All about board tracks

In addition to the beds and fruitful trees, paths and sidewalks are needed at the summer cottage. Gardeners use them to go to the house, to the greenhouse, to the bathhouse, and between the beds you need to somehow make your way. Usually they are not given much attention - the paths are simply laid with roofing material or trample the ground. But you can build neat wood paths on the street with your own hands - it will be round cuts or a board, it doesn't matter. It is inexpensive and very beautiful.

As for the characteristics of wood as a material, everyone knows them. The wood is tactilely pleasant, you can walk on the sanded and varnished boards without shoes. In addition, the tree is environmentally friendly, beautiful and, if properly dried and properly processed, retains its attractive appearance for a long time. Such parameter as price should not be overlooked either.

In both cases, the path will look attractive and original, complementing the country landscape with a unique woody texture. It is this material that is ideal for beginners - a path made of wood does not require a special foundation, additional equipment, complex tools, and special skills are not needed for its construction. Therefore, even a beginner can independently lay out a path from cuts or lay boards, fixing them on the logs.

It is impossible to ignore the disadvantages of wood. Every detail of the future track needs to be treated with two or more compounds: an antiseptic - from decay and fungus, paint, varnish or drying oil - as a protective layer. But even this does not guarantee long-term preservation of an attractive appearance, especially if some parts of the wood are in direct contact with the ground. You need to remember this and always be ready to replace the damaged part of the track.

You can equip paths in the garden in different ways:

• Decking can be used to build a flooring on logs; due to its design, it will be slightly raised above the ground. If a decking board is used, it should not come into contact with the ground - even from the inside.

• A garden path of three to four planks is a good solution, especially if it is decorated with a gravel or crushed stone border on the sides.

• Round cuts, laid out by a path, look good.

It is not necessary to make the path straight - you can give it the shape of a zigzag, a winding curve, a semicircle (depending on the landscape in the garden).

Of course, one cannot ignore the relief at the summer cottage. If you do not attach importance to it during the development of the project of the tracks, then they may turn out completely not as planned, and serve not at all for a long time.

Since a rare site has an impeccably flat relief without hills and depressions, there are such places in almost every summer cottage.

It is not necessary to lay a "prospect" on the standard six hundred square meters - an ordinary path with a width of 0.4-0.45 m is quite enough. This is enough for one person to pass.If the site is large, with gazebos, a swimming pool, a recreation area, it is better to make the paths wider, laying out beautiful curbs along the edges.

To build a path from wood at a summer cottage, you will need to prepare a number of materials.

• Actually, wooden boards (you can use both edged and unedged versions). The thickness of each should be from 25 to 50 mm, it is better if they are made of larch. Depending on the model, instead of boards, you can take round cuts of a tree or block of wood.
• Beam - the base of the track will be made from it. The size of the bar is 50 x 150 mm. If the board is laid directly on the ground, no timber is needed.
• Roll of roofing material. You can do without it if the path is laid on the ground.
• Roll geotextile.
• Rope or rope clippings to form paths.
• Sand, gravel, crushed stone.

Before the construction of the flooring begins, all lumber needs to be impregnated with an antiseptic composition from rot and fungus. After drying, an additional coating is applied to the boards. For this, linseed oil, paint on wood, varnish are suitable.

Before starting any work, you need to decide where the track will be located. Further, its width, shape, route along which it will pass are calculated. After that, the outline of the future path is marked. The markup is done as follows: pegs are driven in on both sides of the proposed structure. The width of the track should remain unchanged, it is not difficult to control this - just use a tape measure.

Then a string is pulled along each side of the trail. As soon as the contour is outlined, all the space that will be occupied by the path must be carefully cleared: from leaves, debris, plants, etc.

The laying of the foundation is the first work on the arrangement of the paths. This, of course, is not such a foundation that is needed for a house or a gazebo, but the path must hold on to something. For the foundation, you will need a trench, which is dug along the entire length of the future path. Its depth is about 0.2 m, no more.

A crushed stone or gravel pillow is poured on top. The thickness of the pillow is about 0.1 m.

For the most primitive version of a wooden sidewalk, it is enough to drown the boards in a cushion of rubble or gravel. However, it is better to do a slightly more difficult (but much more durable) option by raising the path above the ground. This is what the bars are for. They are placed in the direction of movement in the process of falling asleep on the pillow. To make the path even stronger, you can lay bars in the center of the trench.

Next, fix the board with nails. The distance between the bars should be about 5 mm, then rain and moisture will drain unhindered, and the deformation will not affect the boards.

To lay out a path from round cuts of wood or blockhouses, you will need both the wood blanks themselves and a certain amount of sand.

Each bar, before being used in the layout of the track, must be peeled from the bark and treated with an antiseptic. If possible, cover the bottom of each saw cut with bitumen mastic. The tops of the cuts can be coated with varnish, paint or copper sulfate. In the latter case, the tree will look artificially aged. Once all the layers of the coating are dry, you can start laying out the track.

The base is laid out in the same way as for the boardwalk. Geotextiles, polyethylene or waterproof film are laid in the dug trench.Next, there is a turn of two drainage layers, after which a pillow of fine crushed stone or gravel is poured. The pillow should be 4 cm narrower than for the boardwalk. The pillow should be tamped down carefully.

The curb can be made from the remnants of a log cut in half, iron sheet, stones, etc.

After laying out the second drainage layer (sand is required for it), the path is actually formed from the cuts. The sand must be well spilled with water, then set the cuts in the desired sequence and drown them tightly in a layer of sand. The voids between the cuts are also filled with sand and compacted well.

One of the options for laying a track from boards in the video below.