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How to build a bath from a bar with your own hands

A bath is won­der­ful, and your own is dou­bly so. Increas­ing­ly, a bath­house is being built on sites from tim­ber, and not from bricks or logs. There are rea­sons for this, which we will find out togeth­er with the experts. So, we build a bath from a bar with our own hands
How to build a bath from a bar with your own hands
How to build a bath from a bar with your own hands. Pho­to: pixabay.com

A bath from a bar has a num­ber of advan­tages:

  • it is prac­ti­cal because it is built rel­a­tive­ly quick­ly, does not require exter­nal dec­o­ra­tion and is easy to keep clean;
  • ease of instal­la­tion (a beam is lighter than a log, it is assem­bled in a short time with­out the use of com­plex and expen­sive mech­a­nisms);
  • prof­itabil­i­ty: tim­ber struc­tures are not only cheap­er than stone ones, but they also do not require a pow­er­ful and deep foun­da­tion;
  • long ser­vice life (such a bath can last more than half a cen­tu­ry);
  • envi­ron­men­tal friend­li­ness: nat­ur­al wood cre­ates an excel­lent micro­cli­mate in all bath rooms.

Step-by-step instructions for building a bath from a bar

Step 1. Preparatory stage

This stage is very impor­tant, since it is at the begin­ning that all the advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages of the future struc­ture are laid. At the prepara­to­ry stage, you must per­form the fol­low­ing work:

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  • bind the future bath on the ground. To do this, it is nec­es­sary to deter­mine the ter­rain, the nature of the soil and the lev­el of ground­wa­ter, which will allow you to choose the opti­mal type of foun­da­tion;
  • draft­ing a bath and cal­cu­lat­ing the required mate­ri­als. It is bet­ter to entrust the devel­op­ment of the project to spe­cial­ists. It will take into account all your indi­vid­ual require­ments;
  • selec­tion and pur­chase of mate­ri­als. Espe­cial­ly care­ful­ly you need to choose a beam. It should not have even the slight­est cracks, worm­holes and blue spots, indi­cat­ing the process of decay. High-qual­i­ty tim­ber looks per­fect­ly smooth and even.

Step 2. Building the foundation

The foun­da­tion is the basis of the future bath, so it should be giv­en spe­cial atten­tion. For a low-rise log bath, the fol­low­ing types of foun­da­tions can be used: strip, sup­port-pil­lar and pile-screw.

Strip foun­da­tion deep­ens by 50–80 cen­time­ters, which char­ac­ter­izes it as shal­low. It should also pro­trude at least 0.5 meters above ground lev­el in order to pro­tect the low­er beam from damp­ness and decay. Such a foun­da­tion does not require large finan­cial costs and is suit­able for non-mas­sive wood­en build­ings. It can be laid in a freez­ing lay­er of soil. The strip foun­da­tion is suit­able for dry and sandy soils. It is a rein­forced con­crete frame, which is laid on com­pact­ed small grav­el or a sand cush­ion.

Sup­port­ing pil­lar foun­da­tion does not involve the use of com­plex mech­a­nisms and it can be done by hand. It per­forms well both on dense soils and on sand. Pil­lars made of brick or con­crete blocks are installed at the cor­ners, perime­ter and places of the bear­ing walls of the future bath. The opti­mal dis­tance between such sup­ports is 1.5 meters. A con­crete base should be made under each of the pil­lars to pre­vent the process of their sub­si­dence. For strength, any foun­da­tion must be strength­ened with rein­force­ment.

Pile screw foun­da­tion involves the use of met­al pre­fab­ri­cat­ed struc­tures. This type is suit­able for almost any soil. It can be built even on a site with a steep slope. It is easy to install it with your own hands, since the instal­la­tion is quite sim­ple. The pile-screw foun­da­tion com­pacts the soil, it is eco­nom­i­cal and earth­quake-resis­tant.

Step 3. Foundation waterproofing

The first lay­er of tim­ber must be water­proofed from the foun­da­tion, because mois­ture will rise through the cap­il­lar­ies and cause the wood to rot. Damp­ness, fun­gus and mold occur. To pre­vent this from hap­pen­ing, a lay­er of molten bitu­men should be applied to the hor­i­zon­tal sur­face of the foun­da­tion. From above it is nec­es­sary to lay a con­tin­u­ous lay­er of roof­ing mate­r­i­al. After the bitu­men has hard­ened, the whole pro­ce­dure is repeat­ed again.

It is inter­est­ing

How to make a fence with your own hands

Step 4. Assembling the walls from the timber

Before start­ing the con­struc­tion of the walls of the bath, you should use the lev­el to check for even­ness of the hor­i­zon­tal sur­face of the beam. All fur­ther con­struc­tion depends on the qual­i­ty of lay­ing the low­er crown of the bath. For the bot­tom lay­er, you need to choose a thick­er beam, but its length should be the same.

