The way home - a new project by Din Lemn magazine dedicated to wooden constructions

If you are one of those who want a house built from scratch according to your own wishes and needs, you should know that building a house is a very emotionally charged, financially and time consuming process. Even if you know exactly what you want your future home to look like, the road to achieving your dream is full of challenges and unknowns. For the journey to be smooth and enjoyable, you need to educate and research yourself. And the experiences of those involved in building houses, architects, designers, builders and beneficiaries, information about building systems, companies and materials will help you to better understand what are the best choices for you and what problems you can prevent. Your reactions to the timber house topics we have covered over the years have convinced us that there is a growing interest in this type of construction, and your questions have made us realise that there is still a great need for informed information. All this has led us to our newest project - The way home.

What the Road Home will be like

The project aims to show the journey of those who go through the experience of building a wooden house, from the design phase to moving into the new house. The films will be presented in the form of a series, each episode representing a stage of the construction process: the foundation, the construction of the building elements in the factory, the assembly on site, the finishing touches, the impressions after moving into the new house. There will be several of these series so you can get as complete a picture as possible of what it means to build a wooden house.

We will try to talk to as many of those involved in the projects as possible: beneficiaries, architects, builders, structural engineers, material suppliers. We will find out why a particular option was preferred, what the design requirements are for a timber frame house, what a timber house means compared to a concrete or brick house, discuss budgets, construction times, insulation materials, energy efficiency.

What questions we aim to answer

The questions you will find answers to by watching the films will be the ones you have received from us over time:

What are the advantages of a timber frame house? Why choose a timber frame house?
What problems can occur in a wooden house and how can they be solved?
What is the earthquake resistance of such a house?
How is fireproofing done? What is fire resistance?
What thermal insulation materials can be used?
Are wooden houses energy efficient?
How is the sound insulation problem solved? Does noise propagate more easily in a wooden house?
How long does it take to build a wooden house?
Between what limits does the price/m² of a wooden house vary? What influences this cost?
Which is better to choose, a typical house project or a custom one?
Does a wooden house need a Building Permit?
What does Romanian law say about wooden houses? How tall can these houses be?

If you have questions and you didn't find them among the above, leave them at the end of the article, in the dedicated space. We will add them to the list and try to answer them. And subscribe to our YouTube channel to see these films.

The road home will take us to houses on prefabricated wooden structures, log houses and houses on pillars

Although during this period houses on wooden structure (timber frame) are the stars, not only to them will lead The way home. Among the topics will be houses in bușteni, those made of rectangular beams, houses on wheels or those on pillars. We will try to present several houses for the same type of construction to be able to make a comparison between projects.

There will be smaller or larger houses, permanent or holiday homes, residential or hostels. You will see each project from the point of view of the beneficiary, the architect or the builder and you will get an overall picture. You will be able to overlay the image of the house you are dreaming of over the projects presented, thus finding out the advantages and disadvantages, the duration of construction, the approximate cost and other information that would otherwise be difficult to reach. We want this project to be an important source of information for those thinking of building with wood, but also a way of showing those who are not yet convinced that wood is the building material of the future.

We're already on our way and the first two episodes are already online

The way home has already started. The first project is called House between the apple trees and is built in Voinești, near Targoviste, in a hilly area known for apple production. Andrei Pavelescu is building his holiday home here, in the middle of an apple orchard. He originally wanted it to be a classic concrete house. He has since changed his mind and decided to build a wooden one. Find out what made him change the construction method in the first episode of the series. Also from the first episode you'll learn that Andrei wants to start living in this house in September this year. And he makes this declaration on July 7, 2020, standing on the foundation of the house, because only it was built at that time. A real challenge! We're curious to see if he can pull it off.

So watch House between the apple treesepisode 1 and 2!