Dachas made of timber are very popular, in particular due to the relatively low cost of construction. Small 4x4 buildings can be built in record time and thus very soon you will be able to live in your own new home.
Typical designs of small houses made of timber can be divided into one-story and two-story. One-story dachas 4 by 4 accommodate one or two small rooms, and by adding a second floor you can get another additional room. The buildings can be used for a wide variety of purposes: for living, as a guest house, office or utility room.
The main distinguishing feature of houses made of timber is their quality. Even several years after construction, the wood does not sag, the walls remain strong and have no cracks. Durability is ensured by the quality of the materials from which the house is built and the conscientious work of the craftsmen.
Why a frame house?
It is difficult to imagine faster construction than frame construction. The construction of a house measuring 4x4 meters will be more like building a bathhouse, and if we talk about a house made of timber, then you will have to wait for shrinkage even for such a small structure. Building a house made of brick or foam block is associated with an increase in costs for the house itself and its foundation. We decided that our house would be cozy, but at the same time you would not cause significant damage to the family budget. In these conditions, frame house construction is the best choice. In addition, the availability of materials for this technology, ease of construction and undemanding requirements for special equipment and tools will allow you to carry out all the work yourself.
Excluding the costs of paying for the work of builders, we can build a 4x4 meter house in the shortest possible time and almost 2 times cheaper than a similar project implemented by construction companies.
Advantages
The first thing that attracts potential owners of a townhouse is its cost.
If we consider in detail the possibility when you need to build a townhouse from scratch, then the savings will consist of the following:
- The cost of developing an architectural project is divided among all participants, and everyone contributes their share, which is more beneficial for each individual family;
- Documentation and fees are also paid collectively;
- We carry out wholesale purchases of construction and finishing materials, pipes and wires.
Project of a three-story secret house for 4 families.
The savings are significant and can amount to up to 20% of the total cost of four separate cottage projects for each family; - Additionally, for a large volume of work on one project, the construction organization makes a significant discount on its services;
- Similarly, along with builders, the work of plumbers, electricians, and finishers will cost less.
One building designed for four families is much cheaper to build, since there are common walls between the living areas. In addition, four separate cottages will occupy a significantly larger area and will require more complex communications and opportunities for transport access.
A townhouse takes up less land per owner, providing the same opportunities as a separate cottage.
Detailed layout of a townhouse for 4 owners
A four-family home also has an advantage in operating costs. A properly organized air conditioning, ventilation, and heating system will help significantly save material costs.
Lovers of country life will also find a townhouse for four owners quite attractive, since such houses are located far from the city limits, providing almost the same conditions as a cottage. In areas available for this type of development, there is almost always clean air, silence, and sometimes beautiful nature with a forest, lake or river.
Construction of the foundation
For such a lightweight structure, it is not worth investing in a capital foundation. The best option would be a columnar foundation, and modern technologies have given us an excellent solution for a frame house - a foundation on screw piles. Each option has its own advantages and disadvantages.
A column foundation is the cheapest option. You can assemble wooden boxes yourself from scrap lumber or plywood, tie together the reinforcement and fill the resulting structure with concrete that you made yourself on site. After the concrete has hardened, you will receive ready-made piles, which will need to be installed in pre-dug holes. A sand cushion must be poured into the bottom of the holes under the concrete piles.
An even simpler option may be to purchase stubs of piles from the construction of multi-story buildings, where the piles are driven in and the excess length is cut down. You may even be allowed to pick up this construction waste for free. But in fact, these “stumps” will be even more durable than piles made independently.
It is very difficult to make homemade screw piles. But perhaps this is not such a big minus. Self-produced concrete piles may have geometric defects, or low-quality cement will affect the durability and reliability of the foundation. Factory screw piles do not have these disadvantages. The strict geometry of the pipe and the correct blades will allow you to screw the piles strictly vertically.
Sergey Yurievich
Construction of houses, extensions, terraces and verandas.
