Larch shields for bank protection

Shore protection with larch shields is a new cost-effective way to create the boundaries of water bodies, developed by MARC2000. Between the wooden piles, we mount ready-made structures made of boards, while the price for strengthening the banks with larch shields is reduced.

Advantages of bank protection with larch shields

To save the customer's money, the company's engineers developed a simple solution: use lumber. The method of protecting the pond with larch shields does not affect the unique characteristics and features of wood:

• resin clogs pores: the material does not rot;
• over the years, the hardness of wood increases: it is possible to fix the shore with larch shields for several decades;
• rigid connection of boards and piles is guaranteed to protect the soil.

How to properly strengthen the shore with larch shields

For construction, boards and piles of the same breed are used. The engineer calculates the ground pressure (taking into account buildings and equipment), determines the distance between the bearing logs, the thickness of the boards. We include a double margin of safety in the project of strengthening the banks of the pond with larch shields.

It is possible that plank structures are inferior in beauty to even logs, but for strengthening the banks of the pond with larch shields, the price is 25% lower. Interested in the cost of protecting your pond? Give us a call and we'll explain everything!

H already a simple and cheap type of foundation? Use wood. This is a good option for light wood and frame structures. with our own hands, so that the tree lasts as long as possible, as well as some technical aspects of its device, we will consider.

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Types of wooden foundations

Wooden foundations are traditionally referred to, but the material for the piles is not concrete, which is more familiar these days, but wood. They are divided into two types:

Piles-racks;
hanging piles.

Piles-racks pass through weak layers of soil and rest on a solid foundation. If the depth of weak layers is significant, hanging piles are used. They transfer the main part of the load from the building due to the resistance of the friction forces of the pile surface against the ground.

Ways to protect wooden foundations

An unprepared tree quickly rots from contact with water and soil, and the part of the pile that is close to the surface is primarily affected by rot. To avoid this, the pile tree needs protection. We begin the preparation of wood for pile foundations with sanding.

Then we treat the wood with special antiseptic compounds. A simple but effective remedy is the following solution: in five liters of boiling water we dissolve 950 g of table salt and 50 g of boric acid. We process the piles with the resulting solution 2-3 times. This simple treatment of a wooden foundation will triple its service life.

The modern industry of antiseptics offers more effective means. When using them, you must strictly follow the instructions, carefully follow the precautions.

Regardless of the compositions used, home processing has a serious drawback, the thickness of the protected wood layer does not exceed a few millimeters. Therefore, when deciding how best to make a wooden foundation with your own hands, it is worth using industrial pressure impregnation wood.

In addition, for additional protection, wood can be smeared with tar. Or, use the recipe of ancient architects, burning wooden poles over low heat until the top layer of wood is charred. The sintered bark did not allow the tree to rot, extending the life of the wood by one and a half to two times. At home, firing can be done with a blowtorch.

The service life and their change during processing, depending on the type of tree, can be seen in the table.

The figures in the table are standard and are approximate downwards. It is known that most of the buildings in Venice have been standing on the water for centuries. And it stands on wooden piles made of larch. St. Petersburg was built on swampy soil, where most of the buildings, including the beautiful St. Isaac's Cathedral, stand on wooden ridges.

At the end of the section, advice: Our wise grandfathers and great-grandfathers harvested wood for buildings only in winter, when there is no sap flow in the tree, and the available moisture partially freezes out. Such wood dries faster and lasts much longer.

Do-it-yourself technology for building a wooden foundation

We figured out the types of wood and how to protect it. Now we have come to the solution of the main problem: how to make a wooden foundation with your own hands.

For wooden foundations, we use the lower part of a tree trunk with a diameter of at least 20 cm or rectangular pillars.

The number and length of the pillars is determined by calculation, depending on the characteristics of specific soils. Regardless of this, at the corners of the building and at the intersection of external and internal walls, the placement of piles is mandatory. With large dimensions of the structure, additional piles must be placed between the main supports with an interval of 1.5 - 2 m.

