Wooden or metal dowel. Assembling a house from timber - stages of building a log house What is better: nails or wood

Many builders recommend assembling houses from profiled timber on wooden dowels. What is a wooden dowel? An old proven method for fastening modern materials? Yes, there are a lot of reviews on the Internet that the timber assembled on nails did not settle and there were through gaps. But cracks are formed not because of nails, but because of crooked builders or thrifty customers, as in lately happens often. The teams believe that if the house is economy class and the salary is small, then they need to collect them as quickly as possible in order to complete several projects in a short time and earn a normal salary.

When we assemble a profiled beam onto nails, we make sure to recess the nail head by 1 - 2 cm. If the nail is not recessed, then after the wood has dried, the nail begins to stick out a little and does not allow the next beam to sit in place, which is why gaps are formed.

We also had orders for the exterior finishing of 10-15 year old log houses. All of them were assembled on dowels, and all of them had walls in waves.

Why do timber walls assembled on dowels bend?

In the old days, in order to fasten two logs with a diameter of 30 to 50 cm, nails at least 80 cm long were required. Such nails do not even exist today. In place of this, wooden dowels with a diameter of approximately 30 mm were used, holes for them were drilled 5 mm smaller than the diameter of the dowel, so that the dowel would be hammered very tightly and after the wood had dried, the log would not move in different directions, which could lead to deformation of the log house. Because of this technology, a log frame will settle into place in no less than 5 to 10 years.

Wooden round dowels with a diameter of 3-4 cm are used only for thick wooden walls, such as logs or cylinders. If you use a dowel in a profiled beam, the following happens - the thickness of the prof. timber 14 cm. The dowel is drilled in the middle, leaving the thickness of the wall from the outer edge to the dowel no more than 5 cm. Because of this, the initially dry dowel absorbs moisture very well in autumn and spring, and when it dries (in summer) in places where the timber has not settled, it begins to bend. And if the timber starts to bend, the dowel will not hold it, it will simply bend like a timber and after drying it will remain that way. Minimum thickness timber for such a dowel is 200mm. Plus, the installation of dowels should be done in a checkerboard pattern, which increases rigidity and reduces the bending of the walls.

Thin profiled timber does not have sufficient weight, the lower rims fit well, the entire weight of the log house presses on them. But the upper rims on the dowels weigh for years; the timber does not have enough of its own weight to settle; after all, it is not a log. The tops come together easier with nails.

Currently, for better shrinkage of timber, there is a modern spring unit "SILA". This is true for now expensive pleasure, Approximate cost installation of a unit for a 6x6 m house will cost 46,000 rubles.

He is faced with the question of how to fasten the wood elements. The first thought that comes to his mind is to use nails for this. But at the same time, many people worry that they will rust when exposed to dampness. This can lead to damage and destruction of the wood at the joints of the beams. But nails can still be used to connect wooden elements baths Moreover, experts offer two options for fastening the beams - using dowels or nails.

Using dowels in the construction of a bathhouse

Pins are fastening elements made of wood. They are quite thick, their diameter is usually at least 3 cm. In order to install the dowel, you need to cut a hole in the timber into which it will fit. In this case, the fastening element itself should be slightly smaller in thickness than the diameter of the hole prepared for it. But at the same time, the dowel should not be too thin for its groove. It should fit tightly into it. Otherwise, the necessary strength of the connection between the wooden elements of the bathhouse will not be ensured.

To create straight hole For dowels in beams, you will need a powerful drill and a long drill. The groove for the dowel must be made very carefully so that you do not have to subsequently seal the free distance between it and the fastening element. You also need to pay attention to the choice of material for the dowel. It must be made of durable wood that can withstand significant loads. How strong and safe the connection of the beams will be depends on how strong the fastening element is.

Using nails

If the future owner of a bathhouse still wants to fasten the timber with nails, he needs to know a few important points:

Only long nails are suitable for connecting beams - at least 25 cm. Smaller fasteners will not provide the required fastening reliability;
nails are not hammered directly into the beam; holes are prepared for them in advance. Moreover, they should be longer than the nail itself. As in the case of dowels, the nails should fit tightly into the holes created for them;
holes are created vertically in the beam, and the nails in them must be recessed at least 3 cm deep from the top edge of the beam. This is necessary so that during the shrinkage process wood material the fastening element did not rest against the beam located in the next row. If this happens, the force of the metal may cause the wood in the area where the nail is located to begin to crack. The result is the formation of cracks into which air will blow and precipitation will begin to fall. In addition, as a result of moisture entering the timber, the metal fasteners will begin to rust. And rust will begin to destroy the wooden walls of the bathhouse.

