Building materials

Text 4. Houses and Homes

Houses are buildings that people can live, eat and sleep in. They protect you from dangers and bad weather. Most houses show the lifestyles, traditions and cultures of the people who live in them. Homes and houses have different shapes and sizes. They are built of different materials that depending on the climate of the area you live in.

Long ago, people built homes with whatever building materials that they had. In Africa and some islands of the South Pacific they used grass or leaves that grew nearby. In the south-western part of the United States the Pueblo Indians used sun-dried bricks to build their houses.

Even though today you can transport materials all over the world, it is still easier and cheaper to use the materials that are at hand. There are four basic kinds of material that are used today.

In the northern part of North America and in northern Europe wood has been the main building material for many centuries. Early settlers in America built log cabins and in Scandinavia people designed wooden houses with large beams and balconies.

Brick is among the oldest and most popular building material. It lasts long and is easy to get. Brick is often used to build row houses. Early Dutch settlers brought bricks across the Atlantic to build their first houses.

Stone is the longest lasting of all building materials. Weather cannot destroy it so much and insects and animals cannot bore into it as they can into wood. Stone has been used for many centuries because it cannot be destroyed by fire. It has been used for all sorts of houses, from palaces to farmers' cottages.

In modern buildings we use concrete instead of stone and brick. It is cheaper and can be produced almost everywhere. Concrete is a mixture of sand, broken stones, water and other materials. Cement is added to hold it together. Steel rods are often put into the concrete, to hold it together when buildings get higher.

Building a house

Before you actually build a house there are lot of things you must do first. You must have a piece of land on which your house can be built, then you should ask an architect or builder to find out if there are any restrictions or limitations on building in the area. A construction drawing of the house shows the size, order of the rooms, where doors and windows are and other details. Then you usually need a building permit to start building your house.

The foundation supports your house. Construction workers start digging holes for the footings, which support the walls of the house. They are made by pouring concrete into forms that reach down below the frost line so that the house cannot move when it freezes in winter. The area that is below the ground is called the basement or cellar. Many basements have extra rooms that are used for the house’s heating or for storage. Not all houses have basements, those in wet regions are often put on stilts.

The frame is the skeleton around which the rest of the house is built. Workers put beams into the foundation that support the outside walls. Slabs are the horizontal parts of the frame that separate the floors. When the frame is finished the walls are raised.

The roof protects the house from rain and sun. Some roofs are flat others are slanted to lead rain and snow down. They are built of different materials, depending on the climate and amount of rainfall.

Дата добавления: 2014-12-23