The differences between these multi-storey buildings are insignificant. The main point is the methods of pouring concrete. If ready-made elements for a panel house arrive at the construction site, then the walls of the monolith are poured directly on the spot. With this method, it is not always possible to control the quality of work, while weather conditions can make some adjustments.
Monolithic or panel - which house is better for a quiet life?
In terms of comfort, a monolithic house is significantly ahead of its panel counterpart. It has a more developed infrastructure, while the audibility in monolithic houses is an order of magnitude lower. Among other advantages, it is worth highlighting an attractive appearance, thanks to which a skyscraper can easily become an organic part of any landscape.
Monolithic houses have practically no seams and due to this, the period of their operation is significantly increased. Due to the uniform distribution of the load, it is possible to avoid the appearance of cracks in the thickness of the walls and on their surface. It is impossible not to mention the great opportunities for architectural experiments. Construction using monolithic technology allows you to embody the most daring fantasies in terms of the shape and layout of the object. All these advantages make it clear which house is better, monolithic or panel, but we will not prematurely sum up.
Against the background of such significant advantages, it may seem that a panel house is incompatible with the concept of “comfortable living”. Actually, it's not all that bad. The advantage of panel high-rise buildings lies in their rapid construction. The floor and walls are much smoother there, so further finishing can be done in a short time. The consumption of material in this case will be insignificant, because the surfaces are devoid of obvious defects.
Apartments in panel houses are primarily aimed at people with a limited budget. The price for them is an order of magnitude lower than for similar rooms in a monolithic new building. Most often, cheap housing is chosen by young families who seek to quickly acquire their own corner.
Housing in monolithic high-rise buildings is acquired by people with good financial capabilities. First of all, the quality of construction is important for them and often the question of price does not matter. In fairness, it should be noted that in some areas the difference in price between panel and monolithic apartments is negligible. To ensure a comfortable stay, you should still make a choice in favor of a monolith.
How are things going with audibility in monolithic houses
Soundproofing is one of the most important factors that you should pay attention to when buying a new apartment. If we compare the audibility in monolithic and panel houses, then in the latter it is much worse. In order not to hear every rustle of the neighbors, you will have to spend a lot of money. Considering the cost of soundproofing an apartment in a panel high-rise building, saving on its cost seems not entirely reasonable.
Noise isolation of an apartment in a monolithic high-rise building is much better. You will not hear the neighbor's TV behind the wall or the evening showdown. Nevertheless, many people try to improve the soundproofing of their apartment, especially if the developer decided to save on materials and went around the rules.
Very often, a poor level of sound insulation occurs due to incorrect design or architectural decisions of the owner of the apartment. This is especially true for open-plan apartments.
The task of the developer is to hand over the "box" with communications, and the owner himself erects the partitions. The cause of noise can be poor-quality materials or illiterate layout. For example, if the bathroom borders the bedroom, then the sound of water through the pipes will become commonplace.
Having considered the advantages and disadvantages, the question of which house is better, monolithic or panel, you can find the right answer. The positive properties of the monolith are obvious, and the problem of audibility can be easily solved with the help of noise-insulating materials.
Buying an apartment is an extremely important decision. Try to find the advantages and disadvantages in your particular case, and only then make a deal.
Buyers are guided primarily by the location, price, deadlines for the completion of the new building, and the infrastructure of the area. Most people pay attention to the technology of building a house last. In particular, because it is very difficult for a non-professional to understand the nuances of modern housing construction.
The stereotypes of previous years, according to which brick stalins were praised and panel Khrushchevs were scolded, no longer work. And the words "monolithic", "monolithic-brick", "frame" say little about the consumer characteristics of the future apartment.
Brick forever
Brick modern houses can only be considered conditionally. Buildings with load-bearing walls made of solid clay bricks were built in St. Petersburg in the 18th, 19th, and even 20th centuries (Stalinka, as well as some houses of the first mass series). Then, in brick housing construction, reinforced concrete, and later monolithic structures, began to be used as the "skeleton" of the building. Today, there are few brick houses on the primary market in St. Petersburg: according to various estimates - from 3 to 10%. Since the early 2000s, their share has been permanently declining.