We make the diameter of the hole for the foundation pillars one and a half times the diameter of the pillar. To increase the bearing capacity of a wooden foundation, the foundations under the pillars must be strengthened. Reinforcement can be wooden crosses, stones, concrete mix. A simple way to strengthen a wooden foundation is to install a pillar in a concrete mix by 10-18 cm. Having hardened, the concrete will firmly “grab” the pillar. The subsidence of the foundation will be minimal, and even with frosty heaving, the fixation remains reliable.

By the way, about frost heaving of the soil: if wooden piles are wrapped with roofing material, PVC film or other similar material, then the soil will not freeze to the pile and will slide along it. Such a "stocking" will protect the wooden foundation from contact with the ground and extend the service life.

Considering how to make a wooden foundation with your own hands, consider basic requirements for wooden foundations:

Depth of laying not less than 1.2 m;
leaning on solid ground;
deepening below the freezing zone more than 0.5 m.

Advantages and disadvantages of wooden foundations

Wood is a unique building material that has a number of advantages when used as a foundation:

1. The property of elastic deformation, that is, the ability to recover from the perception of some excess pressure, while other types of materials are deformed or destroyed;
2. Natural thermal insulator. The building does not lose heat, "does not pull" cold through the foundation;
3. Low cost;
4. Simple mounting technology.

For hundreds of years to the present day, the purpose of wooden piles for organizing the foundation for residential buildings has not changed at all. And in our time, wooden piles are used to make a foundation for simple residential buildings.

Piles of wood in the water

In addition, in this way the foundation is made for country houses, cottages, estates. The number of storeys is a limitation in terms of application. The maximum load on wooden piles can be called a two-story house (we are talking specifically about wooden structures). Under brick houses, or structures made of panels, it is not customary to use wood for the foundation.

wooden foundation

What is the reason for the floor limit? It's all about the load on the material. If loads are expected to be too high in the foundation, concrete and steel should be used. There is another limitation, which, rather, is a recommendation on the advisability of using wooden piles. From an economic point of view, it makes sense to use wooden piles where oak groves or coniferous forests traditionally grow. This is directly related to the tradition of using wood in the construction of houses (foundation is no exception). Yes, and just elementary logistics, which should not be underestimated.

What types of trees are suitable for the construction of wooden piles?

To make wooden piles, softwood is mainly chosen. Most often it is spruce, pine, fir, larch. The best qualities, and, accordingly, the advantages in use, are distinguished by larch. This is easy to explain: the composition of the fiber of this wood contains the largest amount of resins, when compared with other conifers. Resin is a natural preservative that protects the tree from rotting. The strength of the piles is also positively affected by the fact that they all have a cross section.

Larch is the best option for wood piles. The photo shows a larch beam.

A little less often they choose oak in order to make piles. Bog oak could be used much more often, but it is impractical to harvest it - the cost is too high. They use only what is found in nature - for example, trunks that have been in the water for many years. However, this material has exceptional hardness, which can be compared, perhaps, with a grant.

There is a popular way to protect wood from decay - the ends of the logs should be burned. This is done to a depth of three centimeters. Due to this, the material becomes stronger (the chainsaw will be taken with great difficulty, it will not immediately turn out to be cut). The protective action against decay is guaranteed for at least 25 years.

The process of installing wooden piles.

Wooden piles are usually classified into a number of types:

• Is from one log;
• There are also spliced ​​(that is, which are fastened along the length);
• There are also sheet pile and package.

As a rule, the first two types are most often used. If we talk about the second option (joined piles), there are restrictions on the number of logs in the installation - no more than two are allowed. Although, this rule is often violated and a larger number is used (but no more than four - this is a fact). To fasten the logs together (Make ties), clamps are used, often bolted linings are also used. Cuts of steel pipes are also often chosen for fastening - due to this, the installation becomes more reliable and durable.

