Fachwerk

In Germany, there are historical buildings built using the half-timbered method as early as the 14th century , one of which dating back to 1347 is located in Quedlinburg .

In Europe, the development of frame construction took place in the Middle Ages . According to some historical sources, in Europe half-timbered houses were found already in the XI century . The gradual accumulation of construction experience, the increase in the skill of carpenters (which was greatly facilitated by the development of shipbuilding), as well as the desire to save wood and other factors led to the widespread use of the half-timbered construction method in Germany and France. ( German Fachwerk , from German Fach - panel, section, and German Werk - construction) ^[5] .

Evolution

Houses of such a frame construction, which can be seen today in Europe, began to be built in the Middle Ages. However, the history of this method of construction began much earlier than the Middle Ages. Frame houses were built wherever forests only grew, and where the level of culture and technical development created favorable conditions for this. Historical sources report the existence of half-timbered buildings already in the X-XI centuries, and by the XVI century carpentry craftsmanship in building houses reached its perfection. Mass development continued until the 18th century, inclusive, and today this type of construction has revived due to the trend towards environmental materials and the practicality of the design.

At first it was a simple columnar structure, where wooden poles were buried in the ground, and girders were hung from above. Rafters and thatched roofs were laid on the girders. The floor was most often earthen or clay. Everything is in full accordance with the technologies of that time. Since they still did not know how to make racks and beams of rectangular cross section, then they used logs and poles in all buildings. Filling the frame walls was made of adobe (clay reinforced with straw or reeds).

Subsequently, the pillars ceased to be buried in the ground to prevent decay. The racks of the frame are now placed on stones laid in the ground - one large stone for each rack. Logs are replaced by structural elements (racks, beams, etc.) of rectangular cross section. It was also experimentally established that for better stability of the structure, it is necessary to add inclined elements to the wall structure - struts and struts .

That is how hundreds of thousands of wooden houses in Europe were built that have been standing for 300-500 years (and this is the best proof of the reliability of the technology). Simultaneously with the German fachwerk, similar technologies of frame construction arose in Switzerland, France, England and other countries. All these technologies, including fachwerk, later received the general name Post & Beam - "rack-mount and beam". However, quite often the term “half-timbered” refers to any post-beam structures and buildings.

Half-timbered houses have a rigid supporting frame of racks (vertical elements), beams (horizontal elements) and braces (diagonal elements), which are the main distinguishing feature of the fachwerk construction. Braces give rigidity and strength to the frames of half-timbered houses.

The space between the frame elements was filled with reeds mixed with clay, branches, straw or various construction debris; the resulting panels were plastered , while the frame itself was usually left in sight. The elements of the frame visually dissected the white walls and gave the appearance of the buildings special expressiveness, which became the main architectural feature of the half-timbered building. The richest citizens filled the interframe space with wooden carved panels. The peak of the use of carved jewelry occurred at the end of the XVI - beginning of the XVII century.

The well-known rigidity and strength of the frame of half-timbered houses was achieved through the use of various and precise joints of parts - on a countersunk spike , on a dovetail spike, notches, etc., fixed with wooden pins .

Floor ledge design

Very often in a half-timbered construction, you can notice such a feature as floor ledges. For modern people, construction equipment, where the floors come forward one above the other, is something incomprehensible and outlandish, and in trying to explain the need for such a separation of floors, one can often hear different opinions that have little in common with reality. One of these opinions is the assertion that through protrusions the architect sought to increase the area of ​​each higher floor. No doubt, such a statement may seem fair, but an increase in area, which, we note, is very small (protrusions rarely reach half a meter), is only a useful side effect of another circumstance. The fact is that the pediment wall with a large number of windows, having the greatest height compared to the side, is most exposed to rainfall. Building from wood, a material that has an urgent need for protection from destructive moisture, medieval architects began to use the protrusion technique, thanks to which water from the rain, falling on the facade, flowed not from floor to floor and to the foundation, but directly to the ground. Such a technique for protecting wooden buildings, according to historical studies, was known to the ancient Greeks. Because of the tight (in the cities) adjoining houses to each other, and often without windows, they did not feel any special need for protection and were constructed in the usual way. The desire to protect the facade from excessive wetting gradually received a creative direction, and the ledge technique began to be used for the construction of all kinds of balconies and bay windows.

Wall Filling

The most accessible and most often used as a placeholder for half-timbered walls has always been clay adobe . The clay was reinforced (mixing it with straw or reeds) so that it would not crack or break up into separate pieces. To keep the adobe in the wall and not fall out, a wicker base was prepared for it from thin branches, which were inserted into pre-made grooves inside the half-timbered fields. As a result of drying the clay, gaps are formed between the filling and the frame elements. These cracks were previously covered with wool mixed with lime, and in modern conditions of construction they can be putty. Then the surface of the adobe was plastered with lime mortar flush with the wooden frame and, if necessary, painted.

Also, the frame is filled with clay brick, both burnt and raw, with subsequent plastering or without it (raw plaster). Apply ordinary or decorative masonry - optional. The old way of attaching a brick to a frame was to use trihedral battens attached to the inner surfaces of the frame. In the extreme bricks, a groove under the rail is cut out. A simpler and more modern method involves the use of flat metal anchors. In both cases, after three or four rows of bricks, the masonry is reinforced along its entire length. Natural stone filling is less popular. The stone-filled walls are beautiful, strong, but heavy and worse keep heat.

The technology for the construction of half-timbered houses has all the advantages inherent in frame technology:

• High energy efficiency at home;
• Quick erection of the building;
• Comfortable living conditions;
• Long service life at home;
• The relatively low cost of building a house;
• Low house operating costs;
• Good maintainability of a half-timbered house.

The disadvantages are the same as those characteristic for frame houses:

• Exposure of wooden structures to the effects of fungus and mold;
• Fire hazard of wooden structures;
• The need for forced ventilation.

• Virendel beam

• Fachwerk - an article from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia .
• Vorotyntsev Vladislav Alexandrovich. The construction of Norwegian frame houses . - Ekb: Ridero, 2016 .-- 146 p. - ISBN 978-5-4483-5576-9 . Archived March 24, 2017 on Wayback Machine
• FWHaus.ru - the first Russian educational site dedicated to Fachwerk architecture