How can you inexpensively and beautifully sheathe the walls of a private house
When the walls of a private house are built from foam blocks, aerated concrete and other similar materials, they must be additionally lined both inside and outside. Traditional brick facades with modern cladding also look much better, to say nothing of frame buildings, where it is simply indispensable. The purpose of this article is to tell you how to sheathe a house from the side of the street, so that it turns out cheap and beautiful at the same time.
What materials are available
To begin with, we list the common methods of exterior wall decoration, and then we highlight the options that will cost relatively inexpensively:
- smooth or textured plaster with and without insulation;
- vinyl or metal siding, corrugated board;
- decorative elements made of wood - lining, block house and the so-called shingle (boards that form a coating in the form of scales);
- panels made of fiber cement and foam plastic with imitation of brick and other types of facade cladding;
- artificial and natural stone;
- various types of sheathing bricks - torn, figured, bassoon and so on.
Sheathing the walls of the house with artificial stone is not the cheapest option.
If you choose the right colors and sheathe the walls in any of the above ways, then your country house will look beautiful, but it’s not a fact that the work will be cheap. It is not difficult to make sure of this: find out how much it costs in your city to finish the facades with stone or overlay with clinker bricks. Since we are interested in inexpensive finishes, we will not consider the last two.
A little about how it is better to sheathe different types of buildings. If any house can be upholstered with siding, wood and various panels, then wet-applied external plaster or fur coat is not suitable for wooden walls of timber and log dwellings. Plastering is appropriate to do in cottages made of stone, slabs and blocks, and even in old adobe houses. You can get more visual information about the methods of cladding private houses by watching the video:
An important point. The technology for performing work depends on the type of cladding chosen. Here the rule applies: water vapor moving from the thickness of the fence structure to the street should not meet obstacles on the way, otherwise it will condense, causing the wall to get wet and, as a result, a fungus will form.
Since wood, plaster and fiber cement do not impede the passage of moisture (it has good vapor permeability), products made from these materials can be attached directly to the walls. Another thing is upholstery with panels made of plastic or metal, which absolutely does not allow water vapor to pass through. In order for it to freely go outside, such a sheathing is mounted using a new technology - on a wooden or steel frame - a subsystem. The latter provides a ventilation gap (air) between the structure and the cladding.
So that the structure is not saturated with moisture, all its layers must be permeable to steam.
Note. The same rule applies to heaters. Vapor-permeable mineral wool is mounted directly to the surface of the structure, while foam and foam plastic require a small air opening. Therefore, polymer plates are not covered with a continuous adhesive mixture, as shown in the photo.
Exterior wall plastering
The technology for applying smooth plaster has remained unchanged for decades. Self-made or factory beacons in the form of planks are installed on a leveled base, after which the first layer of the building mixture is applied and stretched by the rule. The second layer is a grout, which is made smooth or textured using various tools - graters, figured rollers and stamps.
Reference. The most popular type of plaster is the bark beetle shown in the photo. The grooves, resembling wormholes, are made due to the round fractions present in the solution, stretched by straight or circular movements of the grater. How to do it right, look at the video:
After the mortar has hardened, the surface is painted with an acrylic, silicate or silicone composition, depending on the basis of the plaster mixture used. A more progressive, but also expensive option is the application of tinted plaster, which does not need to be painted during the entire service life.
If the wall must be sheathed with insulation before facing, then the work is carried out in the following order:
- The base is impregnated with a primer, after which foam plastic or mineral wool boards are glued to it. A day later, the insulation is additionally attached to the wall with dowels in the form of umbrellas.
- Next, a waterproofing layer is applied from a special construction mixture, where a reinforcing fiberglass mesh is recessed. The canvases are laid vertically and overlap by at least 10 cm.
- After the waterproofing has hardened, it remains to apply a layer of plaster, as described above.
Insulation pie under plaster
Note. You should not use the described technology for cladding a wooden house, because after a while the cladding will crack and collapse. The reason lies in the properties of wood - it "breathes" (absorbs and releases moisture), which is why the timber or log changes in size by several millimeters.
Sheathing with siding and corrugated board
The advantages of these materials are a wide range of colors, affordable cost and quick installation without "wet" processes. This type of house decoration outside involves the construction of a frame made of metal profiles or wooden bars (the latter will be cheaper). If the walls are made of aerated concrete and do not need insulation, then the subsystem serves to create a ventilation gap, level the plane and fasten the skin.