Driving wooden piles in winter

It is important that solid logs have a diameter of at least 18 cm, and if we talk about package logs, then there is at least 16 cm. For a single pile, the length standard is in the range of 4-12 m. It is important that the logs are cleared of branches and bark. The lower end is sharpened at solid piles from one log (they give it either a quadrangular or triangular shape), then a steel shoe is stuffed here (if the foundation is built in dense soil, or the soil contains a large percentage of non-metallic materials, for example, gravel, etc.) . The top end is called the butt. It is reinforced with a yoke so that it does not flatten with a hammer. The yoke is a steel strip, the thickness of which is 12 mm, and the length is about 70 mm. The hoop is put on when it is hot - and when it cools down, the butt of the pile is wrapped around very tightly, which is what the builders need.

To drive piles, a steam-air hammer is used, and a vibrating hammer is also often chosen for such work. The vibrator is also often used, but if necessary, you can always use the simplest sledgehammer. Someone uses the press - this is normal.

Wooden piles - disadvantages and advantages

First, consider - a house that stands on stilts is a fairly solid structure. Wooden piles have three major advantages over concrete and steel products:

• They are light in weight (at the same time, the bearing characteristics are higher than those of reinforced concrete piles);
• Material for production is universally available;
• The material itself is very cheap, the process of building such a foundation is also not expensive.

If all the rules are followed during construction, you can be sure that such a wooden foundation will serve you for decades. But for this, piles must be protected from decay. Of course, they can always be impregnated with creosote or special copper compounds, but the cost of the process will immediately increase because of this.

The photo shows rotten piles of wood - the consequences of long-term use in water

When building a foundation, it is easiest to place the pile heads lower than the groundwater level (at least 50 cm). Piles are not afraid of fresh water, but in sea water, salt is not the cause of destruction to the same extent as woodworms. Transverse wetting and drying of piles should not be allowed.

It's no secret that Venice stands on wooden stilts driven into the shaky soil of the islands of the Venetian lagoon. You can see how it looks, for example, - the images are very revealing, however, the text is in Italian. At the same time, on many Runet sites one can come across a statement that these piles were brought from Russia - either from Perm, or from Siberia, or from Karelia ... The story that Venice rests on piles from the Russian larches, even penetrated the air of the TV channel "My Planet" (they played such a video there at one time).

The version itself is beautiful, but still it looks rather strange. Nearby, after all, the Alps, Dalmatia, and the shores of the Adriatic Sea in the Venice region, apparently, were once completely covered with forests ... Why bring wood from distant lands if it is heaps at hand?

I have no doubt that some reasonable justification for this can be found. However, to begin with, I would like to understand this.

What, in general, is the version about Russian larch based on? It looks like nothing. All traces lead to the book by L.V. Bankovsky and M.N. Ozhiganova "The Salt of the Permian Land", which says the following (to be honest, I did not find the book itself, so I quote from secondary sources):

In the 12-volume history of Venice, written by the famous Italian historian Christopher Tentori in the 18th century, there are the following lines: "The well-being of the population of Venice is ensured by world trade and the strength of the piled structures of the city on the islands - Perm karagays." 400 thousand piles of Ural larch from the early Middle Ages still bear the weight of the palaces and houses of the city slowly sinking into the lagoon. There is no doubt that they were brought from the Perm lands, that is, the lands of the Great Perm, otherwise the trees would not be called "Perm karagai". After all, larch itself still grows in northern Italy, on the spurs of the Alps, and until now, resin is extracted from this larch, which has been called "Venetian resin" since time immemorial.

Sounds intriguing, but not very convincing. Why?

