Bath Walls Construction: Choice Of Materials, Video

2024 Author: Bailey Albertson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 12:53

We build our bath ourselves: choose the right material for the walls

One of the main stages of building a bath on your own site is the construction of walls. It is the walls that create the necessary atmosphere in the bath, keep its spirit, heat and comfort. And therefore, a special approach to their construction is needed.

It is necessary to decide what material is best suited for the walls of a certain type of bath, what types of wood are recommended by experts, how to do the job correctly so that the bath fully fulfills its functions.

As you know, there are no trifles in the construction process, and the construction of a bathhouse does not tolerate fuss at all. Building materials for the walls of the bath are the main structural element of the entire structure. To make the right choice that suits your desires according to your possibilities, find out the features of the most commonly used materials.

Content

• 1 Walls for a bath made of logs
• 2 Walls made of timber
• 3 Types of timber
• 4 Brick in the construction of the walls of the bath
• 5 Block walls for a bath
• 6 Frame walls for a bath
• 7 Frame-panel sauna

Bath walls made of logs

Since we live in an area rich in forests, baths have traditionally been built from wood since ancient times. This material has a huge number of advantages in comparison with others:

• the walls of the log are heat-capacious, they perfectly keep the heat inside the room;
• wood is a natural natural material with high air permeability. Passing air freely, such walls will quickly dry out even at high humidity, which is constant for a bath, and, moreover, will create a pleasant microclimate in the room;
• wood is an environmentally friendly material that humans have not yet managed to create. Wood of different species gives off healing aromas with different properties that can purify the air in a room, improve well-being and even have a healing effect on the body;
• a bathhouse made of wooden logs looks aesthetically pleasing, attractive, and will perfectly fit into any landscape.

For the construction of the walls of the bath, it is customary to use coniferous wood: larch, cedar, pine, spruce. The density of their wood is especially high, which means it is less susceptible to such external influences as high humidity, temperature drops from severe frosts to heat, and drought.

Aspen or linden can serve as a good substitute for coniferous wood. Birch logs are not suitable for logging a bathhouse, since they do not tolerate high humidity and are prone to rotting under its influence.

Pine wood walls are considered the most optimal and practical option. Pay attention to the surface of the log: there should be no knots or resin pockets on it. When exposed to high temperatures, they will begin to release resin, which will adversely affect the process of taking bath procedures.

It is best to take a tree of winter processing, there will be no traces of the vital activity of wood bugs and mold on it. In addition, the tree must be thoroughly dried in order to significantly save time for the shrinkage of the structure. This feature should be taken into account if you buy a ready-made log house.

Timber walls

The advantages of a bar over logs are that it is easier to fold the walls from it. The logs sawn into four edges do not need to be adjusted, they will evenly fall into the frame, which does not need external finishing. You will be able to quickly lay the crowns, regardless of the size of the building. This is achieved thanks to the horizontal joining of the timber in the wall. If the shrinkage of a log house can be 10-12 cm, then a building from a bar will settle by no more than 6 cm.

It is not recommended to buy a ready-made log house, because in the case of uneven drying of the wood, the links may settle incorrectly, thereby violating the geometry of the building, which will definitely lead to distortions in the openings and the roof. Therefore, it is recommended to purchase timber from one batch. With certain skills, you can build walls yourself.

If you are planning to make a beam for a bath with your own hands, then you should know some features. The optimal cross-section of the timber is 150 x 150 mm. Thoroughly trim each timber to ensure a tight connection between them and a beautiful aesthetic appearance. You will also need to treat the bars with antiseptics and refractory substances so that the material is not exposed to a changeable climate and pests - rodents and insects. The final touch is drying the timber. It should be done outdoors during hot seasons or in a well-ventilated dry area. In case of poor drying, the finished walls can "play" during operation.

Types of timber

In the production of building materials, there are two most common types of timber: profiled and glued

Profiled beams are made from solid wood without any chemical treatment. When manufacturing a bar, they give the necessary shape (profile), therefore, there is more useful material in a cubic meter of a bar than in the same amount of untreated logs. Thanks to the good grinding of the surfaces and ready-made tongue-and-groove joints, a frame made of such a bar is easy to put in and does not require caulking and additional thermal insulation.

Glued timber is distinguished by increased strength; during its manufacture, the components of the lamella are impregnated with antiseptics and glued with synthetic resins. When building the walls of the bathhouse made of laminated veneer lumber, pay attention to the outer board: it must be made of larch. You should not save on the quality of the material; the durability of the structure depends on it.

The best option would be a beam, in which the inner board is made of cedar, the outer one is made of larch, and the central lamellas are pine. There should be no defects on the bar, such as the paths of wood pests, chips, blue areas of wood or deep cracks that arise when the bar is not dried correctly. Each of these disadvantages significantly reduces the quality of the material.