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A set of screw piles will cost you a little more, but the work of installing them is also quite affordable for you to do it yourself. Even attracting specialists will not become a “hole” in your budget. Screw piles are a godsend for prefabricated structures. You only need to mark the location of the piles and screw them in. All work is completed in 1 working day, if we are talking about a 4x4 m frame house.
Additional premises
Any extensions must be included in the building design. They require approval from local authorities, fire safety and sanitary and epidemiological stations. Without technical documentation, terraces and verandas are considered legally illegal extensions.
A solid foundation is required for residential and additional premises. This rule also applies to wooden and metal sheds. Otherwise, due to the deformation of materials during shrinkage or sudden changes in weather, a crack will appear between the buildings.
An alternative to verandas is wooden gazebos. They require less material consumption. Their layout is simple. This is a canopy supported by columns.
Attic
Before starting work on a project with an attic, you need to choose the shape and angle of the roof. The usable area of the room will depend on them. Common types of roofing for houses with a 4 by 4 attic:
- Gable. It is a standard attic converted into living rooms. The optimal height of the ridge is 3.6 m, with an inclination angle of 60°. The useful area of the attic is 7 m2.
- Broken gable roof. Construction and design will be more expensive, but the design provides a larger usable area with a lower ridge height.
When arranging an attic, care should be taken to have reliable thermal insulation. The rafter leg must have a width of at least 150 mm in order to place the insulation inside it.
Veranda
There are two types of veranda:
- Open. Designed to decorate a building. The floor is located at the level of the first floor, the platform is fenced with railings. A canopy is necessary to protect wooden elements from precipitation.
- Closed. The space under the roof has continuous glazing or partitions.
A closed veranda increases the total area of the home and looks like part of it. The extension makes the layout more convenient.
Interior finishing should be done with frost- and moisture-resistant materials. Their quality will affect the durability of the structure. When planning the veranda, you should take into account the dimensions of the necessary furniture. So, to accommodate benches and a table, its width should not be less than 2 meters.
Garage
Adding a garage has a number of advantages:
- Using one wall for two buildings;
- The ability to get into the car without going outside;
- Saving site area.
You may be interested in: Rules for creating optimal space when designing a three-bedroom house
The main disadvantage of this solution is the difficulty of organically connecting buildings with different dimensions. The minimum garage size for one car is 3x6. Next to a 4 x 4 apartment, the building will look ridiculous.
To add a garage, you need a solid foundation. At the planning stage, care should be taken to strengthen the roof so that an avalanche of snow from a residential building does not damage it.
Construction of walls
It is necessary to decide on the technology for constructing a frame house, but this is not as easy as it seems. There are many variations for such construction: frame, panel house, SIP structure, houses made of double or mini-timber. It is very likely that your home will only be designed for spring and summer occupancy. It is difficult to imagine that on an area of 4x4 meters (even in the case of construction with an attic) it is possible to design a heating system, a bathroom and plumbing. There is simply no need for this. Most likely, your house will consist of, at most, two rooms with a couple of windows and an entrance door.
So the choice of technology depends only on your preferences or on the availability of materials in your region. Let's consider these technologies in order of their versatility and availability.
Frame house
The most unpretentious technology in terms of materials. For construction, you will need lumber for arranging the frame, insulation, construction films and materials for external and internal cladding. The upper and lower trim are made of 100x150 mm timber. The frame is assembled onto metal corners from timber 50x100 or 50x150 mm, depending on the specified insulation thickness and the final load. The frames for installing doors and windows are immediately installed. In accordance with the technology, a vapor-permeable membrane, a vapor barrier contour and insulation are laid. In the case of building a cold house, only a windproof film is installed, which protects the house from blowing. All joints of the beams are sealed with jute or tow. For external cladding, lining, imitation timber, blockhouse, siding (vinyl or metal), OSB are usually used.