Developers' move away from bricks is understandable: there are faster and cheaper ways to build houses. But, according to the Stroitelny Trust company, the transition from prefabricated reinforced concrete to monolithic frames significantly reduced the labor intensity of the process, resulting in an increase in the speed of construction and a decrease in cost. And yet, building a house by hand, by definition, takes more time than assembling a “constructor” from prefabricated panels. The construction of a brick skyscraper of 12-18 floors takes from 18 to 24 months, which is about a third more than with monolithic, and 50% - than with panel construction.
A few construction companies that build brick houses, however, are not going to abandon the technology, which has undeniable advantages. Brick is a very “plastic” and architecturally expressive material; buildings made of it are beautiful and diverse. In addition, it provides more opportunities for creating layouts. Architects and designers are not limited by clear planning standards, as, for example, in panel housing construction.
And, perhaps, the main argument - the brick is very well perceived by buyers. It is generally accepted that apartments in brick houses are the warmest and “quietest”. “Natural brick gives high heat resistance, maximum sound insulation (up to 3 dB, in contrast to 0.5 dB in a panel house or 1.5 dB in a brick-monolithic one),” the Construction Trust company said.
Experts, however, do not unequivocally confirm this postulate. According to Gaspar Melkonyan, a specialist from the Non-State Supervision and Expertise company, brick houses are better protected from sounds that are transmitted by design, but they are worse saved from ordinary household noise. In terms of thermal insulation properties, the outer walls made of bricks over 640 mm thick are a really good barrier to the cold. But among modern technologies there are not the worst in this indicator.
The main advantage of brick houses, according to many, is the ability of bricks to absorb and release moisture, which is especially important for climatic zones where relative humidity is high. Concrete is deprived of such an ability, hence the opinion that it is “easier to breathe” in brick houses.
Clearly, brick buildings lose to their "competitors" in only one point. They need two to three years to completely shrink, so it is not recommended for new settlers to immediately make repairs.
The panel is different
The panel in St. Petersburg is not very common: its share in new construction is from 3 to 5%. This refers to a “clean” panel, and not houses built using monolithic or frame technology with hinged panel facades. If we add new buildings in this category, then the share of panel housing construction will grow to 15-17%.
If we talk about classic prefabricated panel housing construction, then its main advantage is the speed of construction. The building is assembled from ready-made parts, like a constructor, within 3-12 months, depending on the height.
The strength of this technology is also considered to be its low cost (therefore, panel housing construction is common in regions with a low level of income). However, this issue is not simple. According to the Lenstroymaterialy Production Association, the cost of assembling a house from reinforced concrete structures is indeed noticeably lower than, say, brick construction. But the cost of manufacturing panels varies greatly depending on its type. It all depends on the thickness of the panel (from 160 to 400 mm), the presence and quality of the thermal insulation layer, the selected finish. “Modern exterior wall panel, manufactured according to European technologies and meeting high quality standards, cannot be cheap,” the company assures.
Heat and sound insulation in the future apartment directly depend on the quality of the panels. It is clear that modern multi-layer products provide greater comfort than single-layer panels of "ship" houses from the Soviet past. The best option is three-layer "sandwiches" with insulation in the middle. No less important is what the structure is made of: the lower the thermal conductivity of the material, the lower the heat loss through the walls. Good insulators are layers of polyurethane foam, extruded polystyrene foam. But the performance of the common mineral wool insulation is somewhat worse. “Recently, many modern panel buildings with three-layer panels and a very high level of thermal insulation have been built in our city. In most cases, they turn out to be the warmest (more precisely, the least energy-intensive),” explains Alexander Gorshkov, Associate Professor of St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University.
Boring same-type "panels" are a thing of the past: modern production implies a variety of designs. And yet, the panel does not provide the architect with that degree of freedom, like brick and monolith, both in deciding the external appearance of the house, and in apartment design.
Monolith as a basis
The lion's share of the St. Petersburg primary market is occupied by buildings, in the description of which the word "monolith" is used. Monolithic "constructive" is of two types: actually monolithic and monolithic-frame. In the first case, the monolithic foundation of the building is solid, in the second case, reinforced concrete supporting columns and ceilings play the role of a load-bearing frame, and partitions, as well as external walls, can be made of any material.
