Author: Matevz

1. Construction times

Kager construction technology leverages the benefits of prefabrication to ensure extremely short construction times: from the ground floor slab to delivery to the customer in just 4-5 months. In contrast, a traditional house requires over 18 months of work, often compounded by difficulties in providing the client with definitive deadlines.

2. Certain costs

Kager wooden houses come with a procurement contract that includes a cost guarantee, ensuring that you won’t encounter any unpleasant surprises along the way. Traditional constructions often have quotes that can fluctuate during construction due to variations and unforeseen events.

3. Simplicity of procedures

With Kager, there is a single point of contact: our team coordinates all the figures involved in the process, maximizing simplification. In traditional constructions, it is common for the customer to interact with multiple specialists in individual areas of activity.

4. Customization

The flexibility of Kager construction technology, which is completely tailor-made, allows for no constraints during the design phase. Thanks to the lightness of wood, it is also possible to build elevations or extensions of existing structures. Traditional houses often face constraints during construction, and in many cases, interventions to raise or expand existing structures are not possible due to the high weight of the structure.

5. Living comfort

A Kager wooden house guarantees high well-being. The temperature inside the house does not fluctuate significantly with changes in the outside temperature (variation less than 1°C during a winter night). In summer, it remains cool even without air conditioning, thanks to high thermal insulation and low humidity.

Thus, there is no risk of mold in indoor environments. Traditional houses often have high humidity, thermal bridges, mold, and internal temperature fluctuations that necessitate air conditioning, especially in attics.

6. Security

A Kager home is fire-resistant. The external materials and internal sections of the walls allow a slow advance of the combustion front, ensuring the structure’s resistance for many hours even in the event of serious fires.

Traditional construction homes often use metal elements to ensure structural integrity. However, these materials are negatively affected by the high temperatures that can develop during a fire, risking structural failure.

7. Consumption

A 100 m² Kager house in energy class A4 has an extremely low annual heating cost, averaging €318 with methane gas, €217 with pellets, and €285 with a heat pump. Heating a traditional house in energy class C (70% of houses in Europe) of 100 m² costs on average up to four times as much: €1,090 with methane gas, €870 with pellets, and €1,200 with a heat pump.

8. Maintenance

Extraordinary maintenance of Kager wooden houses is simplified by the structure of the walls, optimized to facilitate interventions on the electrical and plumbing systems. Ordinary maintenance is comparable to that of traditional houses. The extraordinary maintenance of concrete and brick houses is demanding; even simple interventions often require long times and high costs.

9. Warranty

The great durability of Kager wooden houses is confirmed by a 30-year guarantee on all structural parts. This is possible thanks to the correct management of humidity and the presence of thermal breaks. Traditional houses generally only offer the ten-year guarantee for serious defects as provided for by the Civil Code.

10. Investment

The market value of a Kager wooden house today is more than 10% higher than that of a similar traditional house, thanks to its durability and high energy efficiency. Traditional houses that are not energy efficient depreciate over time. Furthermore, the thickness of the thermal insulation in traditional walls removes up to 7% of the internal walkable surface compared to a Kager house.

THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN A KAGER HOUSE AND OTHER WOODEN HOUSES

What makes a Kager house special compared to other wooden houses? To answer this question, we compared the main aspects that affect the quality of a wooden house and living well-being.

1. Custom-made homes

Each Kager wooden house is completely custom-made. We develop each project with absolute care, from foundations to finishes, to create your new home exactly as you have always dreamed of, without compromises.

Most companies in the wooden house sector create catalog houses with standard stylistic and functional solutions. Some manufacturers offer custom-built homes starting from predefined modules, with limited customization possibilities.

2. No restrictions on furnishings

Kager construction technology requires that each wall of the house has a structure capable of supporting suspended wall furniture. This allows for furniture design without constraints, with hanging solutions on both internal and perimeter walls, and the ability to change their layout as desired.

In many wooden houses, the furniture layout cannot be customized by the buyer because not all walls have sufficient capacity to support hanging furniture. For example, the kitchen must follow a predefined layout, preventing future changes to the furnishings.

3. Accessibility of the facilities

Thanks to the system compartment solution introduced by Kager and present in all our homes, it is possible to easily access an internal area of the walls dedicated to electrical and plumbing systems. This ensures that all subsequent maintenance or modifications to the systems do not cause concern.

In most wooden houses, the electrical and plumbing systems are arranged in specific positions depending on the house model, leading to technical difficulties and risks to the wall structure during subsequent maintenance or modification. Some manufacturers offer the system compartment solution as a paid option.

THE DETAILS THAT REVEAL EXCELLENCE

4. Natural materials

Kager uses completely natural materials for the thermal insulation of the walls. Wood fiber is a natural, breathable material, free from glues or added chemicals, offering the best thermal insulation performance.