Panel house
It is the “little brother” of frame construction. If in a frame house the frame is first assembled and only then the cladding is made, then in a panel building the entire wall is completely assembled on the ground. That is, the entire “pie” of a frame wall with prepared openings for windows and doors is assembled on site or in production. In this case, logs are laid on the foundation and then finished walls are installed, which are fixed to the foundation and to each other.
House with two rooms
A small one-story house with wooden windows, painted in a noble light beige shade. A characteristic feature of the layout is the unlined foundation, which creates the appearance of lightness of the entire structure.
Inside there are two rooms of equal size that can be used at your own discretion. In the original layout, the entrance from the street is into the kitchen, and the second room in the house is used as a bedroom.
Houses made of SIP panels
The same panel house, but the walls are made using special technology in production. They are a sandwich of outer and inner cladding with insulation based on polystyrene foam. Installation is carried out identically to the construction of a panel house. The main disadvantage is the limited availability of SIP panels. Not in every region you can find a manufacturer of this material, although technology is developing very quickly.
Houses made of mini-timber or double timber. The technology is more reminiscent of construction from profiled timber. However, its Scandinavian origins made this technology closer to frame technology. This is another rarely used technology: it is difficult to find a supplier, it is not easy to build walls correctly without additional knowledge.
Important details in the planning process
Of course, as many owners of plots of land on which a house will be built in the village, there are as many ideas for their construction. The layout of a 4 bedroom home requires some thought and thought on the part of the owners. The most important thing is to think over a comfortable layout so that the sleeping rooms are comfortable and give the guests of the house the desired rest. Layouts can be very different, it is worth familiarizing yourself with them in order to place a bet in favor of one option or another. Video review of a four-bedroom house project.
Cottage
If the structure of the house consists of one floor, then it is worth considering the following factors when considering variations in the placement of sleeping rooms:
- Bedrooms should be located away from the front door. Thus, residents who leave early for work or return home very late will not disturb the sleep of those who are already resting at this time.
- It is best if the sleeping rooms are located away from the kitchen. This will help eliminate the possibility of cooking aromas entering the bedroom spaces. And also, such placement will help preserve the original freshness of the repair for as long as possible. If the shape of the house is such that it is not possible to equip bedrooms remotely from the kitchen, then you should think about good exhaust hood and ventilation of the room for cooking.
Layout and project of a one-story house with a garage and 4 bedrooms
- Distance from the bathroom is also important. If space allows, it is better to arrange sleeping rooms away from the toilet and shower. This, again, will help keep all residents of the house calm and sleepy.
These nuances are very important for fully equipping the space of a 4-bedroom house. It is clear that every tenant first of all thinks about making the living space cozy and comfortable.
Two-storey house
When a house with four bedrooms has two floors or more, then also at the project construction stage one should take into account some factors that will significantly affect the process of arranging the space. The following nuances should be taken into account:
- It is best to arrange bedrooms in a two-story house on both floors. With this layout, sleeping rooms are located one above the other. As a rule, two are on the ground floor, opposite each other, and two are on top in the same areas.
Project of a two-story house with 4 bedrooms
This solution will help rationally distribute space and arrange sleeping rooms so that everyone feels comfortable. In order for all residents of the house to feel harmonious and have a sound sleep, it is necessary to adhere to some rules:
- The floor covering between floors should be selected as soundproof as possible. This will help people relaxing on the lower tiers not to feel discomfort while walking around the premises of those whose bedroom is equipped on the second floor;
- Another nuance that must be taken into account is the safety of descent to the lower floor of the house. Even if the second floor has bedrooms for young or middle-aged people, it doesn’t matter; sometimes both children and elderly people can go up there. Therefore, when choosing a staircase, you should pay attention to the presence of railings, the absence of steps that are too high for even a child to climb. Also, due attention should be paid to the material from which the stairs are made.
An example of the layout of the second floor of a four-bedroom house
In general, it is possible to comfortably equip four bedrooms in one house. The main thing is to take into account important details that will help ensure the most comfortable atmosphere inside the space.