Most often in this category there are brick-monolithic houses. According to Glavstroy SPb specialists, in 2013 they occupied 77% of the housing market under construction. Which, we note, is not surprising, given the emotional attachment of buyers to bricks. It is clear that decorative exterior masonry in one brick (240 mm), and more often in half a brick (120 mm), does not ensure the environmental friendliness of brick buildings for brick-monolithic structures. Moreover, this beauty is short-lived. “In our city, there is an acute problem of destruction of the front brick layer in buildings built since the early 2000s. This is due to the developers saving on materials. Cracks on the facades, “chipping” of the front layer is already widespread,” Alexander Gorshkov warns.
Consumer properties of apartments in monolithic and monolithic-frame houses partly depend on the nature of the construct. So, completely monolithic structures perfectly transmit impact noise throughout the “skeleton”. But you can not be afraid to flood the neighbors - the water will not leave the apartment.
In monolithic-frame buildings, wall materials are no less important. If a panel is hung on the frame, then the criteria for determining its quality are described above: the greater the number of layers and thickness, the better. For external walls made using other technologies, the approach is, in fact, the same: two-layer ones are worse than three-layer ones, without insulation worse than with insulation, covered with porous materials worse than covered with dense ones. “The warmest and, accordingly, the most economical for the consumer (but not for the developer) are insulated houses. Usually these are houses with a ventilated facade or with a thin plaster layer over the insulation layer. Moreover, walls with a plaster coating are preferable, since they contain fewer heat-conducting inclusions (anchors, guides, dowels and other “cold bridges”),” says Alexander Gorshkov. In last place, in his opinion, are houses with two-layer walls, in which there is no effective insulation, and aerated concrete blocks are used as the inner layer.
Now about pluses. Monolithic technology, unlike brick technology, allows building buildings at almost any sub-zero temperatures when using electric heating of concrete. This makes it possible to build houses over 25 floors. The price per square meter in such houses is the lowest, which is important in the current market situation.
Which house is better? We dot the i's in the question of the eternal confrontation between house building technologies.
Drawing: Irina Fateeva
brick houses
What are they built from?
In the construction of brick multi-storey buildings, two types of bricks are usually used - ceramic and silicate. The more expensive ceramic brick has excellent performance properties - it is strong enough, has high thermal and moisture resistance. Silicate brick is much cheaper, but it does not tolerate temperature extremes and high humidity, so it is practically not used for the construction of high-rise buildings. Increasingly, hollow bricks are used in construction - slotted and porous. Their main advantages are lightness and excellent thermal insulation (due to the presence of air cavities in the structure). However, working with hollow bricks requires special care - if the mortar clogs into voids, all the useful properties of such a brick will come to naught.
How quickly they build
Brick houses are built slowly, because they require highly skilled masons - after all, even minimal masonry errors can ruin the facade. Construction deadlines are usually delayed, and their observance depends on many factors, ranging from weather conditions to the presence of masons. Therefore, today they often prefer to build monolithic-brick houses, which can be built faster.
Durability
Ceramic brick is one of the most durable materials, the standard service life reaches 150 years.
Comfort
Brick houses are considered the most comfortable - they have the maximum indicators of heat resistance, hygroscopicity and, as well as the highest score for environmental safety (zero background radiation). Modern apartments in brick houses have a good layout and high ceilings (up to three meters). They are suitable, for example, for the creation of two-level apartments or individual redevelopment.
Relative cost
The price level per square meter in brick new buildings is usually impressive - luxury housing, as a rule, is built of brick. The cost of apartments in brick houses of the old pre-revolutionary fund, and "brezhnevka" is less.
When buying a second home, it makes sense to carefully examine the walls and look for cracks in them - those that fan out or run parallel to each other are especially dangerous.
Monolithic houses
What are they built from?
The erection of a monolith begins with the pouring of a reinforced concrete frame of complex concrete structures in the form of blocks, inside which there is a strong reinforcement, framed inside and outside with a heat and sound insulating shell. External walls can be built from any material - concrete, brick or sandwich panels. This technology allows you to build houses with virtually no restrictions on the number of storeys.
How quickly they build
The terms of construction of monolithic houses are close to the terms of construction of panel houses, but depend on the scale of construction. On average, a high-rise monolithic house is built in a year and a half.
Durability
Monolithic houses are classified as very strong and reliable, if built in compliance with all technologies. The service life of materials is designed for 150 years, and monolithic houses are recommended to be built even in earthquake-prone areas.
