulation. Log - with a diameter of 150 to 200 mm, with an edged board 50x200 mm.
If there is no need in the attic, you can get by with an audit of the roofing system and replacing elements that have rotted due to leakage or accumulation of condensate. Particular attention is paid to the chimney outlet zone. In most cases, it is there that leakage and damage to the floors occurs.
Considering that the old slate does not add charm to the structure, it is usually changed to modern materials and insulation of the ceilings and under-roof space is usually required. When additional rooms are attached to the house on a rigid bundle, the old roof is completely redone in order to bring the entire structure under the new one.
I plan to add a part of the house to its entire length, 2.5-3 meters wide, thereby making the house square, and there will be a single attic roof with living quarters.
To preserve the natural beauty of a wooden house, they refuse to use siding and other cladding materials. The walls that have darkened over the years, with various deposits on the surface, are put in order - they are cleaned with a brush and impregnated with special bleaching antiseptic compounds.
It is most convenient to carry out the processing using a grinder and a special attachment - a brush with iron bristles. All dirt and layers cannot be removed from the wood in this way, but they can significantly improve the appearance and show the structure in reality. In the future, you can use varnish on wood or paint: tint agents will level the surface, and new elements will no longer attract attention. Like cladding, paints and varnishes are not only decorative, they effectively protect the surface from external influences.
How portal users restore their wooden houses, you can find out in the section on reconstruction and repair of houses. The necessary technical information on foundations is easy to find in the foundations topic. How to turn an attic into a roof is described in the section for warm roofs. An article on the right choice of performers will tell you how to save your nerves and money during repairs or reconstruction. In the material on the nuances of the construction of an extension - information on how to connect buildings. A video about a combined aerated concrete house is for everyone who is going to build.
Often, it is more profitable to repair an old wooden house on your own than to demolish it and build a new one. If you have such a house and would like to bring it into its proper form, we will tell you how to do it. The main thing is to pay attention to the general condition of the building, that is, to assess the prospects of work. If you are sure that the house can still serve, feel free to start making repairs with your own hands.
First of all, you should evaluate the degree of wear and tear of existing components of the house. Take a close look at the foundation, walls, roofing and communications. Do-it-yourself repair of an old wooden house begins with the preparation of the material, and its volume directly depends on the state of the building.
Completely free the house from all unnecessary things, debris and components that are actually not related to the structure. Look closely at the wooden parts for signs of decay - these should be removed immediately. Most often, in old wooden houses, the floor comes into complete disrepair - it must be dismantled.
Pay attention to the foundation. As a rule, solid concrete fill lasts a very long time, but in some places it can break off. This requires a small cosmetic repair - using the prepared solution, simply cover up the visible imperfections, leveling the entire foundation. If the foundation of the house has fallen into disrepair (there are many large cracks around the perimeter, corrosion of the reinforcement, a significant skew of the horizontal level of the foundation), repairs will not be enough. A complete renovation is required here.
Communications should be taken care of in advance, as you may want to sheathe the walls with plasterboard or other covering. So, completely dismantle the existing electrical wiring and plumbing pipes. When laying a new electrical network, be sure to wrap the wires in special tubes with a cross section of 15-20 mm. For plumbing, it is better to use plastic pipes.
Do-it-yourself repair of a wooden house, a photo of the process of which we are attaching, we will start from the walls. The logs of the crown are the most vulnerable place.Here, cracks and other damage are most often formed. The floor beams and the floor itself may also suffer (as already noted, it is better to dismantle it immediately).
Minor damage to the wood can be repaired without dismantling the walls. For this, problem areas should be cleaned, treated with an antiseptic, and then sealed with a suitable sealant. If we talk about the outside of the facade, then for cosmetic purposes, you can sheathe it with special panels of your choice. Siding is most often used, and it is mounted as follows:
Brackets are attached to the facade, on which vertical beams are installed;
The beams are installed in increments of about 30-40 cm.
A layer of mineral wool and an insulating film are attached between the beams with nails;
The lathing is sheathed with siding from the bottom up.
The inner side of the walls can be sheathed with plasterboard. Plasterboard installation is carried out in a similar way.
Pay attention to the beams above window and doorways - they very often suffer from moisture. Places that have rotted must be replaced - this can be done simply by sawing out a piece of the beam and inserting a new part.
It is recommended not to neglect the treatment of the wall, even if you plan to sheathe it. Dirt and microorganisms can accumulate in places of damage, which will lead to the destruction of the wood.
If the house is quite old, you will most likely need to completely remove the roof covering. Inspect the frame, especially the condition of the rafters. The roof is easy to repair - any part can be replaced. To do this, use additional strength clamps - for a while, connect the existing beams (which you will not dismantle) by nailing several boards between them. After that, you can remove low-quality rafters without fear of destroying the frame.
Take a close look at the main detail of the roof - the Mauerlat. If signs of decay are found, be sure to cut out the damaged parts and insert new ones with secure fixation with plate pads or tie bolts. Ideally, the Mauerlat can be completely replaced by carefully dismantling its parts around the perimeter and installing new ones.
