Adobe is a building material made from earth and organic materials. Adobe is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of earthen construction, or various architectural styles like Pueblo Revival or Territorial Revival. Most adobe buildings are similar in appearance to cob and rammed earth buildings. Adobe is among the earliest building materials, and is used throughout the world.
An earth shelter, also called an earth house, earth bermed house, or underground house, is a structure with earth (soil) against the walls, on the roof, or that is entirely buried underground.
Whitewash, calcimine, kalsomine, calsomine, asbestis or lime paint is a type of paint made from slaked lime (calcium hydroxide, Ca(OH)2) or chalk (calcium carbonate, CaCO3), sometimes known as "whiting". Various other additives are sometimes used.
A basement or cellar is one or more floors of a building that are completely or partly below the ground floor. Especially in residential buildings, it often is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, car park, and air-conditioning system are located; so also are amenities such as the electrical system and cable television distribution point. In cities with high property prices, such as London, basements are often fitted out to a high standard and used as living space.
A French drain is a trench filled with gravel or rock, or both, with or without a perforated pipe that redirects surface water and groundwater away from an area. The perforated pipe is called a weeping tile. When the pipe is draining, it "weeps", or exudes liquids. It was named during a time period when drainpipes were made from terracotta tiles.
A flat roof is a roof which is almost level in contrast to the many types of sloped roofs. The slope of a roof is properly known as its pitch and flat roofs have up to approximately 10°. Flat roofs are an ancient form mostly used in arid climates and allow the roof space to be used as a living space or a living roof. Flat roofs, or "low-slope" roofs, are also commonly found on commercial buildings throughout the world. The U.S.-based National Roofing Contractors Association defines a low-slope roof as having a slope of 3 in 12 (1:4) or less.
Waterproofing is the process of making an object, person or structure waterproof or water-resistant so that it remains relatively unaffected by water or resisting the ingress of water under specified conditions. Such items may be used in wet environments or underwater to specified depths.
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.
A vapor barrier is any material used for damp proofing, typically a plastic or foil sheet, that resists diffusion of moisture through the wall, floor, ceiling, or roof assemblies of buildings and of packaging to prevent interstitial condensation. Technically, many of these materials are only vapor retarders as they have varying degrees of permeability.
Flashing refers to thin pieces of impervious material installed to prevent the passage of water into a structure from a joint or as part of a weather resistant barrier system. In modern buildings, flashing is intended to decrease water penetration at objects such as chimneys, vent pipes, walls, windows and door openings to make buildings more durable and to reduce indoor mold problems. Metal flashing materials include lead, aluminium, copper, stainless steel, zinc alloy, and other materials.
A ground-coupled heat exchanger is an underground heat exchanger that can capture heat from and/or dissipate heat to the ground. They use the Earth's near constant subterranean temperature to warm or cool air or other fluids for residential, agricultural or industrial uses. If building air is blown through the heat exchanger for heat recovery ventilation, they are called earth tubes.
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.
A rain gutter, eavestrough, eaves-shoot or surface water collection channel is a component of a water discharge system for a building. It is necessary to prevent water dripping or flowing off roofs in an uncontrolled manner for several reasons: to prevent it damaging the walls, drenching persons standing below or entering the building, and to direct the water to a suitable disposal site where it will not damage the foundations of the building. In the case of a flat roof, removal of water is essential to prevent water ingress and to prevent a build-up of excessive weight.
Basement waterproofing involves techniques and materials used to prevent water from penetrating the basement of a house or a building. Waterproofing a basement that is below ground level can require the application of sealant materials, the installation of drains and sump pumps, and more.
A crawl space or crawlspace is an unoccupied, unfinished, narrow space within a building, between the ground and the first floor. The crawl space is so named because there is typically only enough room to crawl rather than stand; anything larger than about 1 to 1.5 metres and beneath the ground floor would tend to be considered a basement.
A rupture disc, also known as a pressure safety disc, burst disc, bursting disc, or burst diaphragm, is a non-reclosing pressure relief safety device that, in most uses, protects a pressure vessel, equipment or system from overpressurization or potentially damaging vacuum conditions.
The purpose of a land drain is to allow water in wet or swampy ground to rapidly drain away or to relieve hydrostatic pressure. They are subterranean linear structures which are laid to a fall which should be as steep as practicable. They are used in agriculture and in building construction sites. Modern land drains take the form of a perforated or discontinuous pipe. Typically, the land drains conduct the surplus water to an open ditch or natural water source.
A rainscreen is an exterior wall detail where the siding stands off from the moisture-resistant surface of an air/water barrier applied to the sheathing to create a capillary break and to allow drainage and evaporation. The rainscreen is the cladding or siding itself but the term rainscreen implies a system of building. Ideally the rainscreen prevents the wall air/water barrier from getting wet but because of cladding attachments and penetrations water is likely to reach this point, and hence materials are selected to be moisture tolerant and integrated with flashing. In some cases a rainscreen wall is called a pressure-equalized rainscreen wall where the ventilation openings are large enough for the air pressure to nearly equalize on both sides of the rain screen, but this name has been criticized as being redundant and is only useful to scientists and engineers.
Dry rot treatment refers to techniques used to eliminate dry rot fungus and alleviate the damage done by the fungus to human-built wooden structures.
