Wall decoration with a block house, its types, choice, advantages and disadvantages, necessary tools, materials and their calculation, wall preparation and work technology.
Block house specifications
High-quality cladding with a block house allows you to get a lot of advantages, especially when compared with other types of decorative finishes, for example, painting or plastering walls:
- The building envelope will receive additional thermal insulation, which will help to significantly reduce the cost of heating it.
- Installation of a block house is not associated with the appearance of dust and dirt and is a "clean", practically waste-free process.
- Installation of cladding takes little time; in one day, you can completely complete the exterior decoration of a small house.
- Cladding technology provides for internal ventilation of the walls of the building.
- The naturalness of the wood covering ensures the comfort of the home.
However, natural material also has some disadvantages:
- Surfaces finished with a block house require constant maintenance using expensive products.
- If it is not possible to avoid the appearance of cracks during the installation of the panels, dust will accumulate in them.
- Block house wood panels have a rather high cost.
Block house metal sheets are made with a thickness of at least 0.5 mm. From the inside, the plates are treated with a primer and varnish-and-paint composition, on the front side of the products there is a pattern imitating natural wood. The main advantage of metal cladding is high strength, resistance to temperature fluctuations, moisture resistance, durability and constancy of characteristics regardless of climatic conditions.
Vinyl panels contain plasticizers and reinforcing protective components. This material has many of the advantages of a wood block house, but it is cheaper, stronger and comes in a wide range of colors. The choice of a metal or vinyl block house is not particularly difficult. Therefore, we will consider in more detail the use of wooden products of this type.
Features of choosing a wooden block house for walls
The principle of making a wooden block house is that four-sided cuts are made from a log processed on a machine. These four semi-circular blanks, after drying and making tool joints on them, become the slats of the block house.
They differ in size and quality of wood, therefore they are selected in four grades: A, B, C and extra. After that, all the planks are stacked and wrapped in plastic wrap so that the dried wood does not pick up moisture during storage or transportation.
One pack may contain a different number of panels, but the volume of material will always be the same - 1 m3.
In addition to the grade, the material varies in size. A narrow block house has a length of 210-600 cm and a width of up to 9.6 cm. The length of a wide one is the same, but the width of the slats is larger: 14.5-19 cm, wide slats are more expensive.
For interior wall decoration, it is recommended to buy a narrow block house, as it will save space in the room: the thickness of the narrow strips does not exceed 20 mm. In addition, this material is optimal for facing arbors, verandas and terraces. For exterior wall decoration, you need to choose a wide block house, it will give the cladding a spectacular look of a natural log house.
When buying a block house, you need to pay attention to its color. If the planks in the same package have a completely different tone, this means that the material is of inferior quality. A high-quality block house has planks that have approximately the same color shade.
You should not buy panels with such defects: blue spots, rotten knots, cracks or with a touch of mold. The moisture content of the boards should not exceed 20%. This value is displayed on the material certificate.
Calculation of the number of block house panels for walls
To sheathe the walls with a block house, before purchasing the panels, you should calculate the required number. The calculation order is as follows:
- When calculating, you need to take into account the area of the walls that will be sheathed, which means that its required amount will be measured in m2.
- It is easy to calculate the coverage area: you should measure the length and height of the wall, and then multiply the obtained values. This operation must be carried out on each wall to be cladding. Then the values of the areas of all walls must be added and subtracted from the total area of the window and door openings.
- Knowing the length and width of the block house plank, you can calculate in the same way how much area it can cover. In this case, when measuring the width of the product, the width of the spike of its lock is not taken into account.
- By dividing the values of the total area of the walls, taking into account the openings, by the area of the plank, you can get the required number of piece products.
- The required cubic capacity of a block house can be calculated by multiplying the thickness of the plank by the total coverage area. Since manufacturers indicate on the packaging the volume of material is 1 m3, it will not be difficult to calculate the required number of such packages.
Block house wall cladding materials and tools
To decorate the walls with a block house, you first need to purchase the necessary materials:
- Lining block house in the right quantity.
- Insulation, which can be slabs made of mineral wool or fiberglass.
- A wooden beam, having a size corresponding to the thickness of the insulation and necessary for the manufacture of the lathing.
- Vapor barrier material, it can be foil insulation, perforated film and other membranes.
- Fasteners that are resistant to moisture - cleats. They are made of galvanized metal. Depending on the type of plank, the height of the "tongue" of the kleimer should be more than 0.6 cm. In total, you will need about 200 products for fastening each 10 m2 block house.
- Screws are self-tapping screws, with their help the kleimers are attached to the lathing bars.
- Plastic dowels and screws for fixing the wooden frame to the walls.
In addition to materials, you will need such tools: a construction stapler with staples, a screwdriver for tightening self-tapping screws, a building level, a circular electric saw or a hacksaw for cutting the slats of a block house of the required size. For a clean and even cut, the circular saw must be free of carbide.
To mount a block house at a height of more than 1.5 m, a step ladder or scaffold is required.