Construction of ceiling and roof
Whatever wall construction technology you choose, the ceiling is mounted in the same way:
- a strictly horizontal harness is assembled,
- floor beams are laid,
- insulation is carried out in accordance with technology,
- Sheathing is carried out with rough or finishing materials.
The roof for a 4x4 m frame house, as for most square houses, is chosen to be hip or hip. This is advantageously emphasized by the geometry of the house, but if you have insufficient construction experience, you can get by with the simplest option - constructing a gable roof. The most common roofing material option for economy class frame houses is corrugated sheet or metal tiles.
I would especially like to note the 4x4 frame house with an attic. This project will not differ in construction technology. Is it possible that in arranging the rafter system, only 1 option is available to you - a sloping roof, since installing an attic with a gable roof with a high ridge will not give you much additional living space, but a sloping roof will almost double the area. A small area for creativity appears. The attic is usually used for sleeping places, and the first floor becomes a spacious room for receiving guests.
We have analyzed the main stages of constructing a 4x4 frame house with our own hands. But what to do if there is absolutely no time for construction, but you still want to equip your dacha?
Roof for a country house
The savings on a flat or pitched roof will be mythical - the mass of snow can break the floors. Therefore, it is better to opt for a gable or attic rafter system - they will cope with precipitation on their own during the absence of the owners - the snow will melt away.
However, for this it is necessary to calculate the correct angle of inclination and select the roofing material accordingly. Corrugated sheeting, ondulin, and metal tiles cope best with heavy loads.
Frame house 4x4 from the developer
Unlike the construction of large residential buildings, a huge number of construction companies and private teams of carpenters are engaged in the construction of low-budget frame country houses. How not to be deceived? How to choose a reliable construction team or company?
First of all, you should not chase the lowest price. The best option would be to take the advice of relatives or friends who have already encountered the construction of a house. Subjective opinion can tell you a lot. If there are no advisors in your close circle, start studying reviews on the Internet. Any self-respecting builder should have a set of proposals and a portfolio of finished projects. It’s great if the developer invites you to visit current or completed projects. Even if your country house does not cost too much money, you should still require the preparation of an agreement describing all the structures and the guarantee for them. Even a country house will be covered by a warranty of at least 1 year, and load-bearing structures – up to 3 years.
A 4x4 frame house is not difficult to design, but working with such an object is no different from constructing a larger structure: you will encounter the same operations and difficulties, you will need the same materials and tools. Such houses can become for you a training ground for the construction of a more serious building, and maybe even a spacious residential cottage based on frame technology.
You can ask your question to our author:
Country house treatment
Indeed, the question is to the point. The thing is that wood deteriorates when the object is uninhabited, much faster than if it were a residential building.
Therefore, the frequency of treatment with all kinds of protective compounds increases by 1.5-2 times.
That is, if it is recommended to treat a residential property once every 4 years, then a country house should be antisepticized after 2 years.
Particular attention should be paid to fire retardant protection. Very often, houses abandoned for the winter period greet their owners with ashes.
Bedroom furniture
Having decided in which areas of the house the bedrooms will take place, it is worth starting the process of thinking about the internal layout of each of the spaces. Of course, each owner of a four-bedroom house will determine the style, design and lighting methods independently. In order not to miss anything important, it is worth understanding what furniture must be present in the sleeping room.
Bed
As a rule, the bed in the bedroom takes up the bulk of the space. Most often, for comfort and decent space equipment, preference is given to a double bed.
An exception is the children's bedroom, in which you should pay attention to a single crib, a folding sofa or a bunk bed if there are two children in the family and they share one bedroom.
Bedside tables
This piece of furniture adds comfort to the space. Various small things are usually stored on bedside tables, such as a telephone, cosmetics, personal hygiene items, and an alarm clock. You can also install lamps on the bedside tables, which will allow you to comfortably enjoy your favorite book or magazine before bed.
