Do-it-yourself veranda extension to the house

A veranda attached to the house allows you to expand the living area, get a place for a comfortable stay. Closed (glazed), it also reduces heat loss at home. The best part is that you can do it yourself. Moreover, there are options that require substantial costs, there are inexpensive ones. There are many varieties, both in structure and in the materials used, you can arrange in any style.

What are

According to the method of construction, the veranda attached to the house can be closed - with glazing - or open. The open ones are used mainly in the warm season, the closed ones can serve as a place for recreation all year round. The veranda attached to the house can be of two types at once: part can be glazed (closed), part - open.

You can relax on the covered veranda all year round. It also reduces heat loss through this wall

There are also passageways - this is when in order to get into the house you pass through it. Such extensions are located from the front of the house, sometimes from the side of the yard, if there are two exits from the house. Entrance to impassable only from home. It's impossible to get outside from such a veranda.

An extension can cover one, two or more sides of the house. If it covers two adjacent parts of the house, it is called a corner. Some of them occupy only part of the wall.

The forms are different. More often it is a rectangle, less often - a hexagon, a semicircle, and other non-standard shapes (it is more difficult to build such). In short, these are all types of verandas attached to the house, but without considering materials.

The perimeter extension gives the house an extravagant look

What materials are they made of

Most often, wooden verandas are made in our area. It is easier to work with wood, and it is not as expensive as in other countries. In areas where wood is very expensive, structural elements are made of metal, and the cladding is selected to your liking. It can be glass (double-glazed windows), polycarbonate.

They build the walls of the veranda from bricks, shell rock, rubble stone, building blocks. Like a house, they are then finished or not, depending on the design of the main building. They can simply make a fence, as in the photo above.

Veranda from a metal frame and special window blocks

If the tree is expensive, or is reluctant to regularly handle it, the veranda frame is assembled from metal. For this, a profile pipe, corners or channel bars are most often used - it depends on the material and size of the extension. It is easier to attach glass packs to metal, you can use polycarbonate instead of glazing. This material can be of different colors and different degrees of transparency. Despite the apparent fragility, there is a fairly durable material that is used for the construction of greenhouses. And if so, then in the veranda, if it is closed, it will keep warm well.

Polycarbonate veranda attached to a brick house. The whole frame is assembled from a shaped tube

Read how to decorate a veranda here.

Veranda attached to the house: stages of construction

First of all, you need to decide on the type - open / closed, from what material, choose the type of foundation. You also need to decide what size it will have, where and how it will be located. It is desirable to draw all this on the plan. Better yet, order a project. Construction according to the project is rather an exception, but at least a plan with dimensions and an indication of the location, binding to tracks, etc. you should have.

The construction of a veranda to the house with your own hands goes according to the following plan (we build from wood):

1. Use pegs and twine to mark the contours.
2. Remove the sod and fertile layer. If this is not done, vegetation under the decking will rot, spreading odors.
3. Mark the foundation. At this stage, questions may arise: how high should it be. If the foundation is made incoherent and "floating", the level of the veranda flooring should be 5-10 cm below the floor level. This is necessary so that, even after rising, the extension does not block the front door. If you do not want the floor to be lower, you will have to make a high threshold in the front door: to ensure freedom of opening the door. The height of the support bar depends on the height at which the floor of the extension is located. It is nailed to the wall of the house, floor beams are attached to it. The height of the foundation is beaten off along its lower edge (these are the next two steps).
4. You nail a support bar to the wall, along the lower edge of which the height of the foundation beats off.
   

   How to mark the extension: nail the support bar at the required level, beat off the height of the foundation along its lower edge

5. Build a foundation.
6. While the concrete is gaining at least half of its strength, complete the site preparation. If at the bottom of the pit (the fertile layer was removed) the soil passes water well (sandy, sandy loam), you pour crushed stone at the bottom. It can be compacted, or you can do without it. If there is loam or clay under the fertile layer, you will have to fill the pit with either the same soil (but not fertile) or clean clay. It must be well tamped so that voids are not created in which water will accumulate (it is better to lay layers soaked to a paste state).
7. A layer of waterproofing is laid on the finished foundation.
8. Support pillars are exposed and fixed under the roof.
9. They make the strapping of the racks: a beam with a thickness of 100 * 150 mm is nailed along the perimeter. It can be nailed on the outside of the posts or between them. Sometimes the racks are nailed down after the floor has been laid. This is not the best option: the floor will deteriorate most quickly. With such a structure, in order to replace it, you will have to disassemble everything, up to the roof. If you first set up the racks, and then the floor, it can be repaired without problems.
   

   It looks like the assembled frame of the veranda attached to the house. Intermediate racks are only needed if the veranda is more than 3 meters wide.