Which is better: pins or nails

To use dowels, you need to order them to be made from durable wood. Fasteners made from inexpensive pine or birch will not work. In addition, it must be resistant to moisture. If the dowels are destroyed under the influence of dampness, this will negatively affect the strength of the building.

Nails - best option for fastening the timber. You just need to choose fasteners with anti-corrosion protection, which will prevent them from deteriorating under the influence of dampness. If you manage to install the nails correctly in the timber, then there will be no risk of them rusting at all, since they will be located inside the wood and will not have contact with air and moisture. Another advantage of using nails is their low cost. In addition, their service life is longer than that of wooden dowels.

How to fasten the crowns of a log house

If you are planning to build a timber or log house, ask how the workers will connect the crowns to each other. If using nails or even using reinforcement, consider whether you need to invite this team.

When the neighbors summer cottage They decided to build a house from timber, they found a company ready to make their wish come true. They drew up an estimate for them, but explained that this final cost of work is valid if the frame of the house is assembled with nails. And if the customer wants the crowns of the house to be assembled on wooden dowels, then he needs to pay an additional amount of more than 50,000 rubles. They came to me for advice on what to do.

What is the price?

Even if a builder, disregarding common sense, decides to build a timber or log house on nails, it will cost him more! I'll explain in more detail.

Under construction wooden house boards with a thickness of 25 mm - the so-called inch - are widely used. It is used for the production of formwork, subfloors, sheathing and other purposes. The boards inevitably leave short cuttings, suitable only for firewood. From these you can prepare dowels, as they say, completely for nothing.

When I was building timber house, from the accumulated scraps of inch boards, cut into miter saw workpieces 120 mm long. Then he dismissed them band saw along the bars square section 25*25 mm. Then I used a hatchet to sharpen these blocks on both sides. In a few hours I prepared more than 600 dowels - enough for the whole house! To purchase the same number of nails 200 mm long you will need more than 6,000 rubles.

Assembling a log house

Collecting crowns on such pins is a pleasure! First, two adjacent timbers are placed in a given position and the location of each dowel is marked. The upper beam is turned over and, using a square and a simple template, the markings are transferred to the central axis of the upper and lower beams. All that remains is to drill holes in both beams and hammer the dowels into lower crown. Then the inter-crown insulation is laid and the top beam is installed with holes on pointed dowels. To settle, you can walk along the beam and tap it with a sledgehammer.

I use cheap feather drill with drilling depth mark. Of course, the total depth of the holes in both beams should be longer dowels, otherwise during shrinkage the beams will hang on the dowels with the formation of cracks. Short dowels do not interfere with the normal shrinkage of the timber box: they work to shear, fixing the position of the beams.

Drive the square dowel into round hole- a little unusual, but practical! If the wall is blank, then I place the pins every 1.0-1.5 m in a checkerboard pattern. For a pier, regardless of its width, you need at least two dowels.

Once I watched a picture of workers assembling a house from timber on long wooden dowels, similar to rake handles. They lifted another heavy raw beam and drilled into the wall with a long drill - not a cheap one, I note. Subsequently, the house hung on these sticks during shrinkage, and huge gaps formed between the crowns. Even when assembling furniture, it is impossible to drill strictly vertically shallow holes for dowels and screws, simply holding a drill in your hand. In the case of a house, deviations from the vertical are inevitable and very large!

Let's go back to the nails

As with assembly on long wooden dowels, the house may hang on the nails during shrinkage (Fig. 1). It is difficult to drive long nails into timber without drilling. This means that labor intensity will increase and the cost will increase, since nails of this size are not cheap. On the market, one 200 mm nail with a diameter of 6 mm on average costs more than 10 rubles apiece (I have already said about the production of short nails).

But you shouldn’t give up nails completely. For example, the uppermost crown connected to the veranda, or spacer inserts between rafter beams It is quite possible to fasten with nails.

