What kind of foundations were made for churches in the old days? How to build a house without a foundation: old and modern methods

Prospects and tasks for its further development
In ancient times of human history, the first primitive wooden dwellings and defensive structures were erected directly on the surface of the ground. With the beginning of the use of stone as a building material, the lower part of the structure began to be buried below the surface of the soil in order to protect it from being soaked by precipitation and to prevent the associated softening of the soil and the occurrence of possible distortions, settlements and damage to the structure. This is how shallow foundations arose, built on a natural foundation. If the bearing layer of soil lay at a considerable depth, the foundations were erected using the simplest sink wells made of masonry. When constructing bridges across rivers, where soil erosion at the supports is possible, foundations made of wooden piles buried in the bottom of the riverbed were used.

Thus, until the 19th century. structures were erected on natural foundations, pile foundations and sinkholes.

New types and designs of foundations began to appear in the 19th century. In 1841, the French engineer Triget proposed a caisson method for constructing mine shafts in water-saturated soils. In 1856, Russian engineers first used this method to build foundations for the supports of a bridge across the river. Neman in Kovno. Subsequently, this method was significantly improved and caisson foundations were widely used in the construction of large bridges. In 1836, the English engineer Mitchell proposed metal screw piles instead of driven wooden piles. However, this type was not widely used at that time. In 1897, engineer Hennebique proposed solid-section drives, which are now widely used both in our country and abroad. In 1899, the Russian engineer Strauss developed a method for producing concrete cast-in-place piles, which, with various improvements, is now widely used in construction practice.

After the end of the Great Patriotic War, when it was necessary to restore a large number of destroyed bridges in a short time, instead of caisson foundations, they began to use foundations made of steel tubular piles filled with . Subsequently, to reduce the consumption of steel pipes in acute shortage, they began to be replaced with reinforced concrete piles and shells. Reinforced concrete shells have become especially widespread in our country since 1958, when the necessary equipment was created and the technology for constructing a new type of foundation was developed. Over the past decades, many bridges, overpasses and mooring structures have been built using shells with a diameter of up to 5 m.

In parallel with this, domestic bridge builders use foundations made of drilled piles with a diameter of up to 1.7 m and with a widened heel with a diameter of up to 3.5 m. Dozens of large bridges have been built with such foundations.

For a long time, foundation engineering technology has developed based on the use of practical experience alone. New structures were built by analogy with the most successful previously implemented structures. Only from the second half of the 19th century. foundation engineering is receiving a scientific base, in the development of which domestic scientists V. M. Karlovich, V. I. Kurdyumov, P. A. Minaev and others played a significant role.

Particularly great successes in the field of foundation construction were achieved in our country after the Great October Socialist Revolution. Thanks to the works of a whole galaxy of talented scientists and engineers, among whom it should be noted professors N. P. Puzyrevsky, N. M. Gersevanov, V. A. Florin, V. K. Dmokhovsky, B. D. Vasiliev, E. L. Khlebnikov, N. Ya. Denisov, A. A. Luga, N. A. Tsytovich, Soviet foundation engineering took one of the leading places in the world.

Further technical progress in foundation engineering, as in all other branches of construction, is inextricably linked with the need for rapid development and improvement of the construction industry.

Solving the problem of industrialization of construction and the associated tasks of maximizing labor productivity, reducing costs and reducing work time is possible only with the widespread introduction of new progressive designs and methods of work that ensure more efficient use of materials, the use of prefabricated reinforced concrete and comprehensive mechanization of technological processes. In the field of foundation construction, these tasks are complemented by the need to improve working conditions and, in this regard, minimize the use of the labor-intensive and expensive caisson method of work, which is harmful to the health of workers. These requirements are best met by the currently widely used deep foundations made of piles of various types and precast reinforced concrete shells.

A generalization and analysis of the experience of building bridges and other structures in recent years shows that, despite the successes achieved in the use of foundations made of piles, shells and pillars, there are still significant reserves for further increasing their economic efficiency.

The priority tasks in the field of foundation engineering include:
1) improvement of methods and standards for foundation calculations in order to increase the degree of use of the strength properties of soils and foundation materials;
2) development of structures of foundations and load-bearing elements with the maximum use of their load-bearing capacity in terms of material strength;
3) development of high-performance methods for manufacturing and immersing load-bearing elements of foundations into the ground; 4) creation of highly efficient technological equipment and mechanisms for the construction of foundations.

Building a house. Advice from a hundred years ago.

Let's look into a book from the early 20th century and look at recommendations for building a house. It would seem, well, what’s interesting in this bearded book, everything has changed in more than a hundred years: technology, tools, prices, building materials, etc. Yes, a lot has changed, but it was still an interesting read. Read and find out (if not a builder, builders probably all know this): that it is better to use winter-cut timber when building a house, since the logs in this case can last much longer than those that were cut down in the summer; that to determine the time of cutting down trees, you can use ordinary iodine; that it turns out that it doesn’t matter which end you bury a wooden pole in the ground and why it doesn’t matter... Read it, maybe you’ll learn something interesting for yourself.
As usual, we retyped the pre-revolutionary text in a modern civilian font, without correcting some words, for example, “lower crown”. We also did not edit the content, we left it as is with old prices, old brands of materials, etc. Also, as always, we remind you of some Russian measures of length that were in use before the revolution:
1 fathom = 2.1336 meters
1 arshin = 70.90 cm
1 ft = 30.48 cm
1 vershok = 44.45 mm
1 inch =25.40 mm
Square fathom = 4.552 m^(2)
Square arshin = 0.05058 m^(2)

CONSTRUCTION OF BUILDINGS *).

