Archi.ru:
How has the attitude towards life outside the city changed over the past 20 years?
Oleg Panitkov:
Over the past 20 years, and especially in recent years, attitudes have changed radically. First, more and more people began to treat life outside the city as a vacation. That is, the main thing in suburban life was getting pleasure from the land, from nature, rest from the bustle of the city.
Previously, only the elite, having from 15 acres to a hectare of land, could afford the luxury of a vacation outside the city, much like the country life that the townspeople led at the beginning of the 20th century. The bulk of the population possessed plots of up to 6 acres, which were intended for growing vegetables and providing additional food. Interestingly, the practice of owning small plots for subsidiary farming is not unique. The same practice is present in Denmark, in Austria, and in these countries the plots for the most part have an even smaller area - about 4 ares. Today, almost everyone can afford to have a plot of a larger area, and with all the necessary communications, and not at all for growing potatoes, but for a comfortable holiday in the countryside at any time of the year.
This is also associated with another significant change in the status of suburban housing - it is used not only on weekends and holidays, but also for permanent residence. Whereas before, very few townspeople had the experience of year-round living outside the city - usually leaving the city was seasonal, in the warm season. Today, the number of people living outside the city has increased dramatically, and we are talking about people of different age and social status, especially in megacities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg: these are elderly people who rent an apartment in the city, preferring to live closer to nature, and a very recently formed, but already numerous stratum of those who work remotely, and visit the city only for some particularly important meetings. 20 years ago, of course, everything was different.
How did these changes affect suburban construction?
In the early 1990s, most of the structures on the sites were in the nature of a shelter and shelter, but not housing with all its attributes - normal communications, water supply and what we today associate with convenience.
Moreover, most of these houses were built without a designer, without an architect, and often without observing standards. Such "housing" can hardly be called not only comfortable, but even safe, which is proved by fire statistics. In houses that were built before 2010, regardless of the materials - whether they are wooden or brick or stone houses, a large number of fires are recorded due to problems with wiring, due to problems with fireplaces, with stove equipment.
Nowhere, in any country of the world, it is impossible to register or insure a year-round house if it has not passed the examination. In our country, a dacha amnesty has been announced, which allows these houses to be easily issued. As a result, we get quite risky and not very liquid housing.
As for houses built after 2010, they burn less. This means that the culture of living outside the city has grown, and people, building their own vacation homes, are already thinking about how to make it safe, that is, the requirements for the quality of life have increased. “Quality of life” is a fairly new concept for us, but it is subconsciously perceived by everyone. Today we are witnessing a conscious attitude to the choice of a house, to the materials from which it is built, to communications, i.e.everything that is the key to future comfort.
What is expected from a country house today?
Over the past five years, the customer has become much younger. We conducted surveys and, according to them, literally 5 years ago, the average age of those who built and bought country houses was 45-50 years. Today they are quite young people, 30-35 years old, often traveling abroad and well aware of all the benefits that suburban life can give. They have a higher demand for both architecture and materials. And at the same time, if earlier everyone was his own builder, now customers expect a finished product, moreover, reliable and safe. It's like with cars: if until the 2000s everyone had a key for "10" and a key for "13" in the trunk and knew what to do with Zhiguli / Muscovites / Volga, now no one wants, and indeed cannot, to deal with keys - the maximum water is poured into the washer reservoir. So it is with the house - maximum comfort and minimum problems with operation - this is the main requirement.
How did the market respond to new requests?
On the one hand, after the crisis in 2014, the consumer looks more closely at what is offered. But on the other hand, due to low purchasing power, many one-day companies have appeared that offer a two-hundred-meter house with all communications for a million rubles, and even in a very short time, and there is a demand for such an offer. But one must understand that a good house cannot cost 1 million rubles.
Home manufacturers have a good saying, "The best customer is the one who builds the second home." Because such a person has an understanding of what's what. The fact is that most of those who buy real estate outside the city have no experience of living in a separate house - as a rule, most of the townspeople live in apartments. Abroad, the experience of living in a detached house is quite large and there are incomparably more people with it than in Russia. First of all, we think about ventilation, fire safety, operation, how to provide comfort in winter / summer, how much it will cost…. After all, no one builds a house for a year - they build it for a lifetime. And the apparent cheapness turns into costly alterations. My advice is to use the services of turnkey companies with proven suppliers and contractors.
Our association, which includes various manufacturers, stands to protect not only their interests, but primarily the interests of the consumer. After all, if there is consumer confidence, the market develops and everyone has a job. It should be understood that those companies that have their own production will comply with all regulations, and all their products will be accredited. This means guaranteed high-quality construction and long-term operation - no one needs courts and a damaged reputation. And cheap offers should make you think that something is wrong here.
