Owners of modern apartments and large residential buildings are increasingly experiencing the need for special recesses being made in the wall. Cutting technical niches allows you to save space, hide defects during construction, hide various heating and lighting devices, store all kinds of tools, and also place decorative elements.
Varieties of Niches
Specialists carry out the cutting of technical niches in the walls of any material: brick, reinforced concrete, monolith, expanded clay panels. A recess can be created both in the load-bearing wall and in the partition. It is sheathed with plasterboard material, decorative stone or tile, tongue-and-groove blocks and other finishing materials are also used.
Modern equipment allows craftsmen to cut technical niches of any depth and size. The recess can be either horizontal or vertical, or any other configuration. Depth depends on the purpose of the niche, for example, you need to place a safe or a cache in it. They are also created for the aesthetic appearance of the room and convenient access to metering devices and various shut-off valves. The presence of niches with doors allows not only to hide various communications, but also to carry out the necessary repairs and replacement of failed parts.
Benefits of Diamond Cutting
This technology uses special crowns with a diamond-coated edge. This method does not imply loud noise, eliminates vibration and the presence of a large amount of dust and debris. The difficulty in cutting technical niches is the internal laying of various communications, electricity, telephone communications and other wires hidden in the walls. Therefore, experts before performing this work study the project documentation, make measurements with high accuracy, eliminating errors, then install the equipment and begin to create a recess.
When drilling niches by diamond cutting, no chips or cracks are formed on the wall surface, and no damage is done to adjacent walls. Special equipment can work with a ceiling thickness of up to 30 centimeters. If necessary, the recess is additionally reinforced.
Do Niches Need Doors?
Of course, it is up to the owner of the room to decide. Important is the purpose of the opening. If it is used for decorative purposes and decor items and decorations are located in it, then of course, it is advisable to leave it open. But if we are talking about technical recesses, which contain various household and construction equipment, communications, household chemical and cleaning products, then it is reasonable to use the shutters that block access.
The appearance of the doors of technical niches is not so important, the main thing is practicality. Sashes can be deaf, with double-glazed windows, with a lattice for ventilation. The first option is often used for electrical panels, change houses, in basements, warehouses. Double-glazed windows are necessary in those places where illumination should be kept. For example, niches near elevator shafts, in vestibule rooms, in laboratories. Lattices are applied where there is a high humidity requiring ventilation (boiler rooms, boiler rooms, ventilation niches).
How to make a niche yourself?
There is an opinion that it is easier to work with a brick, although the sequence of actions is not much different. To cut niches in the walls, you need to prepare a puncher, grinder, chisel and hammer. Since garbage will be generated and dust will fly during niche cutting, wet cleaning should be carried out periodically. First, mark the wall, taking into account the features of the future recess. Along the contour, make several penetrations at an equal distance from each other with a puncher. Then, with a grinder, start cutting out parts of the wall in small pieces. Use a chisel and hammer to level the surface of the niche.
Using reinforcement, you can strengthen the structure by making a niche formwork. For this, the cement mixture is poured into the voids formed and aged for about 7 days. At the last stage, the niche is painted, lighting is carried out to it, shelves are installed.
Those who decided to carve a niche in the wall should remember that changes in the architecture of the building require mandatory coordination with the design organization. This process is necessary to determine the load that the wall bears and evaluate the allowable loss of strength. In the future, this procedure will help to avoid the collapse or collapse of part of the building, which can lead to irreparable consequences.