*) Notes marked with a - * are written by engineer V. Chizhevsky.

BUILDING A HOUSE.

Whatever house you build, you first need to choose the appropriate location. You should choose places that are elevated, sandy and have a slope. It is better to avoid clayey, low-lying and swampy places. Having decided to build a house and having found a place for it, the future homeowner must draw up a house project. A house plan or project can be drawn up without the participation of an architect, taking into account all the requirements and needs of the family, but it is better, of course, to seek the assistance of an architect. Once the house plan is approved, the architect produces detailed plans, sections and elevations. After the project, the most important thing is the estimate. The estimate can be approximate and detailed. It has been calculated that building a stone house costs from 60 to 100 rubles. for 1 cubic fathom, a wooden house covered with iron - from 25 to 45 rubles, and roofed with planks or roofing felt - 20 - 30 rubles. for 1 cubic fathom.
Work can be carried out on a business basis or contract basis. The first is that the purchase of materials and the hiring of workers is carried out by the owner himself, the second is that the work is handed over to one or more contractors. The basis for estimates can be the actual cost of individual works or the “Target Regulations” and “Reference Prices” published by city governments. One year is enough to build a stone house. You should start in the spring or summer, so that by winter the building can be put under a roof, that is, it can be finished “roughly.” In the spring, interior and exterior decoration of the house, carpentry and plastering work begin.
Before starting work, you must obtain a building permit. For this purpose, an application for permission is submitted to the technical department of the city government. Drawings are attached when requesting. The drawings must be signed by the city architect. Upon receiving permission, the architect signs an undertaking to perform the work in accordance with laws and regulations. Then they report to the police station to begin work.

Foundation of a stone house.

First of all, let's get started. to planning the place, i.e. to clearing it and leveling it: remove the mounds, fill up the holes and - if the soil is too sloped - make an even slope. Once site planning is completed, the house is laid out. The main lines and corners of the house are marked on the ground. Actually, the house plan is transferred from the map to the ground in natural dimensions. It's done like this. The plan contains two lines, running, if possible, through the middle of the building. These features are located at right angles, forming a cross; They are called axes. The same axes are drawn at the construction site, approximately in the middle of the future building. The axes are marked with twine stretched tightly between the stakes. At the point where the cords intersect, a stake is driven into the ground. All measurements come from it. First, the main walls are measured, that is, the walls under which the foundation will be laid. The lines of the walls are marked with cords stretched between stakes driven into the corners. These lines are drawn doubly, indicating the thickness of the wall and at the same time the width of the foundation.
When the layout is completed, they begin to excavate the earth for laying the foundation.
Foundation depth.
Frost changes the volume of damp soils. In clayey soils and marl, the foundation is lowered below the freezing horizon. In the southern lips. In Russia, the freezing depth is up to 2 arshins, in the northern regions it is up to 3 arshins.
*Soils for the foundation.
Solid soils are considered reliable for foundations with a layer thickness of at least 1.5 fathoms. These soils include tuff, rock, pebbles and gravel. Friable soils (sand) for foundations are reliable only when laid deep; The sand layer should be no thinner than 2 fathoms. Compressible soils are not suitable for foundations. You cannot build foundations on peat, on embankments, on plant soil (chernozem), on marged, on gypsum, or on construction waste.

Foundation.

Foundation of internal walls.
The foundation for the internal walls of the furnace can be laid on clay mortar.
Entrance hall foundation.
A solid foundation should be laid under the walls of the hallway in wooden buildings. If these walls are on “chairs”, then the cold air from the entryway will pass under the lower crown and cool the floors in the adjacent rooms.
Inspection of foundations.
To distinguish the correct laying of the foundation from the backfill, you need to pay attention to the location of the stones. If, when grinding the foundation, it turns out that some of the stones are located on edge, then this is a backfill filled with mortar.
*Foundation made of sand and cement.
In places where sand is cheap, it is profitable to make foundations from sand and cement (proportion 1: 18 and a thinner composition). Cost of 1 cubic. fathoms will be about 34 rubles. Rubble masonry with lime mortar costs about 46 rubles. cube fathom. A sand-concrete foundation is more reliable than a lime-based rubble foundation. In three days, the cement mortar becomes stone and does not settle. Limestone sometimes does not harden for several years in a wet pit.
Iron connections in the foundation.
If the base of the foundation consists of different soils, then iron strips are laid in several layers of cement concrete to distribute pressure evenly. The strips give the masonry the ability to resist tensile forces.

Chairs.

