One house in 2 months: how veterans build unusual housing in Lviv region
Special technology dates back to the Middle Ages, but now, combined with environmental techniques, it allows you to create cheap and high-quality housing. We explain how and why it can solve some problems of ATO soldiers
Only a person who's returned from the war can fully appreciate the warmth and comfort of their own home. Having resigned from military service, Ukrainian defenders in the Lviv region united and started their business for their comrades to have a place to return to.
Last winter, veterans of the Union of ATO Soldiers decided to implement an ambitious project providing work and housing for the military and veterans.
During military service, every soldier thinks about what to do next after the rotation. Returning from the east, war veterans Oleksandr Lopachuk and Roman Savruk first founded the Veterans Union of ATO Soldiers Public Organization; its purpose was to protect the rights and interests of ATO/JFO members and families of the deceased, involve veterans in active public life, and create jobs for ex-soldiers.
Veterans had many versions for public business. They wanted to work together, communicate, and help ATO soldiers. So they agreed to open a woodworking shop.
Building a house in record time
Everyone cheeped in as much as they could to start their own business. With the funds raised, they rented a shop, bought equipment, used one because it's cheaper, and the first batch of wood. So, based on the union, an enterprise for the production of glued laminated wood emerged. Almost immediately, the members of the union tried to build their first house from it using the Fachwerk technology (timber framing or half-timbered technology).
Fachwerk technology has been known in Europe since the 14th century. The word is translated from German as a frame construction. The basis of the house is spatial sections assembled from strong timber beams. The frame of beams is visible from the outside, which gives the building recognizability and medieval charm. There are no monolithic walls in such a house. The space between the beams in the Middle Ages was filled with clay, adobe, later with brick, stone. Now, this function is performed by double-glazed windows and wall panels.
The advantage of the modern version of such a house is that it is built in record time: building piles and installing a frame of timber takes up to two weeks, panels can be installed in a few days, and windows, in one day.
Showpiece house near Solonka
The guys also invested their own money in the construction of the pilot and built it on land allocated for the participants in the hostilities by the Lviv Regional State Administration.
This house became a real showpiece of the FachwerkLviv project (this is the name given to the veterans' business). "We wanted," said the company's founders, "to demonstrate what we know to do, how high-quality, beautiful, modern, and inexpensive it can be."
The company believes that their homes are a real chance for participants in the anti-terrorist operation/joint forces operation to get affordable housing.
"There is an opinion that the participants of the anti-terrorist operation take land to sell. And the point here isn't that people are so eager to earn. Many veterans need housing. We're sick of renting apartments and moving. We'd like to have our own corner, be closer to the land we defended," Fachwerk-Lviv says. "Everyone takes the land for themselves, but there isn't enough money to build the house. Our houses are being built quickly, and the cost of such housing is very affordable."
Now the project, which began with a joint idea of four people, is working at full capacity. The team of builders has almost quadrupled. Each of them has their own experience and life baggage. Some craftsmen had experience in construction and woodworking before the war, while others are trained in the course of the work. The guys say that they have learned everything at the frontline, including building, and most importantly, to be a reliable support for each other.
The veteran project of the Union of ATO Soldiers is a young enterprise, it's only one year old, but during this time the team has received several construction orders, some of which will be implemented in the Carpathians, others are being built near Lviv and Kyiv region. Wooden houses of Lviv masters are made of environmentally friendly materials (wood with preservation treatment and paints without chemical solvents, on a flax basis). Modern heaters, solar panels, and heat pumps are used to increase energy efficiency; such a house is like a thermos: it's cool in summer and warm in winter.
Veterans are proud to say that they can build a cottage in one or two months. Thoughtful planning and efficient use of space, environmental friendliness, and reliability: all this is about the FachwerkLviv buildings.
The brigade's first fruit, an ideal country house for both a young couple and a large family, is located at the crossroads near the villages of Navariia and Solonka, near Lviv. You can visit here, see it, see all the details of half-timbered technology with your own eyes. This method can be used to build not only private housing but also mini-hotels and shops, commercial premises, exhibition, or conference halls.
Something your own
But the main dream of Fachwerk guys is to build housing for anti-terrorist operation participants. These houses or cottages, with the appropriate government program and state support, can be built for both wounded and homeless soldiers. The advantage of such a house for a person with a disability or musculoskeletal problems is obvious: attach a ramp, and a person can safely get out or leave in a wheelchair and work near the house or on the farm. The members of the union want the state to be interested in such a prospect because the Lviv company of soldiers on the one hand is jobs for veterans who want to work, on the other hand, comfortable and cheap housing for the military who need it.
On their Facebook page, FachwerkLviv talks about their products, offers various promotions for ATO members, has a separate website. The company has a lot of plans. Expanding and cooperating as much as possible with other associations of ATO/JFO participants, make homes even more accessible to veterans. Opening representative offices throughout Ukraine, developing credit programs for cooperation with banks. Improving each of the projects in the direction of environmental friendliness and energy efficiency. However, the most important thing is to live and work in the native state, to give the chance of development and self-realization to others, and to help fellows.