Comfort
The main advantage of apartments in monoliths is the greater plasticity of architectural forms, which makes it possible to make an individual layout to suit the tastes of a particular customer. The absence of seams increases the energy efficiency of the apartment.
Relative cost
Apartments in monoliths are cheaper than apartments in brick houses, but more expensive than panel housing. Such apartments are preferred by the middle class, but this technology is often used for the construction of luxury housing.
What you should pay special attention to when buying
It is worth clarifying the year of construction of the house: in the 1990s, construction standards were not always observed.
Panel houses
What are they built from?
External wall panels can be single-layer and multi-layer. Single-layer panels are made of lightweight reinforced concrete or concrete of structural grades. Multilayer panels are a construction of two sheets of rigid material (metal, PVC, fiberboard, magnesite board) and a layer of insulation between them, glued together using hot or cold pressing. Modern panels, compared to their Soviet counterparts, have seriously improved their performance and environmental friendliness, but still do not guarantee the complete absence of background radiation.
How quickly they build
The technology of building panel houses allows you to assemble buildings from prefabricated reinforced concrete building panels - as in children's designers. The construction of a panel house will take no more than 7 months, and the features of the construction technology exclude the delay in the delivery of facilities.
Durability
The service life of panel buildings depends on the specific type of building. For example, thin-walled "Khrushchev" were designed for operation for 40-50 years, but their actual durability exceeds the design by 1.5 times.
Comfort
Modern technologies have made it possible to get rid of the low ceilings and small rooms inherent in old panel houses, but their serious disadvantages still include poor heat and heat. In panel houses, redevelopment is strictly prohibited, since interference with the building structure and the transfer of load-bearing walls can completely destroy the house. Another significant disadvantage of old panel houses is inter-panel cracks.
Relative cost
Panel construction is characterized by simplicity, rapid pace and relatively cheap materials, which allows developers to offer such houses at the lowest price.
What you should pay special attention to when buying
To understand how a particular house corresponds to modern parameters, you need to clarify its series. For example, in houses of the P-44 and KOPE series, the walls are made of a three-layer panel with insulation, which increases the thermal insulation of apartments, expanded clay concrete walls of the P-46M series provide increased sound protection, and the Bekeron series is distinguished by large areas of apartments and high ceilings. It’s also worth asking in advance about adequacy, since sound insulation even in modern panel houses leaves much to be desired.
Elena Belousova
When buying an apartment, do we usually choose between brick, panel or monolithic houses? How do they differ and what to choose in each case? We will try to answer this question, starting from the physical characteristics of each of the technologies.
Terms and Definitions
The basis for classifying a house according to construction technology is the material of the supporting structures.
At the same time, the material of external walls and internal partitions (this is especially true for houses built after 2000) can be absolutely anything. A common practice for modern new buildings is a monolithic frame and interfloor ceilings, while partitions and external walls (facade) can be made of a wide variety of materials (brick, various panels). This gives rise to many similar terms (monolith-brick, monolith-frame, monolith-panel, etc.), which can misinform a potential buyer, but in fact all these types of houses must be attributed to monolithic construction. For example, a brick-lined monolithic house can be easily called brick by the buyer, although in fact it is not.
Thus, 99% of all apartment buildings in Russia fall into three main types - brick, monolith and panel. In theory, other materials can be used as supporting structures - wood, various blocks (foam blocks, heat blocks, gas blocks), but this is still more relevant for low-rise individual construction.
brick houses
Bearing structures in brick houses are built from ceramic (red) bricks with a thickness of load-bearing walls usually more than 380 mm (“3 bricks”).
Ceramic brick is durable (service life up to 150 years), fire-resistant, environmentally friendly (since it is produced by firing clay). The brick is durable - for example, the brand of brick M200 (the numerical value shows the permissible load in kilograms per 1 sq. cm of area) is quite suitable for the construction of a 16-story wall. Ceramic brick has a low thermal conductivity (lower than that of reinforced concrete, from which monolithic and panel houses are built), which allows it to maintain the desired temperature longer (because of this, in part in brick houses it is usually colder in summer and warmer in winter). The brick has good soundproofing characteristics (absorbs external noise up to 3 dB, in contrast to 0.5 dB in a panel house and 1.5 dB in a monolithic one). Brick is able to absorb and release moisture, which is especially important for climatic zones with high relative humidity. Because of its small size, bricks give builders a wide range of architectural forms to choose from.