After the roof frame has been repaired, re-lay the covering. If desired, the roof can be additionally insulated using, for example, mineral wool.
Doors and windows in older homes will likely need to be completely replaced. But the main problem lies not in this, but in rather frequent cases of imbalance. To get rid of the skew, dismantle the door frame and level the walls using a level.
Reassemble and reinstall the door frame. All existing cracks must be blown out tightly with polyurethane foam. As for the doors, choose their model as you wish, but it is recommended to replace the windows with metal-plastic ones, since they are more durable and reliable than wooden ones, not to mention the thermal insulation properties.
Interior doors also need to be replaced in the same way along with the frames. If you have all the doors of the same format and size, then you can immediately prepare the required number of boards for the frame panels.But do not rush to install them inside the house, as you will still be doing floor repairs and finishing. You can install interior doors at the last stage of renovation work.
For a high-quality floor, it is recommended to make a concrete screed. If you don't have one, get to work. First of all, dismantle the logs on the floor (you do not need to cut them under the walls) and clean the area from debris and dust. The screed is laid in the following order: backfill (sand, fine gravel), insulating film, concrete layer. Be sure to level the screed. The concrete should dry for about one month at a temperature of about 20 degrees.
Then you can start laying the floor. This can be, for example, a laminate. For laying, a special substrate is first used, after which laminate sheets are laid on it, interconnected with "locks". An expansion gap of about 1 cm should be left near the walls, which is hidden by the baseboard.
If you don't want to screed, you can use planks to make the floor. In this case, the boards are simply nailed to the logs and sanded from above with a special machine. It is recommended to provide moisture insulation for such a floor by pouring a layer of expanded clay under the logs (if the logs are located on the ground).
The last stage of repairing wooden houses with your own hands, the video of which you can watch at the end of the article, is finishing work. If you've used drywall for the walls, be sure to putty and flatten it for wallpapering or painting.
A wooden floor made of boards should be treated with a special varnish and allowed to dry well. A similar procedure should be carried out with other wood materials that are in open areas.
VIDEO
With the skills of carpentry, a minimum set of tools for working with wood and some supply of lumber, it is not difficult to repair an old log house.
Floor plan of the 1st floor in a wooden house.
Structural parts of old log houses that wear out the fastest and need to be replaced or repaired over time:
logs under window frames;
lags and floor;
lower treasure (crown).
In the case when the logs during the construction of the house were not embedded in the logs, but cut in, it is necessary to hang the house. Hanging is the lifting of that side (wall) of a log house, whose lower crown is to be replaced.
If only one or two logs are to be replaced, which lie directly on the foundation, then hanging is not necessary.
It is enough to disassemble the top of the foundation or basement floor by 20-25 cm from above. After replacing the logs, the integrity of the foundation is restored.
The foundation can be disassembled and restored in stages, first dismantling under one wall, and after the restoration of the walls, immediately lay, or you can immediately disassemble it around the perimeter, replacing it with thick chocks every half a meter. Then the foundation is restored after replacing the entire frame and the corners are tied during restoration.
If the foundation cannot be disassembled or 3 or more rows are to be replaced, then the house is raised. The house can be raised all or only the wall that needs to be repaired.Before lifting a wall or a house, it is necessary to remove the roof around the chimney, the floor around the stove and, if necessary, the ceiling lathing at a distance of up to 25-30 cm.
This is due to the fact that when the wall is moved up, its upper edge is displaced towards the slope. In order not to damage the stove and chimney during this operation, the space around them is cleaned, giving the house a free run.
It is possible to lift the house for floor repair using high-power jacks, levers, which are used as logs, or wedges. It all depends on the foundation and the state of the salary. Wags and jacks are guided under the walls, and wedges can be driven in between the logs.
The stop points of the lifting mechanisms must be set at a distance of 30-50 cm from the corners.
The actual lifting itself is carried out in several stages, when the intermediate heights are 15-20 cm. It is impossible to immediately raise the frame of the house by 40-50 cm, this can lead to significant deformation of the walls and internal partitions.
The frame of a house is assembled from logs, each row of logs is called a crown, the lowest crown is a salary, and the rest of the rows are called privates. For the frame, logs are selected in diameter 2-3 cm larger than those that lie in ordinary crowns. This rule must be observed when repairing and replacing a salary.
The salary is formed by four logs - two lower and two upper ones. In this case, the lower logs can enter the body of the foundation by more than half of the diameter, and the upper ones only by a quarter. When repairing a house with your own hands, it is necessary to take into account all these features of the masonry of a log house and repeat them exactly.
In no case, after the repair of the frame, it is not necessary to process the ends of the logs with bitumen or other type of mastic, this will only lead to their rapid decay.
Installation of windows in a wooden house.
Rotting logs under window openings is a fairly common occurrence. The replacement of such logs and the restoration of the crowns occurs in two ways - the usual or the underlay.
