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

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

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

Oana owned a single-storey house and wanted to extend it vertically. Add a second 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: let's go! Once in a lifetime! What have I got to lose?!"

Oana Călin was expecting the kind of construction site we've been used to - lots of craftsmen, noisy, a lot of mess and wasted time. In fact "they were all dressed nicely, no detail was left to chance, like, 'let it go as it is. The most time-consuming part was the design." Oana told us.

Construction structure It was made at the Dimmer factory in Comănești, Bacău county, in just one week and took just one day to assemble.

"It only took a few days to prepare the site. Factory wall construction took three days. We came to the site two days before to prepare the poles, to prepare the slab, to prepare the ground. It only took one day to put the house up. By evening the roof was on." says Ionuț Merlușcă.

It created a very close bond between the beneficiary and the workers. You can easily notice the very good and strong impression left by the Dimmer team from what Oana tells us: "Working with them was very important throughout the construction site. I am referring to their way of working and the inter-human relationship that was created between me as beneficiary and the people on the site. Let me give you an example of an incident where they surprised and impressed me at the same time. It was the day of the installation. We were getting started in the morning and it was 9 in the evening when the laying structure was finished. The construction they made was to be placed on an existing house. There, at the joint, we had decided during the day to cover it with something, in case it rains so that no water would get in. Worried about the installation, we all forgot about it. At 9 o'clock in the evening, everyone was in the car, with the engine running, ready to leave. At that moment I remembered - somehow I felt sorry for them - and I said to them... I hadn't cordoned off the crossing area! I don't know if it was 30 seconds. All 9 of them were out of the car, 3 of them in the car, 2 of them on the ground, throwing those sheets. I was stunned. It was unusual for me. I was used to eternally going to the workers/workers with please kindly 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 needed to be done, and they took care of the problem. It wasn't even their job. It was unusual to me."

An energy-efficient expansion

The building itself is 80 square meters and is basically the first floor of an older building. The walls have 150 mm of thermal insulation in their structure, plus another 150 mm of external thermal insulation (the 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 entire wall. This means that the wall TRANSPERATES (emphasizes Ionuț), it does not breathe. If you want a comparison with the human body, we humans sweat through our skin, that is, we allow water in and out of the body through the skin, but we don't breathe through the skin. For respiration, we have the respiratory system, which in the home would be the venpiration 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 STICKS. That is, depending on the relative humidity of the air outside, the moisture in the insulation rises and falls. In this case, when I'm talking about water, I'm talking about water vapor, not water in liquid, drop-like 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 between the first floor and the attic, on the concept of which Dimmer collaborated with Marius Șoflete.

"This house has an uninhabitable attic and we chose to insulate the attic 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 the summer the temperature can reach over 40°C, it heats up strongly from the tin. In winter the temperature in the attic can reach -20°C. In order to avoid the risk of condensation forming inside the floor, either in winter or summer, we have built a floor that allows water vapor 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 proposed two options: either we do without the wall insulation, or we don't mount high-performance joinery, or we go with this type of wall and performance glazing. There was no point in using high-end wall materials and leaking through the glazing. We used wood windows clad on the outside with aluminum."

Both the builder and the architect were present at the installation. "We all watched as the walls went up, and when the last one went up and it went in perfectly, we all started clapping. It was proof that all the calculations and all the execution were correct. Basically, that's where you check all the work, how the last panel closes and if it 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 construction was completed, she is still impressed by the perfectly synchronized and efficient team at Dimmer. Speaking to Ionuț Merlușcă..."Remember I asked you... How did you put this team together? 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 best. Every man on site, if he saw that something wasn't perfect, even if it wasn't his fault, he would immediately take notice and make it perfect. A lot of people asked me who I built with. I recommended them wholeheartedly."

Although it seemed a bit risky at first for her to decide to build on a timber frame, Oana now seems like the perfect client you want to promote your work. The enthusiasm and confidence with which she recommends Dimmer timber houses is infectious. "Knowing them made me realize: I wouldn't need a brick house... I clearly wouldn't. I definitely wouldn't. So clean, so beautiful, so fast, so safe with this type of wood frame house, I wouldn't do a brick house or - what do you call it - classic. Seeing the way the whole process has gone, I wouldn't put brick on brick. I'd rule out ever seeing another trowel of that if I ever built another house."

If you want to build an upper floor or attic and benefit from all the comfort that such a space can offer, you will need to consult a specialist in the field. They can tell you whether it is feasible to erect an upper storey or attic and can help you make the best decisions about the specifics of your project, the materials needed, construction techniques, ventilation, insulation, etc. Even if the structure is not strong enough for a vertical extension, additional strengthening work can be done. And whatever the situation, wood is the most suitable material for the construction of an upper floor and especially a loft. It does not weigh much, it is not expensive and it is a very beautiful material, and a timber frame construction will be much easier and quicker to build than a classic masonry structure.