The influence of wood species and soil on the lifespan of wood.
Warehouses, platforms, houses are sometimes placed on chairs. The best species for chairs are larch and oak, satisfactory are fir and pine. Ore pine, often layered (kandovaya), lasts much longer than mandovaya sparsely layered (freshwood). The lifespan of the chair also depends on the soil. In clay, wood lasts for a long time, but in chernozem and manure, the humus soon disappears. Most wood rots near the surface of the ground. The post holes should not be filled with black soil, humus, garbage and ash, or better yet, with clay.
Means for protecting chairs from rotting:
a) Resin. The approximate service life of tarred chairs: larch 15 - 20 years, oak 10 - 15 years, ore pine 8 - 15 years, fir 8 - 12 years, mand pine 5 - 8 years, spruce 4 - 6 years. b) Surface firing. At the surface of the earth, it is useful, in addition to firing, to resin to a width of 6 vershoks. The service life of charred chairs is slightly less than that of tarred chairs. The tree soon rots along the cracks. c) Impregnation with zinc chloride or creosote. Only pine is impregnated. Oak and larch do not accept impregnation. The service life of pine impregnated with zinc chloride is 8 - 16 years, with creosote 15 - 20 years, with zinc chloride (and after drying with creosote) 25 - 35 years. d) Surface coating with carbolineum. Service life is 25 - 35 years. e) Chairs are buried with their butts up. Such a pillar lasts one and a half times longer than one buried with the top up.
A growing tree receives nutrition through wood vessels from below. Neither juice nor water can move back: the valves in the vessels prevent this; a tree with its top wrapped in soil does not draw moisture from the ground with its end. f) Lime soaking. The wood is soaked in lime mortar for a week or more. Lime seals pores and disinfects against putrefactive fungi and microbes. Air-weathered lime combines with carbonic acid and becomes insoluble. Pine chairs made from fresh wood, soaked in lime mortar for 2 months, last up to 40 years.
Determining the time of forest cutting.
The lifespan of the chair depends on the time of year. A tree cut in winter lasts almost 3 times longer than wood cut in summer. To determine the time of year when a tree was cut down, you can paint its surface with iodine tincture (a solution of iodine in alcohol). If the tree takes on a dark purple color, then it was cut down in winter (the starch in the wood cells is colored purple by iodine). The surface of a tree cut down in summer will turn iodine (yellow).

Wooden walls.

Choosing the diameter of logs for log houses.
The bed of the crowns is made at least 2 1/2 inches. This practical requirement excludes the possibility of cutting walls made of logs thinner than 3 inches in diameter. If 2 1/2-inch beds are maintained, the quality of log houses made of thin and thick wood in terms of thermal conductivity is leveled out.
It remains to clarify the economic question: which wood is cheaper to cut from?
Here is a table of the cost of log houses made of logs of different sizes.

Diameter of logs in vershok	Number of logs in linear fathoms	Cost of logs (rub. kop.)	Cost of work (rub. kop.)	Cost of tow and caulk (rub. kop.)	Total cost of 1 square sazhen wall (rub. kop.)
		4 rub. 55 kopecks	2 rub. 20 kopecks	2 rub. 69 kopecks	9 rub. 44 kopecks
		3 rub. 9 kopecks	2 rub. 00 kop.	1 rub. 66 kopecks	7 rub. 56 kopecks
		4 rub. 73 kopecks	1 rub. 80 kop.	1 rub. 28 kopecks	7 rub. 81 kop.
		7 rub. 48 kopecks	1 rub. 80 kop.	1 rub. 15 kopecks	10 rub. 43 kopecks
		10 rub. 36 kopecks	1 rub. 80 kop.	0 rub. 95 kopecks	13 rub. 11 kopecks

From this table it can be seen that walls made of 4 and 5 inch logs are more economical than others. The crowns of the log house should be positioned so that the butts and tops alternate. The cost of a log house will decrease compared to the cost of log houses made from hewn logs under one bracket. Under the cladding and plaster, the heterogeneity of the crowns is not visible. In Poland, walls are cut from 1 1/2 inch boards.
* External wall protection with cladding, paneling and plaster.
Wooden houses are sometimes faced with 1/2 brick. This makes the house warmer and the log house more durable. The cladding is attached to the walls with nails in a checkerboard pattern at a distance of 1 - 1.5 arshins along the seam and after 4 - 5 rows in height. Nails (4-7") are driven in during laying so that the head of the nail is an inch from the outer surface. The cost of 1 square sazhen of cladding is about 5 rubles 40 kopecks. Sheathing painted with ocher in oil costs about 5 rubles. External plaster walls cost 2 rubles 20 kopecks. From these figures it is clear that the cheapest protection for wooden walls on the outside is plaster. Unfortunately, it requires frequent correction. For strength, it is useful to add a little cement to the lime mortar for plaster.
Isolation of the lower crown from ground dampness.
To protect the lower crown from rotting, it must be isolated from dampness. To do this: a) Resin the lower crown. b) Wrap it in roofing felt or felt. c) Lay an insulating layer in the plinth masonry (roofing felt, giant felt, Hercules paper, roofing felt, a layer of insulating paint, a layer of asphalt, roofing iron in cement mortar). d) The base or two rows of masonry in it are made of material impermeable to water (brick, iron ore, granite, clinker).
Forest for the lower crown.
The best varieties of forest for the lower crown are the following: larch, oak, ore pine.
Tarring of log houses. In Poland and Western Russia, it is customary to tar the outside of wooden houses. The tarred log houses stand there for several hundred years.
* Barn walls made of plates.
It is better to wrap the round side inside the building. The following advantages are achieved: a) The painting surface is reduced. b) The stronger wood resists weathering and the sapwood is placed in a dry location. c) Round parts have more cracks.
* Wooden walls of baths.
Bathhouse log houses should not be sheathed. The cladding retains dampness longer, which is why the walls are more likely to rot.

The wall boards are connected in a quarter or triangular groove (Figure 2). The boards must be wrapped in such a way that rainwater does not flow into the quarters or grooves.
Choosing the length of logs for log houses. It is more economical to cut walls, purlins and other work from 9 arshin logs, rather than from 12 -13 arshin logs. A linear fathom of short logs is cheaper than long logs.

A quarter should be removed only from the underside of the board, and the edge should be beveled on top. This type of board lining is cheaper; In addition, when the boards dry out, no cracks form. The quarters are directed downward to prevent water from flowing behind the sheathing (Figure 3).

Vertical cladding protects the wall from rain worse than horizontal cladding. The edges of the vertical cladding boards need to be reinforced, as is done in plank roofs. The boards should be nailed at intervals with the seams overlapping by 3/4 - 1" (Figure 4).

