Apartment in a wooden multi-storey building: why an old idea did not become a reality

At the moment, right now, tests are being conducted together with fire brigades in high-rise residential complexes. In about a year, we will see the active implementation of such projects, perhaps not necessarily high-rise, but mid-rise. I think wooden houses up to five storeys should become a reality in Russia, - Koshelev said.

He specified that the fire resistance of these buildings in direct contact with fire is currently being studied. According to him, the preliminary test results are encouraging.

"All these buildings have high seismic resistance, that is, they demonstrate excellent strength indicators. Even better than reinforced concrete or brick buildings. In terms of seismic safety, wooden construction shows itself to be extremely effective," Koshelev emphasized.

Everything is fine in this news from a State Duma deputy, if you don’t consider it a kind of eternal “old news story” that has appeared in the information space every two or three years over the past 25 years.

Each message usually begins with introductory statistics:

Despite the fact that Russia has 25% of the world's forest resources, until recently the construction of houses from wood was in demand mainly in individual housing construction. At the same time, the use of wood materials in housing construction in Russia is only 0.003 m³ of wood per 1 m² of area, which is 17 times less than in Finland, the USA and Canada.

And really, why not build high-rise buildings out of wood in a country of forests?

As stated on the website of the Ministry of Construction , since 2015 the ministry has been "actively developing the regulatory framework in the field of designing wooden structures." According to Sergei Muzychenko, Director of the Federal Center for Standardization and Technical Assessment of Conformity in Construction, from 2015 to the present (2021 - ed.), 9 R & D projects have been completed to determine the standardized parameters of wooden structures, which have been introduced into the regulatory framework of the construction industry. Currently, 6 sets of rules and 30 standards (GOST) can already be used to design houses using wood.

But now it's 2025, and there's no mass construction of wooden high-rises. Except for one project that could serve as a beacon for the entire industry.

We are talking about new buildings in the city of Sokol in the Vologda region, where the first houses made of CLT panels (multilayer glued timber panels) were put into operation in 2022. These are two four-story buildings 15 m high, each with 32 apartments - one-room and two-room apartments with an area of ​​48 to 65 sq. m.

The material is manufactured at the Sokol CLT plant, which belongs to the forestry holding Segezha Group (part of AFK Sistema).

According to experts, multi-story wooden buildings have a number of advantages: they are environmentally friendly, effectively retain heat in the cold season and coolness in the hot season, are practically not subject to shrinkage, are erected in a short time and have a service life of about half a century. And most importantly, they burn even worse than concrete buildings!

Construction and real estate expert, managing partner of the LES Living Complex Oleg Dedkov emphasized that during a fire in buildings made of concrete, blocks and metal, heat quickly spreads through the structures, passing into adjacent rooms. Wood has good thermal insulation properties, slowing down the transfer of heat and preventing ignition in adjacent rooms, which makes it easier to fight the spread of fire. In addition, wooden structures often do not require additional finishing, which is often made from flammable and toxic materials. Their heating and melting can pose a mortal threat to people in the building.

However, all this was known before the wooden experiments in Russia. In Europe and Canada, multi-story buildings have been built from wood for decades, and all their properties have been tested many times and are well known.

If it is possible to build almost skyscrapers out of wood, then what more can you build five-story residential buildings?

Unfortunately, everything is not as simple as it seems, say experts. Thus, the director of the construction company Vladimir Davydov noted in an interview with a correspondent of "NI" that CLT panels are not exactly "wood", but rather a composite material using wooden components.

— Wooden houses are built from logs, beams, boards (frame houses), from blocks with pressed sawdust, from glued beams, — says Vladimir. — None of these materials are suitable for multi-story construction.

But CLT panels are suitable. But for mass construction, mass production of these panels is also necessary. The capacity of one plant, built, by the way, according to Western patterns and technologies, is clearly not enough here.

But the funniest thing is that even according to the current building regulations, no one prohibits the construction of multi-story buildings reaching a height of 28 meters!

However, as Semyon Goglev, Director of Strategic Development of the Wooden Housing Association , notes , the appearance of such buildings will not correspond to the image of a wooden house. This is due to fire safety requirements, which prescribe mandatory protection of wooden structures in buildings higher than three floors. Wood must be covered with non-combustible materials both outside and inside, which effectively negates the aesthetic benefits of using wood.

For this reason, according to Goglev, many investors refuse to implement CLT house projects, since cladding with fire-retardant materials makes the use of wood in construction pointless and makes the cost of these houses unrealistically high.

New, more liberal regulations on fire hazards should reduce the price, which is essentially what Deputy Koshelev was talking about. But whether this will be possible or not is a big question.

In addition to the mass prejudices of home buyers about wooden apartments, there are also lobbyists for traditional housing construction who do not need an extra competitor. Especially at a time when new buildings are being closed down everywhere due to the unavailability of mortgages.