10. Floor beams (beam 100 * 150 mm) are attached to the foundation and support beam. The step of their installation corresponds to the step of installing piles or posts.
11. Collect the rafter system.
12. Side rails (for open ones) or walls (for glazed ones) are installed. At this point, the general technology ends. Further, for covered ones, it is longer, an open veranda is easier to attach to the house:
    • For open beams, floor boards are nailed.
    • Insulated floors are made for glazed ones. A rough floor is nailed to the beams. Above - logs, between them - insulation, on top - a finished floor.
13. Roofing.
14. Wall decoration inside and outside.

These are just general steps. In order to have a more complete idea of ​​how to make a veranda to the house, then we will consider the most problematic aspects of construction in more detail.

Perhaps you are interested in building a gazebo? You can read how to build a gazebo made of wood here.

Foundation

If the veranda is attached to the house, the foundations are very rarely made coherent. Firstly, the house has already settled down, the shrinkage has passed. If a "fresh" building is rigidly attached to it, problems will inevitably arise. If it is possible to tie them, then only on stable, reliable soils, on which there is no movement. Secondly, heavy foundations are rarely made for extensions of this type. The building itself turns out to be light - especially open from wood or frame - and load-bearing capacitypile or columnar foundation enough.

In general, verandas are placed on the same foundations as at home.Another thing is that most of them are on columnar bases: the costs are small, it takes little time. And although all architects and designers argue that the correct columnar foundation is much more difficult to install than tape (although the tape is much more expensive), the people put the pillars.

Column and pile foundation

If you decide to attach a veranda to a wooden house, you can put a columnar foundation. To do it yourself, you need to find out at what depth and at what distance the supports are placed. The distance between the posts depends on the material from which the extension will be built. If these are light materials - wood or a light frame structure - you can put them in 1.5 meter increments. For heavier ones, the distance should be from 1 meter.

Columnar foundation for the veranda - the columns are made of bricks. This open veranda is attached to a wooden house. The house stands on a strip foundation. The foundations of the extension and the house are not connected

When choosing the depth of the posts, there are two approaches:

• Burrow below the freezing depth of the soil. This is done on water-saturated soils prone to heaving. In this case, the veranda will stand at the same level, without changing its position, regardless of the heaving forces. For a columnar foundation, this makes sense only if the freezing depth is not more than 1.2 meters. At greater depths, it is easier to make a pile foundation (better - TISE piles). Pile wells are not very difficult to do even if you need to drill 2 meters. For the arrangement of posts for each of them, digging a pit of the same depth is difficult and time-consuming.
• Make a shallow foundation: 20-30 cm below the fertile layer. In this case, you will get a floating veranda that will be understood and lowered when frosty heaving. It is much easier to build such a structure, but every spring you have to deal with the consequences of heaving. Different pillars will "walk" in different ways and will have to somehow rectify the situation. But this is on heaving soils (clay, loam). On stable soils that are not prone to heaving, there will be no such problems.

What is good about this option for the foundation for the veranda to the house? It is built quickly, the cost of work and building materials is small.

The veranda is attached to a brick house on a strip foundation. Put it on pile foundation... It differs from the columnar one in that the piles are either screwed in / driven in ready-made, or poured into the formwork and obtained monolithic

Disadvantages: It is difficult to predict his behavior. Moreover, both deep and shallow. With shallow ground, everything depends on winter and the degree of saturation of the soil with water, which is impossible to foresee and calculate.With deep laying, there is also a problem: it is not known what is under each of the piles. After all, a geological survey cannot be done at all points. And in those areas where the soil has a complex layered structure, it is quite possible to get into some kind of pocket, because of which the pile will not behave as expected. Also, in the case of piles or deeply buried posts, it is necessary to remember about the lateral heaving forces. They can easily break long and thin piles or pillars. Therefore, on problem soils for piles, they take strong formwork (metal, asbestos) and they are also reinforced: when making pillars, a steel pipe covered with a primer is inserted inside, around which masonry is led. Laying of reinforcing belts is also possible. In the manufacture of bored piles, three or four reinforcement rods must be inserted inside, which add strength to them. It can be quick and inexpensive to attach a veranda with your own hands on a pile foundation, but the risks on heaving soils are great.

Monolithic: tape and slab

If you are going to build a veranda from brick, rubble or other similar heavy materials, and even with heavy cladding, you need a monolithic foundation. You will have to either pour tape or make a plate.They are made according to all the rules without any exceptions: with formwork, reinforcement, vibration, etc. Completely by technology.

About, how to build a strip foundation, read here.

When building such a foundation, it can already be associated with the main one: you will have to make it to the same depth and, most likely, it will behave stably.

Advantages: high reliability and stability. Disadvantages: significant cost and duration of the construction process.

Bedding

If the house is located on dry grounds or in a region where frosty heaving is just a terrible fairy tale, if it does not have a basement, a veranda attached to the house can do without a foundation. In this case, the fertile layer is removed along with the vegetation, the bottom of the pit is rammed, then crushed stone is poured, rammed, then sand, which is also compacted. On this base, you can already lay the flooring: wood, paving slabs or slabs.