Cladding and plastering; when they can be done.
Wooden houses should not be sheathed or plastered before a year after construction. You need to let the walls dry and settle. After a year, it is necessary to break through the caulk again; this unavoidable work should be included in the estimate.

To protect the lower crown from rain, you need to pass the drain board further than the sheathing. Often, due to carelessness of carpenters, the drain is arranged in such a way that water from the cladding (especially vertical) flows over the lower belt and falls under the lower crown (Figure 5).


*Caulking walls.
When re-piercing the caulking, you need to pay attention to the caulking at corners, at intersecting walls and at jambs. In these places, the settlement of the walls is prevented by the ends of the perpendicular walls, which is why the caulk does not compress and is weaker than in other places.
If the gap above the jambs is small, or tightly caulked, or wedges are forgotten in it, then the caulk in the piers of the jambs is weak, since the weight of the wall is transferred to the jambs, and not to the piers of the frame.

The base freezes over the shortest distance at the bottom crown.
A wall made of wild stone should be 2 1/4 arshins in central Russia; so that the cold does not get underground; It is recommended to concrete the ends of the joists to the width of an arshin to the top bed. The inner side of the lower crown must be filed with a vertical plane. When the foundation is partially lifted from the depths, there will be no through gaps under the lower crown. It is useful to lay construction felt on the inner edge of the base AB (Figure 6).


Cutting walls with the remainder.
Cutting walls with residue is outdated. It requires extra material at the corners, is inconvenient for sheathing, and the protruding parts soon rot and fall off. The corners of wooden walls must be protected from rain. The ends absorb water strongly, causing them to rot.

The top and bottom of the frame crowns are closed to each other, so these parts dry less than the side parts. As the sides dry out, the crowns develop horizontal cracks. They reduce the thickness of walls that resist freezing. Insects nest in the cracks on the inside, and rainwater gets in from the outside. You can protect the frame from horizontal cracks, i.e. cracks on the outside and inside. In the logs, before removing the bark, a triangular groove is cut for the lower bed. An ax is made in the groove, and the bark is removed from the top of the crown. When the log dries, it develops vertical cracks. These logs are hewn and a log house is cut from them. Only vertical cracks appear in the log house. They form an air gap, which reduces the thermal conductivity of the walls. The caulk blocks access to the vertical cracks of the crowns (Figure 7, 8).

Stone walls.

Settlement of the walls occurs from two reasons: from compression of the soil under the load of the walls and from a decrease in the volume of the walls as the masonry dries. When attaching a new wall to an old one, you should not connect them with a groove. The weight of new walls increases as the masonry is erected, and therefore the new wall continuously shrinks until construction is completed. Walls connected by a fine, both old and new, can crack. When adding a new wall, you can leave a gap. It can be laid after the rough construction is completed.
This rule should be observed when erecting walls on a common foundation, but different in height, for example: the walls of a vestibule, a corridor connecting two buildings, the walls of a porch when erected simultaneously with the building. It is safer to connect high new walls of two or more floors to old ones with dry tongue and groove, so as not to interfere with natural settlement (Figure 9).


*Dampness in the walls, its effect on thermal conductivity.
Damp walls are more thermally conductive than dry walls. Drying the walls saves on fuel.
Sand-lime brick.
Sand-lime brick is produced in factories of normal size from a mixture of sand and lime. Its cost is 8 - 15 rubles. for a thousand pieces. Newly produced ones are damaged by water, and those left in storage become covered with an insoluble crust. Sand-lime brick is more thermally conductive than red brick.
Rubble masonry.
Walls made of rubble stone should not be erected with a width of 0.30 fathoms using lime mortar. The width of the stone is about 0.15 fathoms, and therefore it is difficult to bandage the middle of such a wall. Lime in rubble masonry does not harden for a very long time, and therefore its bond cannot be counted on. It is not uncommon for such walls to fall apart.
*Masonry of brick walls.
Laying brick walls under a bay has some advantages over laying under a shovel. There is no reason to reject her. Its advantages: a) Cheaper. b) Less thermally conductive. c) Easy supervision of work. d) It turns out without voids. e) Does not require wetting of the brick. f) Equally durable with shovel masonry.
Broken seams.
The joints should not protrude from the plane of the wall. Protruding debris retains water, which is why they quickly collapse.
*Basement.
If the walls of the basement form a basement or an unheated room, then care should be taken to ensure that the walls do not freeze. The freezing causes the floors to freeze and rot. For an unheated room, the walls need to be made 2-3 times thicker than for a heated one. The thickness of the walls of an unheated basement should be equal to the depth of soil freezing. To install a frost-proof base, it can be laid from 2 walls with filling in the middle.
Wall thickness.
The smallest thickness of external brick walls for central Russia is 2 1/2 bricks, granite - 2 1/4 arshins.
The location of piece stones in the wall.
In stone walls, you should avoid laying whole pieces running the full thickness of the wall. This makes the walls freeze more. Seams reduce thermal conductivity.

In the Baltic provinces, walls made of lime slabs are lined on the inside with 1/2 brick with an air gap. This cladding reduces the thermal conductivity of the walls (Figure 10).

Masonry seams.
Masons add clay to lime mortar to create joints. The admixture makes work easier, but reduces strength, and therefore should not be allowed.

To be continued.................

Living in ignorance of his past,
You can impose any story:
be it swinish or barbaric.
The ignoramus will swallow everything
and he will defend this invention with foam at the mouth.

Construction traditions. PartI.

