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How to properly equip the porch of a private house to prevent icing in winter
In our summer cottages there are few houses that do not have a porch, because this element of the structure carries an important function that makes the entrance to the room more convenient. If it suddenly happened that, having bought a country house, you will not find the porch, you can build it yourself, the desire and a little creative approach are important. It also does not matter if the wooden porch of a private house is rotten and you need to rebuild it, there are plenty of materials for sale now, just choose. In this article, we will give an important recommendation when building a new porch in a private house, make it warm in order to avoid icing in the winter, which threatens with two big problems, the door may not open and it is likely to fall on a slippery porch and be injured.
Content
Porch options
To begin, consider the types of porch that can be attached to the country house. The main requirement of the porch should be in style to the main building and be integral with it. The porch photo shows the various options that were attached to the finished houses.
Wooden porch with stone steps
Concrete porch with porcelain stoneware
Brick porch lined with thick ceramic tiles
In the context of our topic of building a warm porch, we show several images of a completely enclosed space at the entrance to the house.
Glazed porch
Closed porch polycarbonate
Heated porch project
If the conditions do not allow the construction of a fully enclosed warm porch, you can equip a regular open porch by installing on it electric heating, which is mounted in accordance with the instructions using a heating cable, a special heating film or heating rods (like ten), inserted from the sides of the porch.
If the country house is operated in the winter and there is a water heating system, it is quite reasonable to mount the water heating of the porch, but this procedure is very complicated technically and requires the participation of specialists.
Like any infrastructure event, the construction of the porch must begin with a design that takes into account all the nuances (geometry of the structure, materials, etc.).
The project lays the size of free space, which takes into account the trouble-free opening of the door (according to fire rules, the door of the country house should open outwards) and the ability for several people to conveniently disperse when entering and leaving the house.
A separate item in the project of the porch of a private house equipped with insulation elements is a heating device.
Heated porch construction
The technology for building a heated porch includes two stages: directly building a porch and installing a heating system.
Consider the operations in the order of their production.
First, a site is prepared, for which a hole about a meter deep is dug at the entrance to the house, sand 20 cm high is poured into it, and on top is a sand-gravel mixture (or crushed stone) 20-30 cm high.
Then this gravel pillow must be poured with a layer of lean mortar (a mixture of cement, sand and water with a small amount of cement binder).
For better waterproofing, the flooded and dried surface must be covered with roofing material or plastic wrap.
The foundation under the porch is ready, you can begin to lay out the steps, which are best made of brick.
Brick for the porch is more suitable white (silicate), it is more resistant to temperature extremes.
When summing the steps to the upper edge of the porch, you need to take into account that heating will still be installed and the margin (distance to the lower edge of the front door) should be at least 15 centimeters.
Keep in mind that the steps should be located with a slight slope, allowing water to drain from the surface.
The surface of the steps is leveled with cement mortar and should not have bulges, cavities and cracks. After manufacturing the main mass of the porch, the railing is installed an important part, which must be present on the porch.
When the building is ready for decoration, you can proceed with the installation of heating elements.
First of all, a thermal insulation layer is laid (and glued), for this, polystyrene foam with a density of 35 is used. Its height should be at least 50 millimeters. Then the heating cable is placed by the snake (5-7 cm recedes from the edges of the steps). The surface covered by the cable accounts for 70-80% of the entire porch surface. The snake pitch is calculated approximately according to the formula: The heating area is multiplied by 100 and divided by the length of the cable. The snake is fixed with plastic screeds and poured from above with cement-sand mortar in a ratio of 1: 3 (1 part of cement to 3 parts of sand diluted in water). The thickness of the solution is 3-4 centimeters.
After the mortar hardens, the final finishing procedure is carried out, laying ceramic tiles using special glue for underfloor heating. Since it is planned to heat the surface, which is actually located on the street, the material for finishing the porch will have to be selected taking into account fluctuations in temperature and humidity.
Heating elements
Either a heating cable or a heating mat can be used as a heating element for the porch surface, which greatly simplifies the installation of the system, since the cable is already packed in a special grid in the mat and you just need to spread it (and fix it) on the surface.
If water heating is planned, metal-plastic pipes are used as the material. If the porch is already ready, a special anti-icing system can be installed to combat icing.
Ready-made anti-icing mats are placed on the porch surface, connected to the electrical circuit and eliminate snow and ice in a short time, allowing the porch to be kept dry all year round.