1. Twelve-volume History of Venice by Christopher Tentori. It probably means "Saggio sulla storia civile, politica, ecclesiastica e sulla corografia e topografia degli stati della repubblica di Venezia: ad usu della nobile e civile gioventù". The full text of this multivolume can be easily found at archive.org (here is the link). Thus, it is quite easy to check whether Cristoforo Tentori really speaks of Permian karagai at the foundation of the “city on the islands”. Only now I would like to know exactly where it is written, or at least how “Perm karagay” is written in Italian. Not to shovel all twelve volumes for the sake of one quote?
2. The number of piles is "400 thousand". First, it is not clear where this data came from. Secondly, 400 thousand piles is obscenely small. For comparison, in John Norwich's "History of the Venetian Republic" one finds the following: "<...>Cathedral of Santa Maria della Salute<...>rests exclusively on such piles. Judging by the sources, they were slaughtered 1,156,627 pieces ”(John Norwich. History of Byzantium. History of the Venetian Republic - 2011. ISBN 978-5-17-074111-3, 978-5-271-37819-5. P. 436) . Over a million piles under one church! (Although I don’t really believe it either. The truth is probably somewhere in between.) Some more figures can be found - an interesting video about the foundations of Venetian houses (in Italian) with a brief retelling (in Russian).
3. The authors admit that “the larch itself still grows in northern Italy, on the spurs of the Alps”, but for some reason they “have no doubt” that the larch was brought to Venice from the Permian lands...
4. And in general, why did the light come together like a wedge on larch? Near Venice, after all, piles are made of different types of trees: elm, oak, etc.

In short, one can just as well write that Venice rests on a foundation of Tula gingerbread, referring to a quotation from the same Tentori without indicating the volume and page.

The wooden foundation is used for the construction of lightweight wooden structures. Since the building material - wood, has a weak bearing capacity, and products made from it have a limited service life, the scope of wooden load-bearing structures of the base is very limited. When choosing wood as a material for a load-bearing base, individual developers must remember that it is necessary to correctly take into account the categories of soils and the type of soil on the building site, since not every type of earthen soil is suitable for the construction of wooden foundations.

Types of wooden foundations

The wooden foundation can be attributed to the class of pile foundations, in which the supporting piles are made of wood. Piles made of wood differ in the type of installation:

• Hanging piles, the installation of which is provided for at great depths with weak soils.
• Piles in the form of racks used to pass through weak soil layers until they stop at a solid foundation.

Wooden hanging piles and piles - racks differ from each other in the depth of penetration of soil layers and the depth of support on a dense, solid foundation.

The main task in the construction of a wooden foundation is to create an emphasis on a pile wooden structure to a depth not exceeding its total length.

Advantages of wooden foundations

There are many positive characteristics in the use of wood for the foundation of a wooden house or other building. These include:

• Simple and affordable technology for the production of works.
• The possibility of erecting a wooden foundation independently and with your own hands without the involvement of specialists.
• Low material cost.
• The possibility of using manual labor for installation without the use of expensive construction equipment.
• The distinctive ability of wood to resist significant bending and tensile loads.
• The heat capacity of wood, due to which the heat loss of a wooden house or building will be negligible.

The fragility of wooden foundations is their main drawback, especially in cases of construction on soils with a variable level of humidity.

A good and interesting alternative to a concrete strip foundation is the laying of wooden sleepers as a solid load-bearing base of the structure.

Requirements for the construction of wooden foundations

Suitable structures for wooden piles are rectangular wooden posts or the lower (butt) stem part of a tree with a diameter of at least 200 mm. The estimated length of the pillars and the required number are taken on the basis of the calculated data, depending on the characteristics of the soils on the building site.

At the intersection of internal and external walls, as well as at the corners of the building, it is necessary to provide for the installation of wooden piles. When constructing a building of a large area, it is recommended to place additional piles between the main design supports.

Piles should be installed in wells or holes with a diameter slightly larger than the diameter of the wooden support itself.

If you strengthen the base under the pillars with a concrete mixture, stones or wooden crosses, you can significantly increase the bearing capacity of a wooden foundation. When installing the pillars into the concrete mixture to a depth of 100 to 150 mm, there is a significant increase in the fixation of structures, which will make the foundation settlement minimal.

Wooden column foundations

For foundations made of wooden pillars, it is best to use oak or pine logs with a diameter of 250 to 300 mm, located under the main walls and along the perimeter of the building. Pillars made of wood were called "chairs" because of their resemblance to this piece of furniture. The chairs are installed directly into the ground to a depth below the freezing level. Typically, the bottom mark for the installation of poles is 1.5 or 2 m below ground level.