I receive different comments on my articles. There are those whose authors demonstrate an impenetrable faith in the gnawed history of school textbooks. They once honestly memorized their lessons, got straight A's, and are confident in the indisputability of their knowledge. Excellent students do not even realize that history is written on the basis of dominant ideologies. It’s impossible to count how many of them there have been throughout history. Only the Slavs had more than one of them. Also with Christian ideology and, of course, Soviet ideology. And there were also those that were written for a specific ruler - a prince, a tsar, a patriarch, a general secretary. An inquisitive mind will easily notice the presence of all these versions in the available sources.

This is how, for the sake of ideologies, people abandon common sense and obvious facts. This is what we need, “baseless log construction”!? Do you even know the weight of one log for a log house? And in each wall of the hut there are at least 12 of them (depending on the diameter of the logs), and how many walls does the house have? Well, estimate the total weight, adding the roof, floor and ceiling, and at the same time the pressure exerted on the ground.

Everyone who has ever come into contact with the construction of their residential building or even a seasonal garden house knows perfectly well that their buildings without a foundation will sag, warp, and the walls will crack in a few years. And how many winters did the Russians survive in their homes, in which they multiplied and populated half of Europe?

In every ancient city in Russia there are houses that are supposedly protected by the state. These are ancient houses and urban estates made of stone. In St. Petersburg alone there are many similar buildings standing on marshy soil. Maybe someone will undertake to claim that they have no foundations? Yes, at least 100 thousand oak piles alone were driven under St. Isaac's Cathedral!!! Here stands the handsome man.

Where did people in Russia in the 15th-3rd century learn about foundations, only from Italian architects? And who built churches in Kazan and restored the Kazan Kremlin after the city was captured by Russian and Tatar troops? The capture was followed by a decree from Tsar Ivan the Terrible on the restoration of the city and the construction of new buildings. According to that decree, the matter was entrusted to a Pskov architect named Barma, nicknamed Postnik. Who will say that over the centuries there, in Kazan, something has become distorted after Barma?

By the way, the name Barma is very characteristic and honorable. Barmas are princely regalia, they were “assigned” at the coronation of the prince and passed on to the eldest in the family. In Persian, berme means “protection, protection.” This is a mantle that was worn around the neck over clothing. Barmas were made of gold and decorated with precious stones, pearls and grains. They could contain enamel images of Christ, the Mother of God, and selected saints. Such barmas appeared in Byzantium, and from the 12th century. are also known in Rus'. They were called “Holy Barmas” and were revered on a par with icons. Later it arose in the singular - barma, from the Old Slavonic ramo - “shoulder”.

And Barma was nicknamed the Faster because the master adhered to the rule - to combine all serious construction work with fasting.

Note.

While Barma was restoring the Kazan Kremlin, Ivan the Terrible invited Italian craftsmen to erect St. Basil's Cathedral or the Church of the Intercession on the moat in honor of the victory over the Kazan Khanate. And Kazan was being restored and a temple was being built in honor of the victory at the same time. Barma could not disobey the king in relation to Kazan, much less split into himself and Postnik for simultaneous construction in two different places.

The houses of lazy people and hacks really did not have foundations. Their houses became askew quickly. But the houses of nobles and well-established men served for more than one generation.

The village house in my small homeland in the Vladimir land has been standing for the third century. At least 5 generations have grown up in it, and, of course, it has a foundation. These are stones and chairs made of burnt oak. The house was built according to ancient traditions, which are much older than the 18th century, like the village of Yurtsovo itself, which is older than the nearby monastery of Stefan Makhrishchi associate of Sergius of Radonezh. This statement is based on monastic archives.

And they are trying to convince us that the origins of Russia are without foundations!

To be continued.

The history of a log house, methods of making a log house, the selection of wood for making a house, how the foundation was made, based on this information received, more and more developers prefer log houses, chopped from hand-hewn logs. Precisely felled ones, since in their creation they successfully use ancient cutting methods.

In Rus', wood has been used in construction since time immemorial. Residential buildings, baths and barns, bridges and fences, gates and wells. We are a domestic construction company from the Vologda region, actively reviving the traditions of wooden architecture.

Our company has its own professionals who have dedicated their lives to studying the methods of wooden construction, the secrets of felling, without which the construction of a high-quality log house from a log house is simply unthinkable. They skillfully use restored ancient methods of cutting, cutting, and cutting to cut modern log houses from a log house.

History of the log house

First, let's take a look at history.

• A small residential building in Rus' was called an izba (from another - Slavic istba, istka - “heated residential log house”).
• The large house was called a mansion. Both the hut and the mansion were made up of several log cabins - based on their number, the house was given its name - “twins”, “triplets”, “quadruples”, etc. Moreover, each of the log cages could have a certain number of internal walls separating it (five-walled, cross-walled).

• In the middle zone, the hut most often was built from three cages (three-part), the heated living room and the cold (summer) room were separated by a vestibule. As a rule, it was the canopy that served as the entrance to the house made of logs, to which the porch led. To turn into a mansion, such a hut must grow upward.

• A tower-terem was built over the entryway (a tower was a separate tall residential building connected to the main house by a passage). Above the central border they made a room for feasts - a tower, which sometimes took on the appearance of a tower and became the compositional center of the building.
• In the attic of the summer part of the hut from the main facade, an unheated women's room with a low ceiling (men usually bowed their heads when entering it) was built - a small room. The log walls of the house served as additional supports for the roof.

The project for a future log house is needed not only by the builders, but also by you: you need to carefully think through the layout of the log house. After all, a log building is not a brick building, where you can relatively easily lay a doorway in one partition and cut through another.

