After constantly being in the “stone jungle”, every person wants to spend at least some time in nature. It is not surprising that most country houses and baths are built not of cold concrete or stone, but of wood. Those who have the opportunity to spend sky-high sums of money prefer Altai cedar. There are many reasons for this, because this material has a lot of advantages both for construction and for people.
Use of cedar
Houses made of this wood have a lot of advantages:
- High level of environmental friendliness. Cedar emits a large amount of oxygen, which is enriched with negative ions.
- Antiseptic properties. Altai cedar wood contains essential oils that saturate the atmosphere with volatile, killing all microbes in the house or bath. Thanks to this, the air becomes almost sterile.
- Increased frost resistance. Wood tolerates sharp changes in temperature conditions. Even at - 55 ° C , cedar retains all its useful properties.
- Resistant to insects. Due to the aroma of the essential oils secreted by the tree, there will be no mosquitoes, moths, midges and other pests in the room.
Due to numerous advantages, the Altai cedar (a photo of the bath from it is shown above) was especially popular in the construction of houses in the Siberian Territory.
Interesting facts about cedar
It is worth noting several features of this lumber that will be interesting to those who plan to build a house or a bath from this tree:
- For suburban construction, usually only northern wood is used.
- In the production process of glued beams, it is customary to use only mature trunks, whose age is at least 220 years. Moreover, their diameter can reach 2.5 meters.
- Altai cedar has a strong uniform structure and has a pleasant pink tint. Wood is easy to process and looks good in any interior.
- In the houses of this tree sleeps better. The next morning, people experience an incredible influx of energy. Cedar baths are considered to be the best, as even higher volatiles are released from the wood when the temperature rises, which have a beneficial effect on health.
Tree characteristics
In addition to the obvious useful properties, the Altai cedar timber has excellent operational characteristics:
- A density of 410 kg / m 3 . The most interesting thing is that this indicator increases with stronger humidity.
- Durability. The strength limit of the Altai cedar is up to 40.6 MPa for compression, about 65 MPa for bending and 90.2 MPa for tension.
- With maximum water absorption, cedar humidity can increase to 220%.
- Due to the special structure and content of various organic substances in wood, this material is relatively light in weight. Depending on the grade, its HC can be from 360 to 570 kg / m 3 .
- In addition to phytoncides, cedar contains vitamins C and A. In the core of the tree more than 17% protein. It also contains starch, fiber and oils. The assessment of this material by chemical indicators is 5 points.
- By its mechanical properties, cedar is similar to fir and spruce.
- The lateral surface of the tree is approximately 40% thinner than its end part. If we evaluate the cedar hardness on the Brinell scale, then it belongs to the category of soft materials (4 HB). However, this parameter should not be confused with the strength of the tree, which is quite high for this breed.
- The thermal conductivity of the material is 4.3 kW / h, and the fire resistance index does not exceed 1.5. Thanks to this, a house made of Altai cedar can be considered a safe place.
Nevertheless, despite the huge number of advantages of this building material, it has one drawback - it is practically not found in the free market.
Why is the material difficult to access?
There are several good reasons for this.
The tree is listed in the Red Book, so it is strictly forbidden to cut it.
There are no railway access roads in Altai, so unloading of lumber becomes impossible. The tree is transported only by trucks, which makes transportation extremely expensive and long.
According to the law of the Altai Republic, cedar is forbidden to be exported in logs, boards, timber and carriages.
The wood of this breed can rightfully be considered one of the most expensive. It’s not possible to build a bathhouse or a country house using this material just like that.