NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Light frame construction

Light-frame construction is a building technique based around structural members, usually called studs, which provide a stable frame to which interior and exterior wall coverings are attached, and covered by a roof comprising horizontal joists or sloping rafters covered by various sheathing materials. Modern light-frame structures usually gain strength from rigid panels used to form all or part of wall sections, but until recently carpenters employed various forms of diagonal bracing to stabilize walls. Diagonal bracing remains a vital interior part of many roof systems. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Platform framing is the common method of constructing the frame for homes and apartment buildings in Canada and the USA. The floors, walls and roof of a framed structure are created by assembling (using nails) consistently-sized framing elements of dimensional lumber (2x4, 2x6, etc. ... Stud could refer to any of these : Look up Stud on Wiktionary, the free dictionary stud, a horse or other male animal employed for breeding, or stud farm, an establishment for horse breeding: see horse breeding, animal husbandry, dog breeding, selective breeding a traction device used on the bottom of... A wall is a usually solid structure that defines and sometimes protects space. ... A roof tiled in imitation of thatch at Croyde, north Devon, England Rooftops in Vietnam A roof is the top covering of a building that prevents the ingress of weather into the building interior. ... A joist, in architecture and engineering, is one of the supporting bars that run from wall to wall to support a ceiling (or floor). ... A rafter is a structural member, a type of beam, which supports the roof of a building. ... A carpenter is a skilled craftsman who performs carpentry -- a wide range of woodworking that includes constructing buildings, furniture, and other objects out of wood. ...

Light frame construction has become the dominant construction method throughout most of the United States, Canada and Europe because of its versatility, strength and economy. Use of minimal structural materials allows builders to enclose a large area with at a minimum cost, while achieving a wide variety of architectural styles. The ubiquitous platform framing and the older balloon framing are the two different light frame construction systems used in North America. World map showing Europe (geographically) When considered a continent, Europe is the worlds second-smallest continent in terms of area, with an area of 10,600,000 kmÂ² (4,140,625 square miles), making it larger than Australia only. ... Strength can mean: Physical strength of organisms means (especially the muscles of most metazoa) of locomotion and movement Strength of materials in physics, engineering and materials science Strength is a rap compilation presented by Asiatic Warriors The word strengths is one of the longest English words with one syllable. ... Platform framing is the common method of constructing the frame for homes and apartment buildings in Canada and the USA. The floors, walls and roof of a framed structure are created by assembling (using nails) consistently-sized framing elements of dimensional lumber (2x4, 2x6, etc. ... Balloon framing is method of wood construction used primarily in Scandinavia and the United States. ...

Light-frame materials are most often wood or rectangular steel tubes. Preferred woods for linear structural members are usually spruce, pine or fir woods. Light frame material dimensions range from 38mm by 89mm (1.5 by 3.5 inches — i.e. a two-by-four) to 5 cm by 30 cm (two-by-twelve inches) at the cross-section, and lengths ranging from 2.5 m (8 feet) for walls to 7 m (20 feet) or more for joists and rafters. A tree trunk as found at the Veluwe, The Netherlands Wood is the xylem tissue of woody plants, notably trees but also shrubs. ... The old steel cable of a colliery winding tower Steel is a metal alloy whose major component is iron, with carbon being the primary alloying material. ... Species About 35; see text. ... Species About 115. ... FIR may stand for: finite impulse response (a property of some digital filters) far infrared, i. ... A millimetre (American spelling: millimeter), symbol mm is an SI unit of length that is equal to one thousandth of a metre. ... Mid-19th century tool for converting between different standards of the inch An inch is an Imperial and U.S. customary unit of length. ... A two by four (or two-by-four or 2x4) is the name of a particular inch size of lumber. ... This article is about a foot as a unit of length. ...

Wall panels built of studs are interrupted by sections that provide rough openings for doors and windows. Openings are typically spanned by a header or lintel that bears the weight of structure above the opening. Headers are usually built to rest on trimmers, also called jacks. Areas around windows are defined by a sill beneath the window, and cripples, which are shorter studs that span the area from the bottom plate to the sill and sometimes from the top of the window to a header, or from a header to a top plate. The front door of a house is often decorated to appear inviting. ... Highly decorative Window in a Japanese Onsen in Hakone A window is an opening in an otherwise solid, opaque surface through which light and sometimes air can pass. ... Pre-fabricated, pre-tensioned concrete lintels spanning garage doors. ... Pre-fabricated, pre-tensioned concrete lintels spanning garage doors. ...

Wall sections usually include a bottom plate which is secured to the structure of a floor, and one, or more often two top plates that tie walls together and provide a bearing for structures above the wall. Wood or steel floor frames usually include a rim joist around the perimeter of a system of floor joists, and often include bridging material near the center of a span to stabilize a floor against vibration and to reduce sagging along the span. In two-story construction, openings are left in the floor system for a stairwell, in which stair risers and treads are most often attached to squared faces cut into sloping stair stringers.

Interior wall coverings in light-frame construction typically include plasterboard, lath and plaster or decorative paneling. Drywall (also called gypsum board, GWB, plasterboard, SHEETROCK® and Gyproc®) is a building material consisting of gypsum formed into a flat sheet and sandwiched between two pieces of heavy paper. ... Lath and plaster is a somewhat outdated building process used mainly for interior walls. ...