Comfort and coziness of a log house

The house is made of logs, it is beautiful in appearance and the amber-golden color scheme brings additional comfort - the natural color of our northern wood. Sufficient strength, good thermal properties, as well as the rich artistic expressive capabilities of wood, and it will become clear why the demand for wooden houses made of wood has been growing in recent years. Of the softwood trees (pine, spruce) widely used for construction, pine and spruce are the most popular due to the practicality and properties of the wood.

The house is made of logs, the logs for it are selected individually and in the most careful manner - in this case, preference is given to logs that are smooth and without defects. To remove bark, hand scraping is used, which helps to preserve the top protective layer of wood as much as possible. And this, in turn, is a guarantee of durability (the treated rounded log, as a rule, loses its protective layer).

Only manual cutting of a house log allows you to use logs with a large diameter and a length of up to 11 meters. The crowns are laid according to the rule “butt to top”. It is clear that no one dries such logs artificially - they have natural humidity (25-40%).

Then the felled house must be settled. By the way, “manual” cutting is also called because the profiles of corner joints (bowl, paw) and horizontal joints made on each crown differ in individual shape (each log has its own, unique profile), therefore the mechanization of the process of “creating” them almost impossible even in our time.

History of the foundation of a log house

• In the old days, the lower frame of a log house was often laid directly on the ground, and to make it rot less, thicker and more resinous logs were selected (in some cases they were additionally burned over low heat). At the same time, an earthen embankment was built around the walls for warmth.

• In Siberia, larch was necessarily used for the lower crowns, the wood of which is not afraid of moisture, and, therefore, rot. Another way to combat ground moisture is to place large flat boulders under the corners and the middle of the frame rims (birch bark was previously placed between them and the log), cuttings of thick logs - “chairs” - or so-called paws - standing down with the roots of uprooted stumps. Modern developers have much wider options when it comes to choosing foundation designs and materials.
• Thus, the North and Center of Russia are characterized by a high hut with basements. The podkleit had a separate exit to the street and was used as a storeroom, workshop, room for livestock and poultry. Of course, based on the meaning of the basement, it is different - to protect the log house located above it from the cold coming from the ground, to protect it from snow drifts in winter and floods in spring.

Poval

In Russian wooden architecture, the concept of “fall” means the expansion of the upper part of the log house along a smooth curve by gradually releasing the crowns outward, forming a kind of log cornice.

Roof overhangs with such support can be significantly increased, which means they will better protect the log walls of a house from rainwater. This is the practical side, so to speak. If we talk about the aesthetic side, this simple technique allows you to give the house some majesty.

Gulbishche

In the old days, hand-cut residential log houses also had such an architectural element as a walkway - a gallery encircling a house standing on a high basement at the level of the first and sometimes second floor. The structure rests on the extended ends of the floor beams, reinforced with wooden struts resting against the wall, or on the extended ends of the fall logs.

The flooring is plank, the side railings are railings lying on balusters (flat or three-dimensional). Above the walkway they usually do it by weight. If this structure is located at the level of the second floor, the canopy is the overhang of the roof slope, which supports carved posts.

In addition to its main purpose (“to walk”), the walkway also has an additional purpose - it is convenient to close window shutters from it. In modern wooden architecture, walkways encircling a hand-built house on all sides are rare, but there are balconies in almost every log house.

Photo. 1. Foundation in the form of wooden piles.

The first foundations in history.

The first residential buildings in the history of mankind had, as a rule, the shape of a hemisphere with a usual diameter of 3...6 m. Freshly cut rods were pressed manually in a circle into the ground, their tops were bent to the center and tied with a vine, then covered with leaves, laying them on top of each other like tiles. Later, such huts, round and rectangular in plan, were raised above the surface of the earth to a small height on wooden stilts (for safety). The first foundations in history were in the form of wooden piles.

The use of foundations resting on soil foundations began in ancient times, when people learned to build more permanent and heavier dwellings and other structures. Even then, builders knew that structures resist the influence of external forces the better, the better their foundation. The first builders supported heavy structures on solid rock. Thus, the builders of the Cheops pyramid used a low hill as a base, at the top of which there was a completely exposed rock. They leveled the surface of the rock and laid on it a solid bed of three-ton limestone blocks in the shape of a square with a side of 225 m. A pyramid weighing 7 million tons and 144 m high was erected on this bed, which stood for 5,000 years without any deformation.

The builders of Babylon, when building a city in a less durable alluvial valley, first made a continuous fill of soil with a height of 1.5 to 4.5 m and up to 1.5 km in diameter. Under each structure they built a bed of sun-dried and baked bricks bound together with bituminous materials. On such pillows 0.9...1.2 m thick they built city walls, temples and public buildings. To prevent uneven settlement of heavy stone structures on soft soil foundations, builders divided the structures into separate parts of such rigidity that allowed them to endure different settlements without damage. The blocks adjacent to each other were connected vertically into a tongue and groove, which did not interfere with separate settlement, ensured tight contact and did not allow independent rotation of the blocks. In Ancient Greece and China, structures were supported on cushions made of cut stone.

The ancient Romans built structures in different countries, so they adapted the foundations to different soil conditions: in soft soils they used wooden piles, in denser soils they laid wooden grillages directly on the surface of the soil, and then erected stone structures on them. Sometimes foundations were built from flat stones held together with cement or lime mortar. Apparently, this was the earliest experience in constructing rubble concrete foundations. The foundations for the temples consisted of continuous stone walls under each line of columns. When designing these foundations, the rule was that their width should be 1.5 times the diameter of the widest part of the column, unless the soil was so weak that piles were required. The density of the soil was assessed by the builders “by eye”. The Maya people of Yucatan (circa 200 AD) used solid slab foundations. A layer of stones measuring 0.3...0.6 m was laid on the leveled area. Then smaller stones and lime mortar were laid on the larger stones to obtain a solid slab 0.9...1.2 m thick. The slab simultaneously served as the foundation for building walls and interior floors.