The first method involves the usual replacement of the decayed part of the crown logs. It is necessary to pay attention to one more aspect of the repair: when at least one log from the crown, salary or ordinary, is replaced, it is best to remove the window frames and door binding. In case of deformation of the frame, this will not damage them.
The decayed parts of the logs are cut vertically. In the remaining ends, ridges with a thickness of 5 cm or more are cut down. In the new pieces of logs, grooves are made at the ends, commensurate with the ridges of the old crowns, and they are inserted into each other. We must not forget that new rows of logs during the renovation of old log houses must be caulked using the same material that was used for their construction, for example, hemp, tow, moss and flax fiber.
In order not to cut the ridges and grooves, the rotted sections of the log house are replaced with the use of racks. Old logs are cut strictly along a vertical line drawn using a plumb line or a building level. Racks with a thickness of 20 to 30 mm are attached to the ends of old logs. New logs are inserted between the posts and fastened with dowels. Again, do not forget to caulk the rows.
In order to protect these areas from the water flowing from the windows as long as possible, several layers of roofing material are laid on the last row of logs and a sill board is placed on them.
The linings under the window openings are replaced without weighing the houses. It is enough to disassemble the foundation under the old lining and install a new one, prepared in advance in size.
Diagram for replacing the lower rims of rotten logs.
The logs in the salary can change all together, and maybe separately, it all depends on the assessment of their reliability.
To remove the first log, the foundation is taken apart to such a depth that it comes out together with the substrate. The presence of a backing means that the bottom of a new log needs to be cut straight down to lay it on the backing.
The new row is propped up with struts and the foundation is laid. The foundation is not laid entirely, but in the intervals between the spacers. After the fragments of the foundation have dried, the spacers are removed and the foundation is completely restored.
It is best to change both the first and second logs of the frame together with the rafters for the floorboard, since, even if the rafters were not cut-in, but mortgages, moisture and rot could be transmitted to them from the old frame, although this may not be visible on a superficial examination ...
Scheme for sealing cracks in logs.
Cracks form along the horizontal axis of the logs and are dangerous because:
tend to expand both in length and width;
are the place of accumulation of dirt and moisture ingress into the base of the crown;
high humidity and dirt are ideal conditions for the growth of harmful microorganisms, which, in turn, will lead to the destruction of the tree.
There are two options for getting rid of cracks.
Option 1. Sheathe the house with your own hands with external siding, boards or panels, followed by plastering. However, after that, it will not be seen that it is log.
Option 2. It consists in sealing seams, for which the following operations are performed:
cracks are cleaned of dirt and blown with a construction hairdryer to remove excess moisture;
the entire depth and length of the crack is treated with an antiseptic solution;
in hardware stores, special putty mixtures are sold for sealing cracks in wooden structures, as long as they are for external work.
It is clear that the first option must be used when the cracks have begun to reach their critical size, and if they have just begun to form, then there are enough measures for the second option to seal the cracks.
The rafter system of a wooden house.
Like all other wooden structures at home, roof rafters are also susceptible to rotting and the effects of all sorts of harmful insects, which are eaten away from the nutria. At the slightest sign of rot or mold on the rafters, as well as traces of bark beetle (there will be small dust on the floor under the rafter), you need to attend to their replacement.
If necessary, you can combine the replacement of rafters and repair the roof or replace the roofing material. But to replace the rafters, it is still necessary to disassemble the entire roof structure, and if the roofing material has already lost its operational characteristics, then it definitely needs to be replaced.
Dismantling of the old roof covering.
Dismantling of waterproofing.
Replacing rafters using the method:
complete removal of old rafters with replacement with new ones;
installing new rafters parallel to the old ones and tying them with staples;
installation of a vapor barrier layer;
laying a layer of new waterproofing (old waterproofing material is not suitable, since it contains holes from previous installation work);
laying of old or new roofing material.
The process of replacing the rafters is quite laborious and takes more than one day, so it is better to focus on the summer months with good weather to perform this kind of repair work. As insurance, it is necessary to cover the ceiling under the roof with construction film, it will block the access of rainwater to the interior of the house.
The wooden structures of the old log house are likely to be inhabited by various kinds of insects and parasites, which, feeding on wood, weaken the structure of the entire structure. Their favorite habitats are logs, crevices and the space under the baseboard. Fighting them in a house built decades ago is an impossible task.
There are several ways to minimize the harm they cause.
Firstly, all new wooden parts that were installed during the repair must be treated with antiseptic agents, which will significantly extend their service life.
Secondly, you need to carefully examine the entire house to identify areas of the structure infected with insects and replace them with new elements.
With the timely updating of all structural elements of the structure of the house and the correct processing of wood, repairing a log house with your own hands will significantly extend its service life.
Video (click to play).
Wood is a rather fragile-looking material, especially in comparison with stone or brick, but it has a fairly large threshold of endurance and resistance to external aggressive environmental influences.