Exterior finishes for walls and ceilings often include plywood or composite sheathing, brick or stone veneers, and various stucco finishes. Cavities between studs, usually placed 40-60 cm (16-24 inches) apart, are usually filled with insulation materials, such as fiberglass batting, or cellulose filling sometimes made of recycled newsprint treated with boron additives for fire prevention and vector control. A ceiling is the lower surface of a horizontal slab covering a room or internal space. ... Plywood was the first type of engineered wood to be invented. ... Composite materials (or composites for short) are engineering materials made from two or more components. ... This page is about bricks used for construction. ... Sedimentary, volcanic, plutonic, metamorphic rock types of North America. ... Masonry is the building of structures from individual units laid in and bound together by mortar. ... Stucco is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water which is applied to a surface in a paste-like consistency when wet and when dry becomes hard. ... This page refers to thermal insulation. ... Fiberglass or fibreglass is material made from extremely fine fibers of glass. ... Cellulose (C6H10O5)n is a long-chain polymer polysaccharide carbohydrate, of beta-glucose. ... The international symbol for recycling. ... Newsprint is low-cost, low-quality, non-archival paper. ... General Name, Symbol, Number boron, B, 5 Chemical series metalloids Group, Period, Block 13, 2, p Appearance black Atomic mass 10. ... A large bonfire Fire is a form of combustion. ... Traditionally in medicine, a vector is an organism that does not cause disease itself but which spreads infection by conveying pathogens from one host to another. ...

Roofs are usually build to provide a sloping surface intended to shed rain or snow, with slopes ranging from 1 cm of rise per 15 cm (less than an inch per linear foot) of rafter length, to steep slopes of more than 2 cm per cm (two feet per foot) of rafter length. A light-frame structure built mostly inside sloping walls comprising a roof is called an A-frame. A roof tiled in imitation of thatch at Croyde, north Devon, England Rooftops in Vietnam A roof is the top covering of a building that prevents the ingress of weather into the building interior. ... An A-frame is a basic structure designed to bear a load in a lightweight, economical manner. ...

Roofs are most often covered with shingles made of asphalt, fiberglass and small gravel coating, but a wide range of materials are used. Molten tar is often used to waterproof flatter roofs, but newer materials include rubber or other synthetic materials. Steel panels are popular roof coverings in some areas, preferred for their durability. Slate or tile roofs offer more historic coverings for light-frame roofs. The word shingle has several distinct meanings in the English language: Photograph of wood shingles, also called shakes, as used in roofing. ... TAR can mean: An abbreviation for Tar (file format) The Amazing Race, a reality television program An abbreviation for Tibet Autonomous Region The Third Assessment Report of the IPCC Thrombocytopenia Absent Radius syndrome An abbreviation for Teenage Republican, a member of the orgainization Teenage Republicans. ... The old steel cable of a colliery winding tower Steel is a metal alloy whose major component is iron, with carbon being the primary alloying material. ... Alternate meanings in Slate (disambiguation) Slate Slate is a fine-grained homogeneous sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash which has been metamorphosed (foliated) in layers (bedded deposits). ... Mission, or barrel, roof tiles For the towns named Tile, see Tile, Somalia and Tile, Lebanon. ...

Light-frame methods allow easy construction of unique roof designs. Hip roofs, which slope toward walls on all sides and are joined at hip rafters that span from corners to a ridge. Valleys are formed when two sloping roof sections drain toward each other. Dormers are small areas in which vertical walls interrupt a roof line, and which are topped off by slopes at usually right angles to a main roof section. Gables are formed when a length-wise section of sloping roof ends to form a triangular wall section. Clarestories are formed by an interruption along the slope of a roof where a short vertical wall connects it to another roof section. Flat roofs, which usually include at least a nominal slope to shed water, are often surrounded by parapet walls with openings to allow water to drain out. Sloping crickets are built into roofs to direct water away from areas of poor drainage, such as behind a chimney at the bottom of a sloping section. This article is about angles in geometry. ... A gable is the portion of a wall between the enclosing lines of a sloping roof. ...

Light-frame buildings are often erected on monolithic concrete slab foundations that serve both as a floor and as a support for the structure. Other light-frame buildings are built over a crawlspace or a basement, with wood or steel joists used to span between foundation walls, usually constructed of poured concrete or concrete blocks. Something that is monolithic is something created in one piece, resembling a monolith such as an obelisk. ... Placing a concrete floor for a commercial building Installing rebar in a floor during a concrete pour In construction, concrete is a composite building material made from the combination of aggregate and cement binder. ... Wiktionary has a definition of: Foundation This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... A hardwood floor (parquetry) is a popular feature in many houses. ... This article or section should include material from Cellar A basement is an architectural contruction that is completely or almost below ground in a building. ... A basement is a storey of a building that is either completely or partially below the ground floor. ...

Various forms of trusses are also used to form floor structures, ceilings and roofs. Newer truss joist products often use laminated woods, most often chipped poplar wood, in panels as thin as 1 cm (3/8ths of an inch), glued between horizontally laminated members of less than 5 cm by 5 cm (two-by-two inches), to span distances of as much as 9 m (30 feet). Web trusses are often formed of 5 cm by 10 cm (two-by-four inch) wood members to provide support for roofing systems and ceiling finishes in place of joists and rafters. Truss bridge for a single track railway, converted to pedestrian use and pipeline support. ... This article is about woody plants of the genus Populus. ...

Light-frame building methods allow architects to create designs resembling other construction methods, such as brick or stone veneer resembling structural brick or stucco resembling adobe. Architect at his drawing board, 1893 An architect, also known as a building designer, is a person involved in the planning, designing and oversight of a buildings construction, whose role is to guide decisions affecting those building aspects that are of aesthetic, cultural or social concern. ... Renewal of the surface coating of an adobe wall in Chamisal, New Mexico Adobe is a building material composed of water, sandy clay and straw or other organic materials, which is shaped into bricks using wooden frames and dryed in the sun . ...