Medieval foundations.

In the Middle Ages, foundations were still built in the form of solid stone pads, laid with bandaged seams on a leveled ground surface. When Gothic architecture required the construction of walls and columns with large spacing, solid slabs began to be divided into separate foundations. Apparently, there were no special rules for their design. If the underlying soil was hard, then the foundation was made the same width as the structure it supported. If the soil was soft, the foundations expanded and protruded beyond the columns or walls resting on them. The dimensions of these foundations were rarely related to the loads from the columns; they were usually determined by the space available or the shape of the columns or walls that supported them. If failure occurred, the corresponding structure was enlarged until it could withstand the load. In case of weak soils, pillows of brushwood tens of centimeters thick were arranged: the masonry of the foundations then rested on them.

Construction of increasingly taller and heavier structures at the end of the 19th century. caused in many cases difficulties in constructing foundations and aroused interest in the problem of their design. A requirement arose: when constructing stepped stone foundations, for every foot of widening beyond the limits of a column or wall, it is necessary to further deepen the foundation by 1 foot. Therefore, foundations became wider under heavier loads; at the same time they became deeper and heavier. As a result, the weight of the foundations began to account for the majority of the load from the structure. Therefore, to lighten the foundations in the 19th century. tried using reverse arches to distribute the load. Reducing the weight of foundations was achieved by using grillages made from rows of wooden or steel beams, with each row laid at right angles to the row lying below. Such grillages were first used in the 80s. XIX century in Chicago (USA). They made it possible to make foundations protruding 3 m beyond the columns with a laying depth of only about 1 m. The spread of reinforced concrete at the beginning of the 20th century. made it possible to obtain the same result at lower costs.

A significant advance in understanding the "behavior" of foundations was the idea that the area of ​​the foundation should be proportional to the load and that the center of gravity of the load should be located above the center of gravity of the foundation. This idea, first published by F. Bauman in the USA in 1873, has been used by designers for many years. Significant precipitation and isolated cases of destruction of foundations at the end of the 19th century. forced engineers to reconsider design methods: for the first time they began to indicate in projects the maximum permissible pressure from the foundation on soils of various types and test soils with a test load to determine their bearing capacity.

Foundations in Ancient Rus'.

In Ancient Rus' during the early Middle Ages, the main building material was wood. Construction from stone began to develop in the 10th century, mainly during the construction of fortifications, temples and monasteries. It is known, for example, that stone was widely used during reconstruction at the end of the 10th century. Kyiv fortifications, erected on strong massive foundations. Stone and brick were especially widely used in 1485 - 1495. during the construction of the walls of the Moscow Kremlin to replace the old wooden ones, the first construction of which from wood by Yuri Dolgoruky dates back to 1156. Similar construction of kremlins and other structures made of stone and brick was carried out in the 16th - 17th centuries. in many Russian cities.

Since ancient times, great importance has always been attached to the issues of constructing foundations and choosing strong soils as foundations. The famous Roman architect and military engineer under Julius Caesar, Vitruvius, in his works “Ten Books on Architecture,” written back in the 1st century. BC, gives a number of practical instructions on the construction of foundations: For foundations... you need to dig a ditch to the mainland, if you can reach it, and in the mainland itself, to a depth corresponding to the volume of the building being erected, and bring it down to the entire bottom the most solid masonry... If it is impossible to dig through the mainland and the soil in place will be alluvial or swampy to the very depths, this place must be dug up, emptied and driven with burnt alder, oilseed or oak piles and driven them with machines as closely as possible, and the spaces between fill them with coal, and then lay as solid a foundation as possible.”*

The outstanding Italian architect and builder A. Palladio in his treatise “Four Books on Architecture” (1570) wrote: ... of all the mistakes that occur during construction, the most destructive are those that concern the foundation, since they entail death the entire building and are corrected only with the greatest difficulty... . He recommended laying foundations in hard soil to a depth equal to 1/6 the height of the building, and in soft soils using oak piles and driving them to “good and strong ground.” If this is not possible, then piles should be used one-eighth of the height of the wall and a twelfth of their length thick” and “place them so closely that there is no room between them for others, and drive them in with frequent rather than heavy blows, in order to so that the earth beneath them settles more densely and holds better.* Piles were constantly used in construction at different periods of time. In Lake Lucerne (Switzerland), piles were discovered on which prehistoric dwellings rested. Caesar built a bridge on stilts across the river. Rhine. Ancient builders drove these piles with hand-held wooden sledgehammers, hand-held hammers, pile drivers with hand-operated winches, or using power from water wheels. Modern pile driving methods arose with the introduction of steam pile hammers in 1885. * Laletin N.V. Foundations and foundations / N.V. Laletin. M.: Higher. school, 1964.

As the height and capital of buildings and structures increased, the loads on the foundations increased, the occurrence of deformations and cases of destruction increased interest in the design of more reliable foundations and foundations and the first studies began. In 1773, the French scientist C. Coulomb proposed a solution to the problem of the shear resistance of soils and their pressure on retaining walls, which is still used today. In 1801, Russian academician N.I. Fuss, while studying the formation of ruts on dirt roads, first expressed the idea of ​​a proportional dependence of soil deformation on load. He believed that these deformations are of a residual nature and arise only within the area of ​​the load. The same proposal was made in 1867 by E. Winkler, who considered soil deformations to be elastic and introduced a proportionality coefficient, then called the bed coefficient, to determine their magnitude. A major event was the creation of soil mechanics by K. Terzaghi, described in 1925 in the monograph “Structural Mechanics of Soils”. This was the first analysis of the behavior of soils under load.