Naturally, I cannot but ask you, as the General Director of the Association of Wooden Housing Construction, whether interest in wooden housing construction has grown over the past 20 years?
A paradoxical situation has developed with wooden housing construction in our country. Wood is a traditional material, the soul of any person lies to it, and not only in Russia, but throughout the world, and even in Italy. If we go to Yandex and type "wooden house", then we see 500 thousand requests per month. "Frame house" - 450 thousand. And if we type a "brick house" - 140 thousand, "aerated concrete house" - 100-110 thousand. That is, even a general summary request for other materials for construction does not override interest in wood. Recently, we conducted polls on the air of Russian Public Television - according to it, 86 percent of respondents would like to build a house of wood. At the same time, according to Rosstat, in 2018 only 30 percent of housing was built from wood in individual housing construction, that is, construction is proceeding in the opposite proportion.
What is the reason for such a discrepancy between desires and projects being implemented?
We see the main reason in the absence of an acceptable system of loans for the construction of suburban real estate.
A brick house can be built for 3-5 years, and a wooden house cannot be abandoned for the winter, it is necessary to close the warm perimeter immediately, that is, the down payment will be much higher. Due to the lack of available loans, people change their minds and go into long-term construction. Although as a result, all the same, its cost, together with communications and finishing, will be the same as for a wooden one. Thus, the payment, extended over several years, becomes a weighty argument against wooden construction in the struggle between the desire to live in a wooden house and the possibility of building it.
And that is why it is necessary to change the lending mechanism. In Europe, construction loans are provided at 2–4%, in Russia in individual housing construction without subsidies - 13–15%. Of course, under such conditions, the rapid pace of development of wooden housing construction is impossible, although modern technologies and materials in this industry will give a head start in terms of environmental friendliness, safety, comfort level, low operating costs, and block and brick construction.
How often, in their quest for a new quality of life, future homeowners ask questions about energy efficiency, environmental friendliness, fire safety, and what parameters would you be guided by and what would you pay attention to when building a country house?
Indeed, now all these qualities are becoming the subject of discussion and often the basis for choosing one or another solution: people began to think more about the future and about the environment. I personally believe that comfort is above all safety and reliability.
First of all, fire safety. And the point here is not what the house is built of - modern wooden materials are fire-resistant, and as we have already said, the point is not in the material, but in the fact that the cause of the fire is most often faulty engineering systems - the quality of the wiring, automation, which regulates the closure.
The second reason is the wrong oven equipment. A large proportion of houses are on fire due to poor-quality chimneys. Therefore, for stoves and fireplaces loved by summer residents, it is necessary to choose system solutions that have proven themselves, and which can solve several problems at once, including the problem of energy efficiency.
When building a house, do not forget that the economics of the project includes the costs not only for construction, but also for the further operation of the house, and subsequent costs are associated with heating and cooling the premises, as well as ensuring the quality of the environment.
Our experience in the construction of the "Active House", where the ceramic chimney system of the company was used
Schiedel showed that any home can be made energy efficient. The closed system allows the fireplace to be used as a backup heat source without affecting the air exchange in the house. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that the air is taken not from the room, thereby cooling it, but from the street, that is, a recuperation system is implemented in it.
Another advantage
ceramic chimneys Schiedel is that they are suitable for boilers, and for a fireplace, and for a stove. The versatility of the system and its performance - unlike metal chimneys, ceramic ones are not subject to corrosion, which means they will last much longer - make it irreplaceable, especially when building a "passive" energy-saving house.
Another factor that determines the comfort of living in your own home is ventilation - foreign smells and drafts can cause a lot of unpleasant moments. These are obvious things, there are also hidden threats - dust and microbes - therefore, ensuring a normal indoor climate is one of the main tasks during construction. The ventilation ducts developed by Schiedel are able to provide the necessary air exchange in any premises of private houses, cottages and townhouses. Lightweight concrete blocks do not need internal plastering and additional cladding, they are quick to install and have a long service life. The system is equipped with deflectors that protect the channels from atmospheric precipitation and use wind energy to stabilize traction.
Unfortunately, most people when thinking about a new home focus on how it looks inside and out. But fortunately, today we live in the information field - everyone uses the Internet, and more and more people are thinking about how the house will live, so I recommend contacting specialists who think over all such seemingly trifles at the stage of project preparation. so that suburban life would be a real pleasure in the future.
