Having built a house from aerated concrete, I understood why most people prefer wooden houses

For the 2021 season I have closed the heating circuit of the house. The box has been completed, windows and doors have been inserted and the attic floor has been insulated. I maintain positive temperatures with a heater and sometimes heat the stove. He installed the walls and ceilings himself, working in the evenings and on weekends. After two construction seasons of quite hard work, I can compare my aerated concrete construction with other materials. For example, with a bar from which he had previously built a bathhouse.

The house looks like a house from the outside. But in order to settle in it, you still need to invest half, or even the same amount. And if we compare with houses made of wood (timber, round timber, which are common in our Siberian region), then in wooden houses you can live immediately, as the heating is installed. To guide the electrician in cable channels around the room. Provided that the timber was planed (or profiled). In this case, savings on interior decoration. In our village, many have done so.

That all changed this year when sawn timber rose in price to $ 20,000. rub / m3. Before the rise in price, log houses were the most popular in Siberia. For 1 million the crew would build a medium-sized box of the house. Plus another 0.5-1 million. on communications - and the house is ready. A turnkey log house is built in one season. But with stone, it takes longer and more expensive to build.

The fact that a wooden house was easier and cheaper to build is not the only reason. Wooden houses are a change of scenery after concrete city apartments. It is not critical to freeze it, and then you can quickly warm it up (if you do not use it constantly in winter). During construction, wood forgives even the most gross mistakes, including those on the foundation. What can not be said about aerated concrete. The attitude to aerated concrete during construction is strictly in accordance with technical solutions.

I understood this before. But why did I prefer construction from aerated concrete (when the lumber was another 10 thousand rubles / m3)? The fact is that having built a log bath, I realized that wood is not my material. Especially if the house is for permanent residence. Blocks, concrete is mine. I like working with them and being in a stone house. A completely different feeling. Reliability, security, or something.

I am not obsessed with the criteria of environmental friendliness, which the owners of wooden houses value so much. With ventilation, any home is comfortable. But it was precisely because of the naturalness that many people chose wooden houses. Although, even in our village there are those who are disappointed in a wooden house (with interior decoration), in which they constantly live. The tree is good in the variant of a summer residence for a weekend stay.

My construction, and on the contrary, is a house made from a bar of a neighbor, who managed to build a large wooden house before the price increase.

If today we compare the cost of 1m3 of materials for walls, then aerated concrete wins in price even after their increase. We count 1 m2 of the wall. Take the thickness of the walls made of aerated concrete 30 cm and 40 cm. In the first case, 1 m2 of wall will cost RUB 2100 / m2, and in the second - RUB 2800 / m2 (with the price of aerated concrete 7000 rubles / m3). Other wall blocks have the same approximate cost: wood concrete, heat block, expanded clay concrete.

But the price for 1m2 of a house from a bar is more expensive. Let's take a wall thickness of 18 cm (from a 150x150 timber the house will still be cold). At a price of 20 thousand. rub / m3 is RUB 3600 / m2. I think that now only those who want it will build wooden houses, not taking into account their cost.

Today I will show my construction costs in a separate article.