Brick in the construction of the walls of the bath

The main advantage of a brick-built bath is fire safety and durability. You can use both clay and sand-lime bricks. The disadvantage of brick walls of a bathhouse, in comparison with wooden ones, is in high thermal conductivity: the structure heats up rather slowly, but cools down quickly. There are several ways to help fix this situation:

• two-layer masonry wall with an internal air gap of 5 cm; the wall thickness will be 51 cm;
• wall cladding in one and a half to two bricks with thermal insulation from the inside;
• well masonry: double walls are being built, transverse partitions are installed, forming closed cavities into which slag, peat chips, expanded clay or sawdust dismounted with alabaster are poured - they will provide thermal insulation.

Bricks with internal voids significantly increase the thermal insulation of the bath. Bandaging the seams (the upper brick goes halfway to the lower one) will ensure the strength of the masonry. In addition, the bandage resists the compression and tension of the materials, distributing the load in the wall. Also, for the strength of the masonry, it is necessary to maintain the same thickness of the seams, ideally: horizontal seam - 12 mm, vertical - 10 mm.

However, regardless of the thickness of the brick walls, additional insulation is needed. The modern construction market offers a large assortment of roll and plate heat-insulating materials. The most common of them, used in interior cladding - mineral fiber, foam, basalt mats, extruded polystyrene foam, isover. Outside, the walls are sheathed with roofing material or coated with bitumen mastic, after all the seams and cracks are sealed.

Block walls for a bath

Building block walls is quite simple in itself and does not require a lot of time. There are the following types of blocks used in construction works:

• expanded clay concrete;
• gas silicate;
• reinforced concrete;
• slag concrete;
• foam concrete.

When erecting walls, two layers of roofing material are laid on the strip foundation, and blocks are already placed on top. When laying, a simple cement mortar is used, when working with gas silicate blocks - special glue.

The blocks should be laid with a reinforcing mesh every two rows - this will increase the strength of the wall and prevent cracks.

Since the material of the blocks is porous and absorbs moisture, thereby reducing the strength, the foundation for the structure should be kept from half a meter or more. The inner surface of the walls is sheathed with lathing, and covered with a layer of heat-insulating material, for example, stone wool, basalt or foam. A layer of foil film will serve as waterproofing.

After fixing the film, fill in the 25 mm strips on which the lining will be attached. The horizontal laying of the lining is more convenient, it is easier to replace it in the future. Outside, block walls can be sheathed with siding or decorative bricks.

Frame walls for a bath

Frame baths are gaining more and more popularity: they are easier to install than log cabins and cheaper than bricks or blocks. Such a bath is installed on a light foundation with a low degree of depth. The structure of the frame is a rigid frame, which is sheathed with boards on both sides. In the manufacture of the frame, timber and carefully dried planed boards 20-30 mm thick are used. When installing such walls, special equipment and professional skills are not needed: any person can easily cope on their own in a short time.

The frame bath box does not shrink, so you can start operating the structure immediately after the end of construction.

After installing the frame, it should be provided with an internal vapor barrier. To do this, use materials such as:

• simple vapor barrier film;
• reflective aluminum film;
• membrane film.

In cold northern latitudes with an unstable climate, it is worth providing a double layer of thermal insulation to the frame bath. The first layer will be a slab material - fiberboard, reed mats, wood concrete or kostramite. Before laying, the material must be treated with fire retardants. The second layer is roll materials such as fiberglass, which has a lower thermal conductivity than wood. Therefore, glass wool can be laid in a thin layer, this will save usable floor space. A lining is sewn on top of the insulation. Outside, the walls can be clad with siding, blockhouse or plastic panels.

Frame-panel sauna

The main difference between a frame-panel bath and a frame one is that not boards are fixed to the frame strapping, but sandwich panels or boards made of wood chips. Sandwich panels consist of two sheets of OSB, between which a hundred-millimeter polystyrene plate is laid. These sheets, these panels are screwed to the frame with self-tapping screws, and the joints between them are filled with polyurethane foam. Inside the box, an additional frame is mounted on the walls for a layer of insulation.

Glassine and mineral wool are used as insulation. A layer of foil is laid on top of them. The joints of the sheets must be glued so that subsequently the steam does not penetrate into the insulating layer, thereby spoiling it. At the end of the installation of the insulating and vapor barrier layer, the wall is sheathed with clapboard.

The outer surfaces of the walls are sheathed with a double layer of basalt mats. Additional insulation can be achieved, if necessary, by laying a roll heat insulator between the layers. Such a sealed structure will provide the bath with the effect of a thermos, the required temperature in such a structure will hold for as long as you need.

In order for your bathhouse to look like a traditional log house, use a blockhouse for external cladding. It not only perfectly imitates a log, but also has high strength, does not shrink and is not affected by climatic conditions, insects and rodents, thanks to preliminary factory processing with antiseptics and refractory substances.