However, the construction of a brick house is largely manual work (in the USSR, attempts were made to automate the bricklaying process, but they did not work). Because of this, not only the price increases, but also the timing of the work (it will take 18-24 months to build a brick "candle", 12-16 months to build a monolithic house, 9-12 months to build a panel house). A brick house is the heaviest (compared to panel and monolithic), which imposes additional requirements on the foundation (and again increases its cost). In addition, we should not forget that the time for full shrinkage of a brick building is 2-3 years (at this time it is not recommended to make repairs in the interior, since the geometry of the building has not yet been fully formed), which is much higher than similar parameters for panel and monolithic Houses.
Do not forget that the technology of brick construction is most demanding on the qualifications of ordinary performers at a construction site. From the experience of low-rise construction, many people know that here it is easiest to get “curved” walls, differences between ceiling slabs, etc.
As a result, today the share of brick new buildings on the market is, according to the website, no more than 4-5%. As a rule, these are residential complexes in the upper price segment (business class and luxury real estate), where future residents were willing to pay a higher price (and wait for the house to be delivered for a longer period) for the best heat and sound insulation properties, as well as for environmental friendliness material. If we talk about the entire housing stock of the country, then brick houses are an old fund, stalinkas and modern houses built according to an individual project.
Panel houses
Panel houses are houses built from reinforced concrete panels assembled at the factory and mounted already at the facility. The supporting structures in such houses are the panels themselves. The material used here for construction is the same reinforced concrete that is used in monolithic construction, but the very technology of its laying is different.
If monolithic houses, in a colloquial formulation, are “casting”, then panel houses can be likened to a children's designer.
Panel technology is relatively cheap (especially for large-scale construction) due to the standardization of the panels produced. In addition, panel technology allows you to build quickly and a lot - the construction time for buildings is the fastest. Finally, the casting of reinforced concrete takes place in the factory, where there is all the necessary equipment and quality control, respectively, most often the resulting slab will be superior in quality to that obtained directly at the construction site (add here the possible manipulations with the quality of concrete during pouring at the construction site and the possible non-compliance with the technology by the direct executors at the facility). The listed advantages predetermined the triumph of panel housing construction in the USSR in the post-war period, and in many respects contributed to the solution of the housing problem (most Khrushchev and Brezhnevka houses were built using panel technology).
The disadvantages of panel houses are well known to most Russians. Due to the presence of leaky joints between the panels, the thermal insulation and sound insulation of such buildings turned out to be extremely weak. As a result, it is hot in the classic "panels" in summer, and cold in winter, and the neighbors are quite well aware of what is happening in each other's apartments. Together with the external wretchedness of typical houses and microdistricts, these factors led to a persistent prejudice of the population towards this type of houses and a reduction in the volume of panel construction by the end of the 1980s.
However, it is necessary to draw a clear line between panel houses of the 1950-80s and modern panel housing construction.
The problem of leaky joints in prefabricated houses has been practically solved today, which has improved the thermal and sound insulation properties of houses, while maintaining the advantage of lower cost and faster construction speed. Panel new buildings today, with due observance of technology, are a good option for the economy class. Although the poverty of layouts for such houses (due to the relatively small selection of types of panels produced on an industrial scale) still remains a fairly noticeable drawback and a kind of payment for a lower cost. According to the site, the share of such new buildings on the market today is about 20%.
Monolithic houses
Monolithic construction technology consists of several main stages:
- Reinforcing cage installation
- Installation of formwork (removable or fixed) around the reinforcing cage, resulting in the formation of a kind of wells
- Pouring reinforced concrete in liquid form into wells directly at the construction site
Thus, in monolithic housing construction, the same basic material is used as in panel construction - reinforced concrete, however, the production of the supporting frame of the house is carried out not in the factory, but directly at the facility.
Monolithic houses can be divided into two large groups - completely monolithic and monolithic-frame houses. In the first case, all walls in the house (not only load-bearing, but also external, partition walls) were built using monolithic technology. In the second case, the monolith is used only for load-bearing walls (“building frame”), and partitions and facade walls are made of any other suitable material (brick, panels, etc.). It is the second group that includes such monolithic-brick houses that are popular on the market, which are essentially a combination of the advantages of two technologies.