Preparing the walls before installing the block house
This stage of work is especially important before sheathing the walls with a block house indoors. In a step-by-step execution, it looks like this:
- It is necessary to diligently remove the old peeling finish from the walls, be it paint, wallpaper, plaster and the like. When working, you can use a metal brush, chisel and hammer.
- The cleaned wall should be treated with an antiseptic using a spray bottle. This device turns the solution into a spray that can penetrate even very small cracks in the wall. This process will protect her from the possibility of mold or mildew growth under the block house.
- When the wall is dry, it should be covered with 2-3 coats of deep penetration primer to strengthen the cleaned surface.
- The next step is to install a vapor barrier on all walls to be clad. For this, foil sheets or perforated film should be fixed to the walls with staples using a construction stapler.
- Then a frame needs to be made from wooden blocks. The bars are attached to the surface with dowels and self-tapping screws.
- After that, insulation should be laid in the cells of the frame. It is not necessary to use fasteners for it. In order for the heat insulator slabs to "sit" tightly in the frame, their width should be one centimeter greater than the distance between adjacent sheathing bars.
- The laid insulation must be covered with a layer of vapor barrier, fixing the film with a stapler on the frame bars. The film should be overlapped to avoid gaps between the canvases.
- Then thin slats need to be sewn onto the crate. The directions of fastening the battens and the main lathing bars must match. This is necessary for free circulation of air under the sheathing panels, ensuring continuous ventilation of the entire coating.
Important! Before installing a wooden frame, its elements must be treated with an antiseptic solution.
Block house fastening technology to walls
The installation of a block house is the least time-consuming process in comparison with the previous stages of work. However, you should not especially relax here, since this work requires maximum accuracy, since any defect made will be immediately noticeable to everyone.
Block house boards can be fixed in three ways:
- Kleimers … These elements are attached with self-tapping screws to the frame bars, and with free parts they are inserted into the groove of the strip. They provide reliable fixation of the interlocking connection of the block house boards. However, if the clamps are incorrectly installed, large gaps may remain between adjacent cladding parts, spoiling the appearance of the entire finish.
- Screwing in screws or driving nails into the panel spike … In this case, before starting the process, holes should be made for such fasteners with a drill and a drill for wood. Otherwise, the spike will burst and the bar will be damaged. When using galvanized nails by driving them into the spike at an inclination of 45 degrees, there is also a high probability of destruction of the locking element.
- By screwing self-tapping screws into the center of the bar … In this case, two drills are performed. One hole is made for the screw part of the screw, and the other, with a wider drill, under its head. This method is the most reliable, but the hole in the bar will have to be closed with a special pin, fixing it with PVA glue. After each such procedure, the place where the block house is attached to the wall must be sanded.
The use of cleats is recognized as a fairly reliable and fast way of fastening a block house.
When installing panels, you need to follow these rules:
- The cladding of the inner wall must be started from the bottom of the window, if any. This will make it possible to see and eliminate all surface preparation flaws, if any. When finishing an external wall, the first plank should be installed on an ebb, which protects the foundation from water flowing down the surface of the wall during rains or melting snow.
- Do not try to connect adjacent strips by weight. This procedure is performed only on a hard surface of the battens.
- The first lining strip must be installed on the frame with the groove down and the spike up. It is necessary to check the horizontal installation of the starting strip with the building level, since the appearance of the entire wall decoration depends on this. The initial deviation of the plank from the horizon of 1 mm can increase this value tenfold after several panels.
Block house decoration is done as follows:
- The first board must be attached to the installation site, and if necessary, adjust it by trimming.
- Each plank should be secured with clamps.
- After installing the strips on one wall, you can start installing the cladding on the adjacent surface. Fitting each panel should be made in length and cut the profile at the corner joints of the walls so that the entire cladding looks like a single whole.
- The contours of the sawed-off block house board and the panel located at 90 degrees to it should be identical. It is convenient to saw in the inner corners with a jigsaw. The plank joints at the outer corners can be closed with a wooden corner.
- The cracks at the joints of the block house with the walls and windows are masked with the help of special decorative overlays.
- The docking of the block house with the ceiling and floor is closed with wooden skirting boards.
- The last panel of the block house will have to be fixed with self-tapping screws screwed into its center, since the limited space can prevent the installation of cleats. The same fixing method is used to fix the last plank that cannot fit into the remainder of the space between the previous panel and the ceiling. To do this, you first need to cut the panel along the length so that it fits in the right place, and at the same time the gap between the ceiling and the last panel is minimal.
- After the installation of the cladding is completed and the joints are closed with decorative elements, it is recommended to cover the wood trim with a layer of varnish. Before applying it, the wood must be treated with an antiseptic.
How to sheathe walls with a block house - watch the video:
That's the whole science of how to attach a block house to a wall. It should be noted that such wall decoration on your own is not at all complicated. Its successful outcome can bring cost savings and aesthetic satisfaction.
