Prospects for multi-storey wooden construction

From 2024, developers may have the opportunity to build five-story wooden houses. The necessary measures have been approved by the roadmap for the development of wooden housing construction, developed by the Ministry of Construction and the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The Vologda Oblast already has a similar experience: in the summer of 2022, the first multi-storey wooden houses in Russia made of CLT panels were commissioned in the city of Sokol (the apartments in them have already gone on sale). The President of the Russian Federation supported wooden housing construction as part of a meeting on the development of the timber industry, which was held on February 10 in Arkhangelsk.

Together with the ForestComplex portal, where on Monday a voluminous material was published with an interview with the president of the Russian Forest association Olga Kalyuzhnaya about the construction of CLT panels, we answer the main questions about the features and prospects of this technology.

Benefits

CLT panels are cross-glued layers of wood: this arrangement of wood layers and a special adhesive composition provide the material with low thermal conductivity.

The main advantages of CLT-panel buildings are their environmental friendliness, lack of a carbon footprint, as well as the speed of construction. For example, in Sokol, a high-rise building from CLT panels was built in just four months. In addition, these panels are easily compatible with other finishing materials, which is convenient for architects.

Security

As a building material, CLT panels show good fire resistance and fire hazard. Fire resistance - the ability to withstand high temperatures - the panels are high: tests show that they can withstand the combustion temperature, heat up a little and do not deform, which is especially important for load-bearing structures.

The fire hazard - the degree of flammability of the material - is also low. When exposed to fire, the charred layer creates a protective crust on the surface of the plate - a shell that prevents the rapid spread of fire.

Prospects and constraints

In January 2023, the State Duma hosted a working meeting of the Committee on Ecology, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection on issues of wooden housing construction. The participants reiterated that the main reasons hindering the development of wooden housing construction, including high-rise buildings, are outdated regulations and the lack of measures to support this industry. Today, the share of wooden housing construction in the volume of housing being built in Russia does not exceed 10%.

In the current situation, the construction of new plants for the production of CLT panels is limited by the fact that access to some foreign technologies and high-performance equipment is closed or significantly hindered. So far, this remains a significant deterrent for the Russian Federation, where it is necessary to look for new solutions.

Offers of the Russian Forest Association

For the development of the market of wooden housing construction, including multi-storey buildings, the Russian Forest Association proposes the following measures:

Develop preferential mortgage programs for the construction of wooden houses in an industrial way.
To update the regulatory legal acts regarding the fire safety of wooden structures for the construction of multi-storey buildings.
In addition to existing subsidy programs for improving housing conditions, introduce quotas for citizens living in rural areas, including young families and young professionals.
Improve the procedure for allocating wood to the population for the purpose of individual housing construction or, instead of allocating wood, issue a certificate for a wooden house kit. An important condition is the observance of the transparency of all procedures.
Develop a program for the creation of "wooden" microdistricts in cities with a full range of social infrastructure built with the maximum possible use of elements of wooden housing construction.
Create programs for the development of low-rise construction in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, in which the share of such construction is less than the national one.