Often there is a layout where a large span cannot be covered wooden beams without intermediate support. This support is usually a wall or column. But when you need to do without them, use a reinforced beam (Fig. 2). It is assembled from two beams, held together with nails. Moreover, if you hammer the nails at an angle, the strength of the connection will be even higher. I usually do this - I put a support under the not yet connected beams of a composite beam so that there is no sagging. Then I fasten the beams with nails, after which I remove the support.

In conclusion, I will say: each material has its place! By using dowels and nails in the places where they are needed, we will get a warm and durable house at no extra cost!

Stepan Shkantov

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Any calculations will show that during repair, construction or reconstruction, the share of fasteners, compared to other materials, accounts for negligibly small costs. However, when wrong choice or if these components are used incorrectly, we risk the reliability and functionality of the entire facility.

Therefore, there is an unwritten rule: “you cannot save on fasteners and consumables.” But what’s interesting is that sometimes the most accessible and inexpensive solution can be the most successful. This happened with dowels - special parts for assembling log houses, which can be made of wood, polymers or metal. Let’s try to figure out which option is better and why.

Problems that can be solved with dowels

It has always been believed that traditional wooden architecture in Rus' managed “without a single nail.” But even hereditary aerobatic masters use something. This is a dowel.

To be more precise, dowels, which are also called “dowels,” are not exactly fasteners in the traditional sense. The thing is that a dowel works differently than, for example, a nail, screw or pin.

To install it in each element of the assembled wooden wall After 1.5-2 meters, holes are drilled, comparable in diameter to the cross-section of the dowels (so that the dowel fits in without excessive effort). Drilling is carried out strictly vertically and strictly along the axis of the wall.

These holes pass right through the newly installed beam (or log) and almost completely through the beam/log that is located below. It should be noted that there is a technology where not two, but three crowns are stitched.

Then the dowels are hammered into these holes and pressed down with a hammer to 3-5 centimeters, so that as the house shrinks, the dowels do not rest against the upper beam/log.

The dowel installed in its place does not fasten or tighten the logs or beams together. It serves as a mortgage element that prevents the crowns from moving relative to each other. Logs are prone to horizontal shift and “turning out” during the shrinkage of the log house, since when moisture is lost the wood begins to warp. That is, the dowel allows you to keep the wall level, but at the same time it should not interfere with the free vertical movement of the wall elements, so that the crowns do not hang, and subsequently gaps do not form between the crowns.

Let us emphasize once again: one of the most important conditions proper operation dowel is a clear correspondence between the diameter of the fastener and the diameter of the drilled seat.

What is a wooden dowel?

Pins, which can be purchased at numerous retail outlets in our country, are in most cases wooden. These are whips from one to one and a half meters long, with round. In some cases, builders use an edged block as a dowel, but it, resting against the walls of the socket only with its edges, can become very loose over time. In addition, its total cross-sectional area (and therefore strength) will be significantly less than if a round dowel were driven into the same hole.

The diameter of standard dowels is either 30 or 25 mm. The choice is made depending on the size of the wall materials used. The defining threshold is considered to be 150 mm. If the diameter of the log is less than this value, then it is worth ordering a dowel with a cross-section of 25 mm, and if it is larger, then dowels of 30 mm are better suited.

If we talk about the types of wood used, then the best option is expected to be expensive oak or beech, since their wood is the most resistant to mechanical stress. In turn, spruce, pine and aspen are at the other pole - products made from them are inexpensive, but will be too soft to be used for these purposes. The golden mean is birch. Carved birch dowels, even if there are knots, can cope well with the tasks.

The advantages of birch dowels include favorable price and accessibility. If they have the same moisture content as the material of the crowns, they will work as a single whole, and if they change in size, then they will work equally. In addition, unlike metals, wood has low thermal conductivity, which is why this embedded part will never become a bridge of cold, begin to rust, or become covered with condensation...

Metal dowels and fasteners for assembling log houses

A dowel made of metal, by definition, will be stronger than a wooden dowel of the same cross-section, but not everything is so simple. This statement will be true only if a complete analogue in cross-sectional size is used.
For example, you can often see how builders use 10-12 mm steel reinforcement, moreover, with corrugation, which is hammered with sledgehammers into narrow holes with enormous resistance. As a result, due to the ribs embedded in the wood, the crowns cannot sit freely and hang on the metal - cracks appear, the walls of the house begin to be blown by all the winds.