The key advantage of a monolithic house is its tightness. Since a monolithic house is a single whole, the problem of the presence of seams and the problems associated with them (sound insulation, thermal insulation) are completely absent. For example, if you pour water on the floor in a completely monolithic house, then you will not flood your neighbors - due to the lack of gaps for this (provided that the builders follow the technology, of course).
The second undoubted plus is that monolithic houses provide sufficient flexibility for planners (although it is still lower than that of brick houses). By choosing the right reinforcing cage and formwork, you can build a house of almost any configuration, widely using, for example, various rounded shapes in the design.
Do not forget about the durability of structures made of monolithic houses, which for the most part are able to stand for 150 years or more (for panel houses, the approximate figure is 100 years, and in some cases even lower). Finally, the small thickness of floors and walls reduces the total mass of the house, which has a positive effect on the load on the foundation. A monolithic house shrinks (subject to technology) as a whole, and repair problems due to shrinkage usually occur only at the joints of the monolithic frame with non-load-bearing walls.
Among the shortcomings, one can note the ability of completely monolithic houses to transmit impact noise throughout the frame. If one of your neighbors is engaged in repairs, then you will most likely find out about it quickly enough. But the sound insulation from external (street) noise in these houses is on a par with brick ones.
Monolithic houses are inferior to brick houses in terms of environmental friendliness of construction (clay, as the main raw material for ceramic bricks, generally outperforms many building materials, excluding, perhaps, wood).
In general, since the 2000s, monolithic construction (and, first of all, monolith-brick) has won a well-deserved palm in the country. According to the site, the share of monolith in modern new buildings reaches 80%.
Comparative analysis
Let's summarize in the table the main characteristics of each of the technologies we have described.
|
Construction time |
|||
|
Thermal conductivity* |
0.35-0.41 W/(m*K) |
1.69 W/(m*K) |
1.69 W/(m*K) |
|
Soundproofing** |
|||
|
Shrinkage time |
|||
|
Life time |
|||
|
Building mass (and foundation requirements) |
The tallest |
Lowest |
|
|
Dependence on the competence of builders |
The tallest |
Lowest |
|
|
Seismic resistance*** |
Up to 5 points |
Up to 6 points |
Up to 8 points |
* The higher the thermal conductivity, the worse the thermal insulation. The thermal conductivity of materials (brick and reinforced concrete) is indicated, respectively, for monolithic-brick houses there will be the same indicator as for brick
** The higher, the stronger the house is protected from external (street) noise
*** Approximately, for houses in which additional special seismic protection technologies are not applied (seismic protection platforms, additional reinforced concrete transverse walls connecting the building frame, elements of a pyramidal structure, etc.)
Conclusion
Almost any modern house, designed in compliance with standards and built without violating technology, regardless of the material of the supporting foundations, provides a fairly high quality of life in it.
This applies, among other things, to new economy-class panel buildings. Therefore, the focus should essentially be on the conscientiousness of the developer, and not on the specific technology used, since today most technologies represent a combination of the advantages of brick, panel and monolithic construction. However, if you nevertheless set out to rank technologies according to their preference, then brick houses should be put in first place, monolithic houses in second, and panel houses in third.
If we are talking about the secondary market, then you should carefully consider the shortcomings of the Soviet panel houses described in the article. Ceteris paribus, brick Khrushchev or Brezhnevka is preferable to panel, due to higher physical properties.
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Before buying an apartment in a new building, you need to weigh the pros and cons. The choice is complicated by negative reviews about Soviet buildings, but modern developers have reduced the relevance of the question: which house is better - panel or monolithic?
Advantages of a monolithic building
Connoisseurs of the construction business note that the difference between and a panel house is not so great at first glance. Both objects are built using concrete and reinforcing structures, and the difference is only in the way the concrete is poured. In this regard, it is difficult for a person who does not know all the nuances of construction to make a choice: which house is better - a panel or a monolith?
Monolithic new buildings are poured with concrete mortar right at the construction site, and panel ones are manufactured at the factory. When choosing a house, it is worth remembering that the ideal design does not exist at all, and the monolith is no exception. However, a monolithic new building has a lot of advantages:
- Quick construction (a monolith is built on average in 2-3 years with a break for the winter period).