If the base soil has a significant indicator of strength and density, it is allowed to install chairs directly into the ground. In case of weak soils, in order to increase the area of ​​support, wooden poles are installed on special beds made of wooden plates or rectangular log linings. Connecting struts significantly increase the stability of wooden poles - chairs. Typically, the installation depth of wooden poles is from 1.25 to 2 m, the elevation of chairs above ground level is 0.75 - 0.8 m.

Protective measures for wood processing

Qualitatively processed wooden piles for foundations are the key to the durability and reliability of the supporting structures of a house or other building. If, for some reason, the wood material was not treated before being installed into the ground, such a wooden pile foundation, under the influence of moisture and cycles of freezing and thawing, will rot and become unusable after a few years.

Wood processing must be carried out before it is installed in the ground.

Treatment of wooden piles with antiseptics

The modern building materials market has a large assortment of factory-made liquid antiseptics, which have different price characteristics. Preparations for the protection of wood from decay are classified by type:

1. Water soluble.
2. With an organic oil or alcohol base.
3. Combined.

Antiseptic formulations are available in the form of solutions or concentrates, applied with brushes or mechanical sprayers.

Alternative wood processing

In order not to spend significant money on the purchase of ready-made antiseptics, you can recall and apply the old methods of processing wood from decay:

1. Charring of wooden foundation structures. A wooden pole or pile must be cleaned of bark and after sanding, the lower part is carefully charred with a blowtorch or propane torch.
2. Treatment of poles with birch tar, used machine oil or molten petroleum bitumen. This method of creating protection is considered the simplest and cheapest.
3. Wrapping wooden foundation structures with sheets of roofing material. The log or pole is first coated with molten bitumen, and then wrapped with roofing material. Most often, ruberoid is used for this purpose.

It is believed that it is winter wood that has increased resistance to the destructive processes of decay and is better than others to withstand temperature extremes and precipitation.

Methods for processing wood from decay can be seen in the video:

Larch wooden foundation

A high-quality wooden foundation can be made from certain types of wood: it can be deciduous or coniferous trees. If it is possible to use larch for the material of wooden poles and piles, then this will be the best ideal solution.

The larch foundation is able to withstand any load and has a remarkable bacterial resistance. In addition, the fiber content of this wonderful wood species contains many essential resins, which in themselves are natural preservatives.

Larch wood has a high density, which makes its processing difficult and time-consuming.

The procedure for the device of a wooden foundation

A wooden foundation for building a house can be done in 2 ways: by installing wooden piles and laying log sleepers. The most common and reliable method is the pile foundation.

Pile wooden foundation

Piles made of wood are installed in prepared earthen trenches, which look like pits located over the entire area of ​​the building plot. The width of the trench must be 1.5 times the diameter of the wooden pile. Piles are placed under all external corners of the building, at the intersection and junction of the walls. For corner supports, logs with a diameter of at least 300 mm are used.

Intermediate supports are installed between the corner piles with a step of 1.5 - 2 m. After installation, all piles are combined with a wooden grillage into a single solid supporting structure.

After installing piles of wood, the pits fall asleep using crushed stone of the middle fraction.

Tape wooden foundation made of wooden sleepers

If you need to make a wooden strip foundation for lightweight buildings, then the most suitable material for these purposes will be the use of old railway wooden sleepers with a section of 200 x 200 mm. Work is performed in the following sequence:

1. First, you need to mark the foundation and dig earthen trenches with a depth of about 400 mm.
2. A drainage layer of crushed stone or gravel up to 200 mm high is laid at the bottom of the trench.
3. On top of the drainage, wooden sleepers are laid with fastening at the corners in the prepared grooves.
4. When arranging additional rows of wooden sleepers, it is necessary to fasten them together.
5. To fasten rows of sleepers, it is recommended to drill through holes and drive in a reinforcing rod.

View a video example of a wooden foundation device:

The device of a strip wooden foundation made of sleepers is one of the simplest and most inexpensive type of load-bearing base. Since initially railway sleepers are impregnated with a powerful antiseptic creosote, such a wooden foundation can last for decades..