Most wooden houses built throughout Europe use insulating materials derived from petroleum. These materials offer a compromise between cost and thermal performance but have a strong environmental impact and prevent proper wood transpiration. Some builders offer walls made from natural materials as a paid option.

5. Fire resistance

Fire resistance in Kager wooden houses is ensured by the adoption of a special technical sheet inserted in all internal and perimeter walls, which slows the advancement of the combustion front while protecting structural parts. The fire resistance of Kager structures is certified by Holz Forschung Austria, an independent European certification body.

Many companies, to keep costs low, produce wooden houses without this safety feature for all walls, resulting in partial resistance that does not guarantee structural integrity in case of a fire.

6. Breathability of wood

Using wood fiber as a thermal insulator means vapor barriers are not used in Kager house walls. Vapor barriers are synthetic materials with high thermal insulating power that prevent necessary wood transpiration. Wood, being a living material, requires adequate ventilation to resist environmental humidity over time.

Vapor barriers are standard in the wooden house sector because they guarantee high thermal insulation with limited dimensions and costs. However, they create ideal conditions for condensation and mold formation, risking the wooden structure’s durability.

7. High quality laminated wood

Kager construction technology uses only laminated wood for house structures. This material offers significant benefits in terms of resistance and stability over time, allowing greater design freedom without needing support pillars and metal carpentry in load-bearing structures.

A high percentage of wooden houses use solid wood for structural parts. Although this product is certified with the same reliability and safety level as laminated wood, it implies various design constraints due to its tendency to develop cracks and deformations.

8. No-gas houses only

All Kager wooden houses are built without a gas connection, reflecting Kager’s innovative character in both system technology and the casing. Most of the energy used comes from renewable sources.

Most manufacturers offer gas connections as a standard solution. When this complicates the customer (e.g., land not reached by a methane pipeline), the no-gas option is subject to a fee.

9. 35-year guarantee

Due to the high construction quality, Kager offers a thirty-year guarantee on all structural parts of its wooden houses. Almost all companies in Europe offer only the minimum ten-year guarantee required by law.

10. CE certification on the entire production process

Kager boasts CE certification for the entire production process, the most authoritative certification currently obtainable in Europe. Wooden house manufacturers typically obtain CE certification only on individual materials, not the entire production process.

11. Transparency policy

Kager commits to developing and proposing transparent, complete, and detailed estimates to offer certain costs and maximum transparency. We only indicate the products that have been selected for the project and that meet the customer and technical designer’s requirements.

One of the most common problems for those entering the wooden house world is the difficulty in understanding estimates from different companies. The complexity of the regulatory landscape and the tendency to provide partial indications on the technologies used often lead to difficult interpretation, risking significant variations during construction with a clear impact on final costs.

12. History

Kager is a company specialized in wooden houses, active in Europe for over 30 years. Choosing a builder who has contributed to the wooden house sector’s success guarantees safety and reliability throughout the process, from the contract to after-sales assistance.

The wooden house sector is growing in Europe, with more customers choosing to invest in green building, leading several companies to enter this market. Many companies, without a strong product culture, purchase and resell catalog products guided solely by price.

The importance of seismic safety

To ensure safety, especially in today’s world, a house must guarantee high seismic resistance. Kager wooden houses, developed with decades of research, leverage the resistance and elasticity of wood to provide seismic resistance unparalleled in traditional masonry constructions.

A concrete example

The Kager wooden house shown in this image was built in the municipality of Argenta, in the province of Ferrara, just 42 km away from the epicenter of the 2012 Emilia earthquake.

THE 2012 EARTHQUAKE

EFFECTS ON THE BUILDING

How a Kager wooden house reacts to an earthquake

In the event of an earthquake, a Kager wooden house can excellently absorb the seismic waves, even of high magnitude. The characteristics of Kager construction technology allow for optimal controlled deformation, and the elasticity of the wood enables the structure to return to normal without consequences once the stresses have ceased. A fundamental role is played by the lightness of the structure, which results in smaller forces compared to a brick house.

«The surrounding houses were full of cracks, chimneys had collapsed, a disaster.
My Kager house, on the other hand, had not suffered any damage.”

 Max Salani
Owner of the Kager house in Argenta

The owner’s story

The earthquake had its epicenter in the municipality of Finale Emilia, just 42 km from Argenta, where a Kager house is located. Despite the extensive damage to buildings in the area, the Kager house remained unscathed. The homeowner, who was inside his home with his family at the time of the earthquake, recounts his experience: “The house was swinging, shaking, but I thought: ‘It’s an earthquake-proof house, it will resist.’”