Concrete is a composite material composed of aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement that cures to a solid over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most widely used building material. Its usage worldwide, ton for ton, is twice that of steel, wood, plastics, and aluminium combined.
A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel (aggregate) together. Cement mixed with fine aggregate produces mortar for masonry, or with sand and gravel, produces concrete. Concrete is the most widely used material in existence and is behind only water as the planet's most-consumed resource.
Masonry is the craft of building a structure with brick, stone, or similar material, including mortar plastering which are often laid in, bound, and pasted together by mortar. The term masonry can also refer to the building units themselves.
Mortar is a workable paste which hardens to bind building blocks such as stones, bricks, and concrete masonry units, to fill and seal the irregular gaps between them, spread the weight of them evenly, and sometimes to add decorative colours or patterns to masonry walls. In its broadest sense, mortar includes pitch, asphalt, and soft clay, as those used between bricks, as well as cement mortar. The word "mortar" comes from the Old French word mortier, "builder's mortar, plaster; bowl for mixing." (13c.).
Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of buildings, while "render" commonly refers to external applications. The term stucco refers to plasterwork that is worked in some way to produce relief decoration, rather than flat surfaces.
Grout is a dense substance that flows like a liquid yet hardens upon application, and it gets used to fill gaps or as reinforcement in existing structures. Grout is generally a mixture of water, cement, and sand, and it frequently gets employed in efforts such as pressure grouting, embedding rebar in masonry walls, connecting sections of precast concrete, filling voids, and sealing joints such as those between tiles. Common uses for grout in the household include filling in tiles of shower floors and kitchen tiles. It is often color tinted when it has to be kept visible and sometimes includes fine gravel when being used to fill large spaces. Unlike other structural pastes such as plaster or joint compound, correctly mixed and applied grout forms a water-resistant seal.
Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture. Stucco can be applied on construction materials such as metal, expanded metal lath, concrete, cinder block, or clay brick and adobe for decorative and structural purposes.
In chemistry, efflorescence is the migration of a salt to the surface of a porous material, where it forms a coating. The essential process involves the dissolving of an internally held salt in water or occasionally, in another solvent. The water, with the salt now held in solution, migrates to the surface, then evaporates, leaving a coating of the salt.
Ferrocement or ferro-cement is a system of construction using reinforced mortar or plaster applied over an "armature" of metal mesh, woven, expanded metal, or metal-fibers, and closely spaced thin steel rods such as rebar. The metal commonly used is iron or some type of steel, and the mesh is made with wire with a diameter between 0.5 mm and 1 mm. The cement is typically a very rich mix of sand and cement in a 3:1 ratio; when used for making boards, no gravel is used, so that the material is not concrete.
Lime is an inorganic material composed primarily of calcium oxides and hydroxides. It is also the name for calcium oxide which occurs as a product of coal-seam fires and in altered limestone xenoliths in volcanic ejecta. The International Mineralogical Association recognizes lime as a mineral with the chemical formula of CaO. The word lime originates with its earliest use as building mortar and has the sense of sticking or adhering.
London stock brick is the type of handmade brick which was used for the majority of building work in London and South East England until the increase in the use of Flettons and other machine-made bricks in the early 20th century. Its distinctive yellow colour is due to the addition of chalk. Another important admixture is 'spanish', which is made up of ash and cinders from incinerated waste and rubbish. The spanish ignites on firing and reduces fuel costs at the firing stage.
Plasterwork is construction or ornamentation done with plaster, such as a layer of plaster on an interior or exterior wall structure, or plaster decorative moldings on ceilings or walls. This is also sometimes called pargeting. The process of creating plasterwork, called plastering or rendering, has been used in building construction for centuries. For the art history of three-dimensional plaster, see stucco.
Lime mortar or torching is a masonry mortar composed of lime and an aggregate such as sand, mixed with water. It is one of the oldest known types of mortar, used in ancient Rome and Greece, when it largely replaced the clay and gypsum mortars common to ancient Egyptian construction.
Structural dampness is the presence of unwanted moisture in the structure of a building, either the result of intrusion from outside or condensation from within the structure. A high proportion of damp problems in buildings are caused by ambient climate dependent factors of condensation and rain penetration. Capillary penetration of fluid from the ground up through concrete or masonry is known as "rising damp" and is governed by the shape and porosity of the construction materials through which this evaporation-limited capillary penetration takes place. Structural damp, regardless of the mechanisms through which it takes place, is exacerbated by higher levels of humidity.
Damp proofing in construction is a type of moisture control applied to building walls and floors to prevent moisture from passing into the interior spaces. Dampness problems are among the most frequent problems encountered in residences.
Tuckpointing is a way of using two contrasting colours of mortar in the mortar joints of brickwork, with one colour matching the bricks themselves to give an artificial impression that very fine joints have been made. In some parts of the United States and Canada, some confusion may result as the term is often used interchangeably with pointing and repointing.
In masonry, mortar joints are the spaces between bricks, concrete blocks, or glass blocks, that are filled with mortar or grout. If the surface of the masonry remains unplastered, the joints contribute significantly to the appearance of the masonry. Mortar joints can be made in a series of different fashions, but the most common ones are raked, grapevine, extruded, concave, V, struck, flush, weathered and beaded.
Fly ash brick (FAB) is a building material, specifically masonry units, containing class C or class F fly ash and water. Compressed at 28 MPa(272 atm) and cured for 24 hours in a 66 °C steam bath, then toughened with an air entrainment agent, the bricks can last for more than 100 freeze-thaw cycles. Owing to the high concentration of calcium oxide in class C fly ash, the brick is described as "self-cementing". The manufacturing method saves energy, reduces mercury pollution in the environment, and often costs 20% less than traditional clay brick manufacturing.
Concrete is produced in a variety of compositions, finishes and performance characteristics to meet a wide range of needs.
The conservation and restoration of lighthouses is when lighthouse structures are preserved through detailed examination, cleaning, and in-kind replacement of materials. Given the wide variety of materials used to construct lighthouses, a variety of techniques and considerations are required. Lighthouses alert seagoers of rocky shores nearby and provide landmark navigation. They also act as a physical representation to maritime history and advancement. These historic buildings are prone to deterioration due to their location on rocky outcrops of land near the water, as well as severe weather events, and the continued rise of sea levels. Given these conditions preservation and conservation efforts have increased.