The veranda attached to the house can be without a foundation

One "but" of the pillars, on which the roof will rest, still needs to be strengthened in some way. For them, small piles are made or columns are folded (from approximately the same depth where they began to lay the rubble under the flooring).

What is the thickness of the backfill? Depends, firstly, on the thickness of the fertile layer, and secondly, on the choice of flooring. If these are wooden boards (as in the photo), you need to select the layers so that they are flush with the ground. If you plan to install paving slabs, you will have to consider their thickness. Although, it can be raised slightly above the ground level to separate it from the yard. But then a border is placed along the edge.

In this photo, an open veranda is attached to the house without a foundation - it is, rather, a summer canopy with a polycarbonate roof and an open wooden fence

You can read about the construction of a summer kitchen here.

How to attach the strut and bottom rail

Work on the construction of the veranda frame begins after the concrete of the foundation (if used) has gained some of its strength. Enough 50% of the calculated, and this at a temperature of + 20 ° C, will happen in 4-5 days. Then on top of the concrete, in those places where the posts or strapping will be attached, waterproofing is laid in two layers. It can be roofing material, roofing felt, folded in two. You can smear it twice with bituminous mastic or use other modern materials.

Then there are two ways:

• fix the racks and then the strapping;
• first strapping, racks to them.

If the first option is selected, special holders for the racks are inserted into the foundation during pouring. These can be different devices (see photo), but the most convenient is a metal plate in the form of an inverted letter "P", to the bottom of which a hairpin is welded, which is walled into the foundation. A rack is inserted into this plate (the end must be treated with an antiseptic), its level is checked, and fixed with bolts or nails.

How to attach the racks to the foundation

After all the racks are exposed and secured, the harness beams are nailed between them.

In the second option, the situation is different: the racks will have to be attached to the harness. The strapping bar is attached first. It is more convenient to do this if studs are embedded in the concrete with some step. Then holes are made in the timber in the right places, it is put on the studs and fixed with bolts. Then, one of the methods suggested in the photo is to install the racks.

Options for attaching racks to the strapping bar

Any of these methods does not preclude the use of metal corners. They make the mount more reliable, which is very important in this case. After all, the racks will hold the roof, and walls or a fence.

Fastening the lag to the harness

They can be fastened on top of the strapping, or at the same level with its upper edge. It is necessary to decide exactly how you will do this at the very beginning of the work: it will depend on what level it will be necessary to fasten the support burs to the wall of the house (the height of the lag is taken into account or not).The methods of fixing the floor log are shown in the photo below.

How to attach the floor joists to the harness

How to make beautiful and inexpensive paths on the site read here.

Veranda roof abutment

The veranda attached to the house is usually covered with the same type of roofing as the scrap. There may be several options, and the organization of the adjoining roof depends on how and to which wall you attach it. If the roof is going to be a continuation of the roof slope of the house, you need to splice two rafter systems. In this case, the roof of the veranda is said to be adjacent to the roof of the house.

Then the procedure is as follows:

• The upper straps are attached to the racks of the veranda.
• Transverse ceiling beams are nailed to the harness. The ceiling is then hemmed to them.
• Long rafter legs at home are shortened. They should not protrude beyond the wall.
• Veranda rafters are made of planed boards, which are cut off at an angle from the roof side so that they adjoin the existing ones (see the photo below). To make it easier to work, you can make a template according to which you can then prepare the rafters on the ground. The rafter legs are attached to the house system with nails through and through, you can put metal reinforcing plates on the side.
• To increase the rigidity of the structure, spacers (anti-snow supports) are installed between the rafters of the house and the extension. They are shown in the photo explaining the design.

Adjoining the roof rafter system of the veranda to the roof of the house

If the width of the veranda is more than 2 meters or heavy roofing material is used, spacers are installed so that the support beam does not sag. It is better not to nail them from the side, but to insert the spur between the ceiling beam and the rafter leg.

In order to eliminate roof sagging, spacers are installed between the ceiling beams and the rafters.

More often it turns out that the roof of the veranda attached to the house is adjacent to the wall. In this case, a strobe is made in the wall, a special wall profile is placed in it, which is laid on the second side of the roof covering. The place of its abutment to the wall is sealed with a sealant.

How to attach a veranda roof to a house wall

The second option differs only in the shape of the wall profile: you can make it yourself from a sheet of roofing iron. This design is distinguished by the presence of a beam, which allows you to move the bend away from the wall of the house and cover possible errors when laying roofing material at the junction. Also, in this version, the apron is not attached directly to the wall material, but to a bar with a beveled edge, mounted in the strobe.

The second option for joining the roof of the extension to the wall of the house

Some questions may arise on how to attach the rafters to the outer upper strapping, because its dimensions do not allow making cuts, as on the Mauerlat. The solution is usual: with the help of corners (see photo). Instead of corners, you can use small section bars.

The method of attaching the rafter legs of the veranda to the upper harness

Maybe not the most elegant solution, but reliable. After everything is covered with a roof covering from above, the lining will be removed from below, they will not be visible.