Domestic scientists and engineers have made a valuable contribution to the development of the science and technology of foundation engineering. In 1899, engineer A. N. Lentovsky was the first to use reinforced concrete to construct reinforced concrete caissons. In the same year, engineer A.E. Straus invented and first introduced concrete cast-in-place piles in drill holes and cast-in-place reinforced concrete piles into construction practice. A significant contribution to the development of foundation engineering as a scientific discipline was made by the famous Russian scientist V.I. Kurdyumov, who was the first to reveal the curvilinear nature of sliding surfaces formed in loose soils when a rigid foundation or stamp is indented. The outstanding Russian scientist N.M. Gersevanov authored the most important works on various problems of soil mechanics. In 1917, he published a formula for determining the resistance of piles from dynamic tests. The largest specialist in this field, V. K. Dmokhovsky, did a lot for the development of domestic foundation construction. The works of G.I. Pokrovsky (statistical method for solving soil mechanics problems) are widely known. An outstanding contribution to science was the solution to the problem of calculating the strength of natural foundations, proposed by N.P. Puzyrevsky in 1923. The study of the properties of permafrost is most fruitfully presented in the works of V.A. Obruchev, M.I. Sumgin. N. A. Tsytovich and other scientists. In a number of areas of foundation construction, the works of V. A. Florin are known. V.V. Sokolovsky. D. D. Barkan, monographs by B. I. Dalmatov, B. D. Vasiliev. E.A. Sorochan, N.V. Laletina and others.

To carry out scientific work in the field of foundation engineering, the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Foundations of Structures (now the Scientific Research Institute of Foundations and Underground Structures (NIIOSP)) was created in 1931. Domestic scientists and designers have developed numerous outstanding foundation solutions: the box foundation of the Moscow State University building, the shallow foundation of the Ostankino TV tower (the author is the outstanding engineer N.V. Nikitin), pile foundations for the development of territories with permafrost soils while preserving their condition, foundations in a compacted bed, shell piles, etc. In world practice, original solutions for reinforced concrete foundations in the form of shells for tower-type structures, high-rise civil and frame industrial buildings are known; various types of prestressed foundations, “floating” foundations, etc. have been created

But the actual operation of reinforced concrete foundations has not been sufficiently studied; there has been no research into a number of foundation designs (slab foundations, including round and ring foundations, etc.). Some important studies were carried out in a simplified manner, without an in-depth study of the destruction process (punching of foundations without studying internal cracking, the operation of slabs without taking into account the membrane forces acting in their plane, etc.). This led to contradictory judgments about their actual stress-strain state (about a two-digit or unambiguous diagram of bending moments for slab foundations, about punching, etc.). On the one hand, this was caused by the complexity of experimental studies of foundations and the lack of a number of certified instruments and techniques. On the other hand, historically there was a situation in which foundations found themselves at the junction of the research of two leading research institutes: the leading Research Institute of Concrete and Reinforced Concrete (NIIZhB) studied above-foundation structures, and NIIOSP, first of all, studied foundations and underground structures. Therefore, for example, in the large collection published by the NIIZHB Institute for the I All-Russian and International Conference on Concrete and Reinforced Concrete “Reinforced Concrete in the 21st Century,” there are no foundations or research results of domestic scientific groups. Now at NIIOSP work is underway to introduce issues of designing reinforced concrete foundations into regulatory documents (small (1...2 pages) sections on the design of columnar, strip and slab foundations have appeared in SP 50-101-2004).

S.A. Rivkin and his students (Kyiv) contributed to experimental and theoretical studies of reinforced concrete foundations. E.A. Sorochan, E.V. Palatnikov. N.N. Korovin (Moscow), Yu.N. Murzenko and her students (Novocherkassk). L. N. Tetior and his students (Sverdlovsk, Simferopol, Zaporozhye) and many other researchers who solved more specific issues. Major contributions to the theory of calculation of foundations taking into account the formation and opening of cracks were made by N.I. Karpenko and his students (Moscow), V.I. Solomin and his students (Chelyabinsk), etc. Deep theoretical studies of foundations as elastically working structures on elastic basis, but these studies with a high degree of convention can be attributed to reinforced concrete foundations, since they do not take into account the actual inelastic work of reinforced concrete structures. Many domestic researchers have made a major contribution to the development and research of various types of pile foundations and walls in the ground (B.V. Bakholdin, M.I. Smorodinov, K.S. Silin, Yu. G. Trofimenkov, etc.), foundations in rammed bed (V.L. Matveev and others). foundations of reconstructed buildings (P.A. Konovalov, S.N. Sotnikov, etc.), foundations in special conditions (S.S. Vyalov, V.I. Krutov, N.N. Morareskul, etc.).

Currently, due to the emergence of an increasing number of new and diverse types of buildings and structures (high-rise buildings, long-span industrial and public buildings, stressed-tensile roof structures, underground buildings, television towers, etc.) and the successful development of a wide variety of soils as foundations , which were previously considered unsuitable for construction (weak soils, peat, etc.), a large number of different types of foundations are used. Transitional types of foundations have appeared (for example, pillar piles and short cast-in-place piles with widening working as columnar foundations; “wall-in-soil” foundations working as cast-in-place piles; foundations made of driven blocks, combining the properties of columnar foundations and driven piles, etc. .).