The full cycle of finishing work, along with insulation, looks like this:
- Bars or a metal profile of the subsystem are attached to the walls in increments of 0.5-0.6 m (depending on the width of the slab insulation). Between them, a heat-insulating material is laid and a dowel is fixed - with umbrellas.
- The entire surface is covered with sheets of a diffusion membrane that allows moisture to pass only in one direction - from the inside of the "pie" to the outside. It works as a protection against wind and precipitation.
- A counter-lattice is mounted on top, providing a ventilation airflow of 4-6 cm, as shown in the diagram. In the corners, above the plinth and under the roof, additional elements are attached to the subsystem on self-tapping screws - starting, finishing and corner strips.
- Sheets of corrugated board or siding strips are cut to size, taking into account a gap of 6 mm for thermal elongation, after which they are inserted into the grooves of the extensions and screwed with self-tapping screws. The latter should not tightly press the elements to the crate. How to properly sheathe a house with siding is described in detail in.
Note. Frame profiles are attached perpendicular to the intended position of the siding or corrugated sheet strips.
You can sheathe the walls with metal or plastic panels yourself, saving money on work. Note that weather conditions (except heavy rain) do not interfere with the construction, and you do not need to wait until the adhesive and waterproofing layer hardens, as is the case with plaster. And the last point: siding is not only affordable and looks beautiful, but it is also well washed from dust with a regular hose.
Installation of wooden cladding
The wooden paneling of the house looks nice and stands out for its main advantage - environmental friendliness. However, it requires care - antiseptic treatment during construction and periodic painting during operation. Properly made cladding well passes excess moisture out and “breathes” along with wooden walls.
This is how the facades sheathed with clapboard look
Reference. Moisture enters the thickness of the enclosing structures in two ways: from inside the living quarters and as a result of condensation from the occurrence of the dew point. So the internal vapor barrier solves the issue only partially and the water vapor still needs to go outside, and the pores in the wood contribute well to this.
Block house imitates a log building
The choice of finishing method depends on the material from which the building is built. In houses made of SIP panels and those built using frame technology, the lining can be attached directly to OSB sheets, since they are flat and fairly even. In the same way, dwellings made of ordinary and glued beams are sheathed when there is such a need. Another thing is log cabins with an uneven surface, stone and brick houses. Here you can not do without a wooden frame device, as described above.
Sheathing with wood products is performed in the following ways:
- Lining and its variety - a block house is installed following the example of siding - the spike of each subsequent strip enters the groove of the previous one. Fastening - galvanized nails or special clamps.
- Elements of shingles (otherwise - shingles) are overlapped one on top of the other and nailed with studs, 2 for each part.
- The original way of sheathing a country house is to use ordinary and unedged boards of approximately the same width. They are mounted in a horizontal herringbone position, superimposing the edge of the next element on the upper end of the previous one, as shown in the photo.
At the end of the finishing, shaped parts made of wood are placed on the corners, basement and roofing junctions, after which the facade is varnished or painted. More information about the installation of lining is described in the following video:
Finished panels
These types of finishing materials cannot be called cheap, but their use allows in most cases to save on the construction of the subsystem. For example, fiber cement panels manufactured using the technology of the Japanese brand Kmew are attached directly to any even walls with several self-tapping screws or dowels. Clinker foam panels are also mounted with lining imitating brick, natural stone and other types of finishes.
Installation of fiber cement panels on a subsystem of steel profiles
Both types of products have undoubted advantages. The service life of fiber cement boards is equal to the period of operation of the entire building, and they do not lose their appearance over time and are permeable to water vapor. If you want to sheathe the walls with clinker thermal panels, then you will kill two birds with one stone: decorate your house beautifully and insulate it with foam. The installation technology is clearly shown in the video:
Conclusion
As you can see, there are quite a few relatively inexpensive ways to exterior clad a house. Some of them are more labor-intensive and stretched over time (plaster), others require investment in material at low installation costs (fiber cement panels). Judging by the reviews of homeowners, various types of siding are the undisputed leader in terms of price / appearance of the facade. Well, the cheapest option is corrugated board, which has the bad feature of quickly fading in the sun.