Due to the small cross-section of steel dowels and the plasticity of ordinary black steel, logs bend and wedge even smooth metal dowels during shrinkage. Therefore, powerful nails are also not best option, although they are used quite often.

This problem would not have arisen if smooth rods with a cross-section of 20 mm or more, or pipes with a cross-section of 25-30 mm, had been used. But the cost of such metal dowels would be simply prohibitive.

There is a technology where, instead of dowels (in the usual sense), threaded rods perform a similar function. Meter pins are fixed at one end in the foundation, then crowns are put on them. As the walls are assembled, the studs are extended using couplings. Using nuts and washers, craftsmen are able to tightly connect piece parts. wall material, including tightening the fasteners as they shrink.

Basically, this solution was used when working with very dry profiled timber. Under normal conditions, they only complicate the work.

Studs are well suited when you need to secure logs that are butted to each other. To do this, a pair of cuts and a pair of triangular/round extensions for nuts are made in the body of the rims.

Hardened U-shaped staples perform similar tightening work in the “overcut” area, but they provide a slightly less reliable connection.

Analogues of wooden dowels can be self-tapping metal screws and cotter screws. But since when screwing the crowns, the latter cannot be compacted as they shrink, the scope of use of such fasteners is limited exclusively to glued profiled timber with a minimum percentage of humidity, the walls of which practically do not shrink.

05.02.2016 08:24

When building a house from timber, two main types of fastening elements are used - nails and dowels. They work in tension and bending, which is why they are so popular.

The Russian Houses company uses both types of fasteners in its work. But you should understand that when building a house from timber it is better to use dowels, but for building a bathhouse or country house Nails will do just fine.

What is the difference between these types of fastening? Both of them serve the same purpose - to prevent the beam fastening elements from moving. But at the same time, assembly on dowels and on nails have many differences. Let's look at them in this article.

Nails as an element for fastening timber

Nails are made of metal, and therefore clash with wood, but at the same time they are often used in the construction of houses. And this is sometimes quite justified, since this type of fastening has its advantages:

Assembling a building from timber using nails is very quick;
The cost of such work is significantly lower.

But, at the same time, nails have their drawbacks:

Nails are susceptible to corrosion;
Compared to dowels, the bending performance of a nail is much worse.

In addition, when assembling timber on nails, one more thing to take into account is the depth of their recessing. It should not exceed five millimeters, otherwise, when the building settles, cracks may form.

Assembling timber on dowels

If you translate the word “nail” from German, it means “nail.” At its core, it looks like a pin made of wood. Dowels can be square or round. They allow you to prevent the beam elements from moving and keep them at a certain level.

The main requirement for such fastening elements is that they must be smooth, otherwise cracks may appear in the wall.

Advantages of assembly on dowels:
They are not subject to corrosion;
Works great for bending timber;
They are not afraid of the influence of temperature differences;
Assembly on the dowel does not subsequently interfere with the shrinkage of the walls.

This type of fastening dries out simultaneously with the timber walls. The Russian Houses company recommends using dowels made of more hard rocks wood than the timber itself. For example, if pine beams are used, it is better to use birch dowels with a round cross-section, with a thickness of at least 25 mm.

Wooden “nails” have absolutely no disadvantages. If you need to build a house from timber, this is the ideal solution, because this type of fastening is a homogeneous material. The only negative is that such work will cost more, and building a house will take a little longer than using metal nails. It is also important to prepare the wooden dowels in advance.

The construction of walls using this technology must be carried out in compliance with all rules and requirements, but then the construction will delight you with strength and durability.

Using one dowel of the appropriate length, you can immediately secure two laid crowns. It is hammered into pre-made holes using a wooden mallet. The impacts should not be strong - otherwise you can damage both the fastening element itself and the bars. You need to drive the wooden pin so that it does not reach the bottom of the hole by about two centimeters.

To ensure that shrinkage then occurs evenly, the holes must be made strictly vertically. The first pin should be driven in about half a meter from the corner, and all the rest should be driven in a checkerboard pattern, at a distance of about two meters from each other.

From all of the above, only one conclusion suggests itself - it is quite possible to use nails when assembling timber, but only if you are building a dacha or a bathhouse, which are subject to exterior decoration. If the owners will live in the house permanently, it is better to build it using wooden pins.