Before lay­ing the first crown, it is required to place thin wood­en slats about 15 mm thick, pre-treat­ed with an anti­sep­tic, around the entire perime­ter of the foun­da­tion. The dis­tance between them (about 30 cm) is filled with insu­la­tion or mount­ing foam. This is done in order to pro­tect the low­er bars from rot­ting and damp­ness.

The first crown is not fixed, the fol­low­ing lay­ers of tim­ber are placed on it, under the weight of which the bath will shrink. There­fore, it is not worth lay­ing the log house of the bath too tight­ly.

The erec­tion of walls implies a clear order. First, the crowns are laid, which are aligned and con­nect­ed to each oth­er using met­al pins or wood­en dow­els. They are dri­ven into spe­cial­ly made holes of the appro­pri­ate diam­e­ter. Holes are drilled at a dis­tance of 1–1.5 meters. The drill should pass through the top beam and half the bot­tom. Pins are insert­ed into the holes, and a lay­er of insu­la­tion is laid.

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A log bath is prac­ti­cal because it is built rel­a­tive­ly quick­ly, does not require exter­nal fin­ish­ing and is easy to keep clean. Pho­to: shutterstock.com

In the same way, all sub­se­quent crowns of the bath are locat­ed. The top two crowns do not need to be fas­tened, as they will have to be tem­porar­i­ly removed dur­ing the instal­la­tion of the ceil­ing beams.

After erect­ing the walls, the bath must stand for shrink­age to occur, which lasts about six months. To pro­tect the tim­ber from get­ting wet, it is desir­able to install a tem­po­rary roof with water­proof­ing.

Step 5: Caulking the Slots

After shrink­age, it is required to caulk the gaps between the bars. For this pur­pose, jute, felt, tow, sealant are used. Caulk­er starts from the bot­tom row, grad­u­al­ly ris­ing up. Tow or felt is ham­mered into the exist­ing slots using a wood­en spat­u­la and a ham­mer.

It is most con­ve­nient to work with jute, as it allows you to save time and achieve the best result. Jute is unwound grad­u­al­ly, placed over the beams and attached to them with nails using a sta­pler.

Step 6. Roofing

The con­struc­tion of the roof involves the fol­low­ing works: instal­la­tion of a sup­port for the roof struc­ture, instal­la­tion of ceil­ing beams, cre­ation of a truss struc­ture, water­proof­ing and insu­la­tion of the roof, lath­ing of the truss sys­tem, instal­la­tion of roof­ing from roof­ing mate­r­i­al, tiles, met­al or ondulin.

The sim­plest option is the con­struc­tion of a gable roof. An insu­lat­ed attic with good ven­ti­la­tion is cre­at­ed under it.

How­ev­er, if addi­tion­al liv­ing quar­ters are required, then it is rec­om­mend­ed to make the roof bro­ken. This will sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase the area of ​​​​the upper floor, where you can orga­nize a relax­ation room or put a bil­liard table.

Step 7. Installing door and window openings

The instal­la­tion of door and win­dow open­ings in a bath from a bar should be tak­en care of in advance. Already dur­ing the con­struc­tion of the walls, small gaps are left in the right places, which will be expand­ed with a chain­saw after the bath shrinks.

The dimen­sions of the doors in the bath are rec­om­mend­ed with a height of 1.6–1.8 meters, a width of 0.6–1 meter. The width of the win­dows is with­in 0.3 m, and their length is a max­i­mum of 0.9 m. They are usu­al­ly locat­ed at eye lev­el.

Win­dows are rarely installed in steam rooms.

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Step 8. Interior decoration

A bath from a bar gets off, as a rule, only from the inside.

In the steam room, a stove is installed on the foun­da­tion. Walls, floors and ceil­ings can be fin­ished with tiles that are prac­ti­cal, durable and avail­able in a vari­ety of col­ors and shades. Clap­board trim is also wide­ly used. Hard­wood is used (larch, aspen, birch, lin­den), which does not emit resin at high tem­per­a­tures and dries quick­ly.

In oth­er bath rooms, you can also use lin­ing or fac­ing tiles. In these rooms, soft­wood lin­ing with a pleas­ant smell is suit­able.

Expert advice

  • When choos­ing a tim­ber, you should pay atten­tion to the absence of a large num­ber of knots.
  • To pre­vent pre­cip­i­ta­tion from pen­e­trat­ing under the foun­da­tion, it is nec­es­sary to make a blind area on four sides.
  • When lay­ing and fas­ten­ing the beam, try not to place the end seams on top of each oth­er.
  • Insu­la­tion should be laid between the bars, which will not only retain heat, but also allow the bar to lie with­out stress.
  • To warm the bath, you can use for­est moss, which will give addi­tion­al nat­u­ral­ness to the bath build­ing.
  • It is bet­ter to use out­door well-insu­lat­ed elec­tri­cal wiring.
  • The stove should be with stones on which water is poured in order to cre­ate steam.

