The story of one house
virtuosity and
professionalism
The "RDZ" company is well known for internal interior works - this is either the repair of existing premises, or the decoration of new ones during or immediately after the construction of a building: office, hotel, house, etc.
However, our team is sufficiently competent, experienced, and most importantly, worked for years, to undertake the construction of the full cycle - from the selection of the site to furnishing.
So when we had the opportunity to build a private house from the very beginning to the final completion, we gladly accepted. Mostly because the customer gave us carte blanche, quote: "Do as you see fit, because you know better than I do."
We would like to immediately emphasize that the so-called carte blanche does not mean that the customer becomes a bystander. On the contrary, at each stage of construction, we closely cooperated, discussed, debated, counted, compared, and looked for ideas.
The fact that a person trusted our experience, valued our decisions, listened and heard, actually inspired us. Therefore, in the end, we have warm feelings for this house. He became for us to a certain extent our own, family. We are pleased that the current owner and his family are happy and living in the house they envisioned.
Before you start reading all 32 short stories, let's tell you more about the house itself.
Construction lasted two years. In our opinion, such a term is justified. During this time, the building managed to stand up, went through a full cycle of shrinkage and shrinkage.
The plot of land occupies 9.24 acres. It has a playground, a barbecue, a carport, a pergola, and a terrace. The main living area is 190 m2, the guest room is 65 sq.m.
The strictest experts would rate the energy efficiency of this house at 4.5 points out of 5, because there are no limits to perfection.
We are not just fans of energy efficiency. Insulation from the "RDZ" company on the 20-30% is more effective than other offers on the market. Our claims are easily verified with thermal imaging and the Blower Door Test. Let's add that in the event of an emergency power outage, the temperature in the house drops by only one degree during the first day.
A geothermal pump is responsible for heating and cooling in the house - therefore utility expenses are only for electricity: only an average of 6,000 kW/year. When using a two-zone meter, it costs UAH 7,800 per year, with a tariff of UAH 1.68/day and UAH 0.9/night.
All design and construction solutions for this house were developed by the "RDZ" company. They are optimal from the customer's point of view and were intended to maintain a balance of profitability in the parameters: comfort, aesthetics, price.
If you are already interested in the idea of cost-effective solutions for building your own energy-efficient house, write or call - RDZ company will consult you for free.
A southern slope is ideal for a plot of land for development. The house itself should be located so that large windows face south. Select the size of the plot at least eight acres - optimally nine to ten (in our case, 9.24 acres). With such an area, you will be able to fully realize your idea, because a modern project, in addition to the house, must also take into account the recreation area.
After preparing the site for construction, we decided to start immediately with the fence: pour its foundation and build a frame. Along the perimeter of our site, we arranged a concrete beam, which also serves as a retaining wall. Thanks to her, we leveled the area to a perfectly flat plane with the same slope.
To begin with, a sketch project is quite enough, but in the future you will need a constructive one. You will have to review the project dozens of times and analyze every centimeter. After all, it is at this stage that the understanding of the dimensions of the house, the appearance of its facade appears, and the decision is made regarding the final planning option.
In our opinion, the hall, or premises in which you will spend a lot of time, should be located in the southeast. The bedrooms and kitchen can be in the north or in the east. Bathrooms, a garage and utility rooms are definitely an event.
However, ideally, instead of a garage, use a shed, or make a separate building for it, or insulate it well, otherwise the garage will "steal" the heat of your house.
We started this stage by digging a pit. After that, the pillow was concreted and the foundation itself was made. Waterproofing and insulation were carried out immediately. We emphasize that warming the foundation is a mandatory step.
Please note that all external concrete structures (stairs, terrace, etc.) at the point of connection with the foundation must be "torn" through the insulation. As the latter, we used extruded polystyrene foam with a thickness of two by 50 mm. in the ground and additional 50 mm. above the ground (leveling layer for plinth decoration).
We relied on a geothermal heat pump to heat and cool the house. To install it, we drilled three wells of 100 m each. After that, plastic pipes with a total length of 1200 m were sunk into the ground. Actually, these pipes take the necessary temperature of the ground in winter and summer.
They also dug a well, into which all the pipes were brought, and already from it, at a depth of two meters, a track was laid into the house. In addition, water and heating lines between the houses, electric and low-current external networks were laid.
The final step in external communications for us was water and rain drainage and the installation of autonomous sewage. At the same time, we leveled and compacted the inner part of the foundations of the houses, which were previously filled with scree (sand and clay).
The first thing that is needed at this stage is a construction plan and constructive solutions. However, the main question for us was: "What material to build from?".
Aerated concrete is fragile and, although quite warm, it is not heat intensive. So in the house you will get bigger temperature differences. Ceramic blocks are also not heat-efficient enough. In addition, they require strict adherence to the technological process. It is necessary to use all original components (jumpers, corners, etc.). It will be quite expensive as a result. If we talk about a hollow brick, then it is weaker and it is problematic to attach to it.
Therefore, we settled on a traditional solution - we chose full-bodied bricks of the 120-150 brand. For the strength of the building structure, a wall with a thickness of 25 cm is quite enough, that is, laying water bricks. Such a solution is profitable, because the greater thickness of the wall will not particularly affect the thermal characteristics, but the savings on the number of bricks and on the width of the foundation will be significant. We strongly recommend plastering the walls before insulating the facade. In this way, you will avoid longitudinal filtering of the air - that is, cold air will not get under the insulation.
Choose reinforced concrete without any doubt. When calculating the reinforcement of the floor slab, we made sure that there was not a single protruding beam in the house. All of them should be in the overlay body. Otherwise, in most cases, protruding beams significantly complicate design decisions and become a big problem when conducting air ducts of the ventilation system.
The construction of a single-pitched roof attracted us primarily because of its high energy efficiency, because we avoid almost all bridges of cold, and in winter, snow works to preserve heat.
In addition, a single-pitched roof is cheaper and easier to install, at least you don't need to pour an additional floor slab. Yes, after all, the rooms on the second floor are more spacious, since their ceilings do not have mansard slopes.
The roof was hemmed with wooden clapboards pre-painted at the factory. Foam with an open (vapor-permeable) cell was used to insulate the roof.
At this stage, be careful, because warming the facade is a responsible process. Your future utility bills directly depend on it.
Therefore, insulation was mounted on the previously plastered facade. It should be noted that the "RDZ" company has not used mineral wool in its projects since 2017. We prefer the Velit thermal insulation system, 200 mm thick. Due to the fact that the facade is already plastered, the slabs were mounted on a ridge to the wall.
It is necessary to ensure that all concrete and metal structures adjacent to the building are thoroughly insulated. The place where the already insulated structures adjoined the house was filled with closed-cell foam (that is, vapor-waterproof). Next, a third layer of 50 mm extruded polystyrene foam was mounted on the plinth, with the help of which we leveled the base and prepared it for tiling.
