What the owner says after a year and a half living in the wooden house

We spoke to Andrei Pavelescu, the owner of the House between the apple trees in Voinești, a year and a half after the work was completed. We felt that, although it is a holiday home, enough time has passed for him to have an idea of what it means to live in a wooden house. My biggest curiosity was how he now views his initial fears about the strength of the house, vibrations and sound propagation between levels. The conclusion of the discussion was that, in the future, he would like to build a permanent home in Bucharest on the same system.

Start building your house in July and move in in September?

The House Between the Apple Trees project, which you can watch in full here, is representative of the fast way of building on wooden structure. Andrei wanted the construction site to take as little time as possible, and his wish was that in mid-September he would sleep for the first night in the new house, with construction starting in July. Construction was erected on schedule, but finishing took longer than expected, and that first night moved into December.

It all started in 2020, at the height of the lockdown, when we were all dreaming of a vacation home where we could sit unhindered in the fresh air. Andrei already had a plot of land in Voinești, near Targoviste, and in March he decided to build a holiday home there as soon as possible. At first he thought of a concrete house, but realised it would take too long and be too big. Although he was sceptical about the strength of timber-framed houses, he started researching and gradually changed his mind. He decided it was the quickest way to build and started looking for the right builder.

That's how the company discovered Litarh. He sent a message through the form on the website and was pleasantly surprised to be contacted very quickly by Vlad Liteanu. They discussed first about the project and the timeframe and then he was invited to Valea Moldovei to see the factory and to understand better the construction system of the house. By prefabricating the walls, the construction time is greatly reduced, but building them with precision can only be done in a factory with the necessary equipment. In Valea Moldovei factory saw how each structural element of the house is made and decided to start working with the manufacturer Litarh.

Within 6 weeks the house was completely erected, with the tiles, external insulation and internal plasterboard panels installed

The architectural project already existed, Litarh did the technical project, with structural calculations, energy compliance and all the execution details. Once the project was completed, the work stages were established and the construction of the walls and floors began in the factory. The start of assembly on site was set for 7 August.

On the agreed date, the walls for the first level arrived in Voinesti. A team from Litarh, consisting of three carpenters, was already there to fit the house's footing to the foundation, a very important process that can take more than a day. The baseboard is made of wood that has been autoclaved to be highly resistant to moisture, insects and fungi. The house's sole was mounted on the concrete slab covering the basement with the garage, technical room, cellar and sauna, which also serves to level the sloping ground.

The house is designed on two levels, ground floor and attic, with bedroom, kitchen and living room on the ground floor and two bedrooms, each with dressing room and bathroom, upstairs. It has two covered terraces, a large one at the back, towards which the living room opens, and a smaller one at the front, suggesting the porch of traditional houses in the area. Upstairs there is a balcony with wooden columns connecting the two bedrooms.

The exterior walls of the ground floor were erected in one day. The tenth of a millimetre precision with which the walls, floors and all the wooden elements are executed allows very precise and fast assembly. Next came the interior walls, the belt, the floor, the attic walls, the roof and the terraces. Finally, the gypsum plasterboard panels were installed on the interior walls and the continuous basaltic wool envelope on the exterior. On 22 September, 6 weeks after the first prefabricated walls arrived on site, the house was ready in terms of construction and thermal insulation.

Basaltic wool in walls and exterior, underfloor heating, ceramic tiles, solar panels

The house is very well thermally insulated with 15 cm of basalt wool in the walls and a complete and continuous exterior envelope of basalt wool panels. In fact, Andrei recounts how in December, when he first turned on the heat, although it was -5°C outside and the house had never been heated before, the temperature quickly reached over 30°C. The furniture fitters called him to turn off the heat because they were standing with the doors and windows open and couldn't work. The heating is floor mounted in all the rooms and only on the stairwell did he put radiators.

Andrei thought at first that a timber-framed house could not be strong enough to support the weight of ceramic tiles, screed in the attic or solar panels. Strength calculations which are made from the outset determine the thickness of the elements that make up the structure in order to be resistant to various loads (80-90 kg/m³ ceramic tiles, solar or photovoltaic panels, thick layer of snow), earthquakes or wind. The house between the apple trees is covered with ceramic tiles and has solar panels for heating the water, the strength of the structure is not affected by their weight.

Unfortunately, the plan to be able to live in the house as early as September could not be fulfilled because of the finishes and furniture. Everything took much longer than expected and finding a team to work with was one of the problems. The finishes and furnishings cost quite a lot, practically doubling the cost of the house. Eventually this part of the project was also solved, and since December she has been able to go with family and friends to the holiday home in Voinești. Even if the initial very ambitious deadline could not be met, to be able to live in December in the house you started thinking about building in March is already an achievement.

Impressions a year and a half after the end of the works

Talking to Andrei, I tried to find out if there was anything he was unhappy about now, a year and a half after the work was completed. He had no complaints about the house. He is convinced that he made a good choice by giving up the idea of building with concrete and is even thinking of using the same type of structure for the house he wants to build in the future, in Bucharest, as a permanent home.

He is also pleased with how well insulated it is. He says that if the temperatures outside are negative and the thermostat is set inside at 23°C and in some areas even higher, the heating doesn't come on at all at night. He has had one situation that has been resolved, because of the very large attic windows with no blinds. On sunny days, the temperature would rise more than she would have liked. He installed interior and exterior awnings and now has no such problems.

I also asked him about vibrations or noises from upstairs, problems that used to scare him when he didn't know much about timber-frame houses. Even though there are heavy vehicles passing by on the street in front of the house, there is no noise in the house. There's no vibration, no feeling downstairs when the attic moves, no noise. The house is no different from any other type of structure, the only reminders of wood are the exposed beams.

Andrei is happy with his new holiday home and as he dreamed at the beginning, most of his time at Voinești is spent on the back terrace, looking out over the apple and walnut orchard.