- Seismic suitability (houses of a monolithic structure can withstand an earthquake up to 8 points on the Richter scale).
- Monolith new buildings shrink evenly and neatly, unlike other types of building. This will eliminate the appearance of cracks in the structure, and will also allow you to immediately begin finishing work.
- Such new buildings are almost seamless. This fact prolongs the service life and eliminates the appearance of mold. In addition, this factor affects heat and sound insulation.
- The monolith "weighs little" in comparison with other buildings. That is why such a structure can be erected on problematic soils.
- In such structures, the load is distributed along the entire perimeter of the supporting walls. This allows you to save on material when building the foundation of the house.
- The cost of such a house is much lower than that of a brick structure (this is achieved by saving on materials and labor).
- Unlike other types of houses, a monolithic structure can be built of any height and any shape.
- In such new buildings, the width of the walls is much smaller, which means that the area of \u200b\u200bthe "residential" zone is larger.
- This design is not afraid of "floods". Water does not penetrate through the monolith.
Disadvantages of a monolithic structure
Despite the impressive list of positive aspects in a monolithic design, some disadvantages may convince you to abandon this. These include:
- The monolith has a higher cost and labor intensity in comparison with frame houses.
- There is practically no possibility of redevelopment.
- The process of construction and pouring must be carried out at a temperature of at least +5 degrees. That is why some builders, simulating a warm temperature, heat up the concrete mixture, thereby reducing the quality of the pour.
- In addition, unscrupulous builders can add various foreign mixtures for concreting at low temperatures - this also reduces the quality of the structure.
- The process of building a monolith involves continuous and simultaneous concreting of the structure, and in several directions at once.
- The compaction of the concrete part must be of high quality. Otherwise, deviations from the norm reduce all the positive qualities of a monolithic building to nothing.
- Monolithic houses most often need additional insulation due to thin walls.
- Monolithic new buildings have low sound insulation.
It should be noted that the modern process of building a monolith is not complete without the use of removable or fixed formwork.
The removable structure can be used several times, however, in this case, the house needs additional noise and sound insulation. This factor will significantly increase the cost of construction.
Cons of a monolithic structure
As for the fixed structure, it will allow not only to conduct the concreting process with high quality, but also remains as a heater and soundproof material. Of course, the appearance of a fixed structure requires additional installation work. In the manufacture of fixed formwork, polystyrene foam is most often used. It has the following qualities:
- Little weight.
- Simple connection design.
- Fast styling.
- Great variety of species.
- thermal insulation properties.
- Soundproof properties.
All the advantages of a panel house
To date, more than half of the new buildings are precisely. This is due to the fact that such houses have an order of magnitude higher construction speed. But such a house has other positive qualities:
- All building materials (walls and floors) are manufactured at the factory. In other words, the whole process is mechanized, and this gives a guarantee of high quality.
- High speed of building construction (6-12 months), in contrast to a monolithic structure, where construction is suspended during the cold season.
- The new building, thanks to the panel structure, sags evenly. And this means that repairs in the apartment can begin immediately after the construction of the house.
- One of the main advantages that determines the demand for such housing is the cost of apartments in panel houses.
Cons of panel structures
Disadvantages of panel housing
Before talking about the disadvantages of panel structures, it is worth noting that some of them do not apply to new types of new buildings. However, the most significant disadvantages are:
- Low seismic resistance. During strong earthquakes, panel structures can collapse completely or partially.
- Bad soundproofing. Of course, this defect can be eliminated with the help of additional wall cladding with special materials.
- The presence of interpanel seams. Because of this, heat and noise insulation is disturbed, and moisture can also enter, which will lead to excessive dampness and mold.
- In panel new buildings, as a rule, it is stuffy in summer and cool in winter.
- Bad layout. These houses have rectangular rooms, small kitchens and low ceilings. But modern developers are striving to correct this defect.
- In such houses it is forbidden to ditch the walls for wiring.
Panel and monolith prices
As mentioned earlier, panel structures are cheaper than monolithic ones. Of course, the cost of housing depends on the city, location and other criteria. If we focus on the capital, then the price for 1 square meter of an apartment in a monolithic house is about 200,000, and for a panel - 120,000. But prices vary depending on the location of the house and infrastructure. Which is better - a panel or monolithic house, you choose.
