Extending the house by adding a storey on wooden structure - a quick job and a clean building site

Oana Călin has been living in a wooden house for almost 2 years and she is very happy with it. I visited her with Ionuț Merlușcă from Dimmer, the builder of the house, to get her opinion of the house she lives in. She and Ionut seem to have been friends for a long time. They both talk passionately about the house. They have lots of stories and you can tell they worked well together on this project.

Decision to extend the house. The building site and the relationship with the workers

Oana owned a single-level house and wanted to expand it vertically. To add a floor and make the whole house energy efficient. She didn't know anything about timber-frame houses, but she knew the Merlușcă family to be extremely serious. That's when she made the decision, in consultation with her husband, to do this project with them. "I didn't know anything about wooden houses and I said: come on! Once in a lifetime! What have I got to lose!"

Oana Călin was expecting the kind of construction site we were used to - lots of noisy craftsmen, lots of mess and wasted time. In fact "everyone was dressed nicely, no detail was left to chance, like let it go. The design part took the longest." Oana told us.

Constructionstructurewas made at the Dimmer factory in Comănești, Bacău county, in just one week and took only one day to assemble.

"It only took a few days of site preparation. Wall construction in the factory lasted three days. We came to the site two days before to prepare the posts, prepare the slab, prepare the ground. The house took only one day to put up. In the evening the roof was on." says Ionuț Merlușcă.

A very close link was created between the beneficiary and the workers. One can easily see the very good and strong impression left by the Dimmer team from what Oana tells us:"Throughout the whole period of the construction site it was very important to work with them. I am referring to their way of working and to the interpersonal relationship that was created between me as the beneficiary and the people on the site. Let me give you an example of an event where they surprised and impressed me at the same time. It was the day of the installation. We were starting early in the morning and it was 9pm when the laying structure was finished. The construction they made was supposed to sit on top of an existing house. There, at the junction, we had decided during the day to cover it with something, in case it rained to keep the water out. Worried about the fitting we all forgot about this aspect. At 9 p.m., everyone was in the car, with the engine running, ready to go. At that moment I remembered - somehow I also felt sorry for them - and said... I didn't seal off the crossing area! I don't know if it was 30 seconds. All 9 of them were down from the car, 3 up, 2 at ground level, throwing those sheets. I was stunned. It was unusual for me. I was used to forever going to workers/workers with please, let's do this again. In their case it was like a commando troop. They all immediately got out of the car, because they all knew it had to be done and they fixed the problem. It wasn't even their job. For me it was unusual."

An energy-efficient expansion

The building itself is 80 sqm and is basically the floor of an older building. The walls have 150 mm of thermal insulation in their structure, plus a further 150 mm of external thermal insulation (thermosystem).

„Related to the walls, the important thing is that we made an open diffusion wall system. We achieved this by choosing materials that form the layers of the whole wall. This means that the wall TRANSPIRES (emphasizes Ionut), he's not breathing. If you want a comparison with the human body, we humans sweat through our skin, i.e. we allow water in and out of the body through our skin, but we do not breathe through our skin. For breathing, we have the respiratory system, which in the house would be the venation system with heat recovery. By wall perspiration, I mean that the full thickness of the insulation allows WATER to circulate AT VAPOR LEVEL, NOT AS SPRAY. That is, depending on the relative humidity of the air outside, the humidity in the insulation increases and decreases. In this case, when I speak of water, I mean water vapour, not water in liquid, droplet form. So the humidity in the house is constant, between 40% and 60%", Ionuț Merlușcă tells us.

Another thing worth mentioning is the execution of the floor plan between the floor and the bridge, on whose concept Dimmer collaborated with Marius Șoflete.

"This house has a non-habitable attic and we chose to do the insulation in the floor because it would have been inefficient to insulate the roof. In this case, the temperature in the house is constant, between 20 - 24°C in summer and winter. In the attic, in summer the temperature can reach over 40°C, it heats up hard from the sheet metal. In winter, the temperature in the loft can reach -20°C. To avoid the risk of condensation forming inside the floor, either in winter or summer, we have built a floor that allows water vapour to circulate in both directions depending on the season."

For the windows, Ionuț says, they chose to use triple glazing.

"We have designed a wall close to passive house. We have proposed two options: either we do away with the wall insulation, or we install high performance carpentry, Or go for this type of wall and performance glass. There was no point in using top wall materials and losing through the glass. We used wood windows clad on the outside with aluminum."

Both the builder and the architect were present at the installation of the house. "We all watched the walls go up, and at the last one, when we saw it fit perfectly, we started clapping. It was proof that all the calculations and all the execution were correct. Basically, that's where you check all the work, the way the last panel closes and if that one fits like a drawer. At that moment everybody applauds." Oana told us, visibly amused.

Customer satisfaction is the most effective business card

Now, almost 2 years after completion, she continues to be impressed by the perfectly synchronized and efficient team at Dimmer. Speaking to Ionuț Merlușcă..."Remember I asked you... How did you make this team? I was also interested in my job to build a team at that level of efficiency. These are people who care. That's what I liked the most. Every person on the site if they saw that something wasn't perfect, even if it wasn't up to them, they would immediately make a point and make it perfect. A lot of people asked me who I built with. I recommended them wholeheartedly."

Although she found the decision to build on wood structure a bit risky at first, Oana now seems like the perfect client to promote your work. The enthusiasm and confidence with which she recommends Dimmer wood homes is infectious. "Knowing them I figured it out: I wouldn't need a brick house... I clearly wouldn't. I definitely wouldn't. So clean, so beautiful, so fast, so safe it is with this type of wood-frame house, I wouldn't do a brick or - what do you call it - classic house. Seeing how the whole process has gone, I wouldn't put one brick on top of another. I'd rule out ever seeing another one of those trowels if I ever built another house."

If you want to build a second storey or loft a house and benefit from all the comfort such a space can offer, you will need to call in a specialist in the field. He or she can tell you whether it is feasible to build a storey or attic and can help you make the best decisions regarding the specifics of your project, the materials needed, construction techniques, ventilation, thermal insulation, etc. Even if the structure is not strong enough to extend the house vertically, additional reinforcement work can be done. And whatever the situation, for the construction of the upper floor and especially of an attic, the most suitable material is wood. It doesn't weigh much, it doesn't have a high price and it's a very beautiful material, and a timber frame construction will be much easier and quicker to build than a classic masonry structure.