Popular questions and answers

Pavel Bunin, own­er of the bath com­plex“Ban­sk”:

How to reduce the cost of build­ing a bath from a bar?
Despite the fact that even in the stan­dard con­fig­u­ra­tion, baths made of tim­ber are rel­a­tive­ly inex­pen­sive, the tech­nol­o­gy allows you to fur­ther reduce costs. But do not for­get about the rule: “we save, but we do it com­pe­tent­ly, with­out los­ing the qual­i­ty of the result.”

Foun­da­tion. One of the main stages of con­struc­tion. It depends on him how much the con­struc­tion of the bath will cost. When build­ing a bath from a pro­filed beam, it is enough to make a colum­nar foun­da­tion. It will take two times less mate­ri­als than tape. Already tan­gi­ble sav­ings.

Walls. The cost of a bath large­ly depends on the choice of mate­r­i­al. So, a cut tim­ber is com­pa­ra­ble in price to the cost of a log; in order to work with this mate­r­i­al, it is nec­es­sary to have expe­ri­ence in car­ry­ing out such con­struc­tion work. Despite the con­sid­er­able cost of pro­filed tim­ber, such mate­r­i­al will sim­pli­fy the stage of con­struc­tion work. All thanks to the con­ve­nient type of con­nec­tion “thorn in the groove”, which ensures tight­ness and reduces the cost of ther­mal insu­la­tion of the walls. The most expen­sive type of wall mate­r­i­al is pro­filed glued lam­i­nat­ed tim­ber. Using this mate­r­i­al, you will save a lot of time.

Roof. In order for the cost of build­ing a bath to be low and with­out com­pro­mis­ing qual­i­ty, you can refuse to build a roof with com­plex archi­tec­tur­al forms. There are designs that are sim­pler to imple­ment, so I advise you to use inex­pen­sive, but reli­able and light­weight soft tiles as a roof­ing mate­r­i­al.

Inte­ri­or dec­o­ra­tion. Expe­ri­enced builders assure that it is impos­si­ble to save on the inte­ri­or dec­o­ra­tion of any bath. The com­fort and peri­od of oper­a­tion of the facil­i­ty depends on this stage. It is nec­es­sary to pay atten­tion to the mate­ri­als that are used in the steam room and wash­ing depart­ment. Aspen or larch boards are con­sid­ered the best option for cladding walls, ceil­ings and floors. Both breeds are hydropho­bic, durable, and most impor­tant­ly, envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly. And this is the basic prin­ci­ple in the con­struc­tion of any bath.

What is bet­ter to entrust to spe­cial­ists?
Com­pli­ance with tech­nol­o­gy, com­pe­tent cal­cu­la­tion of esti­mates and a respon­si­ble approach guar­an­tee high qual­i­ty and afford­able cost of the result, how­ev­er, there are stages at which we do not rec­om­mend sav­ing, it is bet­ter to involve spe­cial­ists.

Project. As with the con­struc­tion of any object, ini­tial­ly for the bath you need to cre­ate a project. To com­pile it, it is bet­ter to con­tact pro­fes­sion­al design agen­cies. Spe­cial­ists will help to cre­ate an indi­vid­ual project, tak­ing into account all the fea­tures of the site and give rec­om­men­da­tions for the con­struc­tion. You should not be neg­li­gent about this stage, as even the soil on which con­struc­tion work is planned is being stud­ied by com­pe­tent agen­cies.

Mate­r­i­al cal­cu­la­tion. Any mas­ter with exten­sive expe­ri­ence, even by eye, will be able to esti­mate the right amount of mate­r­i­al. If you apply for the deliv­ery of wood to the sup­pli­er, then he will cal­cu­late every­thing on his own and bring the right amount. But rarely, one of them takes into account force majeure cir­cum­stances, for exam­ple, defec­tive mate­r­i­al. There­fore, at this stage, I rec­om­mend con­sult­ing with spe­cial­ists.

Are there stan­dards for installing a bath on the site?
The cor­rect loca­tion of the bath is the most impor­tant stage in con­struc­tion. There are sev­er­al impor­tant fac­tors to con­sid­er when build­ing.

It is worth pay­ing atten­tion to pro­vid­ing a bath with day­light, so you need to focus on the south, south­east, east.

It is impor­tant to study the ter­rain, if there is a slope on the ter­ri­to­ry, then the bath­house should be locat­ed on an ele­vat­ed part, this will pro­tect the build­ing from pre­cip­i­ta­tion and ground­wa­ter. If this is not pos­si­ble, take pro­tec­tive mea­sures.

Think in advance about the issue of sum­ming up com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

No fire safe­ty any­where.

Cur­rent­ly, there are rules that must be observed:

the min­i­mum dis­tance from the bath to the liv­ing quar­ters is 8 meters;
there should be at least 15 meters between a log bath and neigh­bor­ing hous­es;
to the for­est, groves and oth­er places of mass place­ment of trees — 15 meters;
to lakes, rivers, ponds and all that — 5 meters;
dis­tance to tall trees, even if it is your own gar­den — 4 meters;
medi­um-sized trees — 3 meters;
shrub veg­e­ta­tion — 1 meter.

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