Swedish Element House / AB-Elementhus Renovation vs Demolition

Hello , ,

Thank you for your quick responses. Then we will dry fill or use water/wallpaper remover sparingly. In most rooms of the house, there are fabric textile wallpapers on the walls.

If you have clad the walls with drywall – directly on the existing wooden wall or as a stud wall, creating an installation level? I am still very uncertain about that, especially since it changes the dew point on the exterior walls if you don’t want to leave the gap between the wall and drywall empty. I really have no idea yet what consequences that might have. At least in this area, the problem is that all building physicists/structural engineers I have contacted so far either reject because it’s a wooden house or do not accept assignments.

: Our house is indeed a Borgholm from SEH, I’m attaching a snippet from a plan and a photo. I have a whole folder full of documents but currently do not have access to it. The previous owner was a SEH representative for the Cologne/Bonn area; in our village, SEH had purchased plots that were then sold to buyers or building interested parties (similar to how prefab house manufacturers do it today). There are quite a few SEHs around here. Since we just bought recently, we don’t have many contacts yet.

: Interesting note, I haven’t dealt with the rafter spacing in our house at all. Will you keep us updated?

Best regards Christoph

We had the gypsum fiber boards screwed directly onto the chipboard panels, so we did not install a separate installation layer. We made sure that the craftsmen did not use screws that were too long on the exterior walls to avoid puncturing the vapor barrier foil multiple times. Often the motto there is more is better. :-) We have put the solar issue on hold for now. We currently cannot find a solar installer, and the one we had is now "fully booked." We have been living in a Swedish modular house for 5 years now and are very satisfied. Of course, it will never become a high-efficiency house.

Hello everyone, I also wanted to install a photovoltaic system and stopped because of the statics. My seller from SEH explained to me that he has problems with the statics due to the snow load, but these would not be sustainable because houses have already been built in many places in Sweden where the snow load is much higher. The building authority also had problems with the statics of the entire house in my case, then my architect negotiated with them and it was approved as a result. When I install a photovoltaic system, I will have a structural engineer check everything again beforehand.

I also did not do photovoltaics due to the roof construction; if that ever becomes necessary, I will probably have a new roof frame built.

The wallpaper in our house was completely pasted on "kraft paper," which was nailed to the spruce, so it practically fell off by itself. You should be able to see that quite well in the first pictures.

We removed everything and installed a wiring level, which I would always do again. This made star wiring with KNX and concealed installation of controlled residential ventilation lines everywhere no problem at all.

Hello ,

Thank you for the information. We no longer have spruce on the walls, but rather "hard soft fiber," with mineral wool between the studs. The wallpaper is glued on. We will see how much we can remove without liquid aids.

The topic of installation level also concerns us, but we have not yet decided. Some family members want to keep the visible wooden ceiling.

What is the problem with the roof truss statics? The rafter spacing of 116 cm (in our case) cannot be the issue; the first solar technician I asked said that is not a problem. However, he has not yet seen the roof truss.

Best regards
Christoph

Hello everyone,
about 25 years ago we bought a Swedish element house from the company AB-Elementhus (see picture 1). The house itself was built in 1969 on a solid basement floor (see picture 2).
Now we have a problem:
Our house has an exterior facade of aluminum on wood (see picture 3). The exterior wall elements made of aluminum sheet (0.2 mm thick) and synthetic resin glued plywood (together approx. 5 mm thick) (see picture 3) are glued onto 20 mm thick plywood.
This aluminum/wood cladding bulges forward up to 15 mm in some places (see picture 4). We have checked the damaged spots as well as possible, the wall is dry. We have no explanation why it is bulging.
Does anyone know this problem and can help us?
Thank you very much
Gudrun + Joachim

Hello Gujo,
we noticed small holes in the aluminum skin of the facade on our element house; for this reason, we worked with Prefa Slidings because we didn’t want to change the appearance of the house significantly. Our trusted carpenter installed a wooden construction underneath and attached the Prefa Slidings onto it. We now practically have a double-ventilated facade.
But the wooden wall is protected.