Ballast

A heavy material installed over a roof membrane to prevent wind uplift and shield the membrane from sunlight.

Beam

A structural member, usually horizontal, that carries a load that is applied transverse to its length.

Brownfield

Real property of which the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.

Building Code

Legal requirements designed to protect the public by providing guidelines for structural, electrical, plumbing, and mechanical areas of a structure.

Built-up Roof (BUR)

A roof membrane laminated from layers of asphalt-saturated felt or other fabric, bonded together with bitumen or pitch.

Cast-in-Place Concrete

Concrete that is poured in its final location.

Column

An upright structural member acting primarily in compression.

Concrete Masonry Unit (CMU)

A block of hardened concrete, with or without hollow cores, designed to be laid in the same manner as brick and stone.

Construction Type

Five broad categories of construction found in the International Building Code that are based on the fire-resistive capabilities of the materials used.

Curtain Wall

An exterior building wall that is supported entirely by the frame of the building, rather than being self-supporting or load bearing.

Decking

A material used to span across beams or joists to create a floor or roof surface.

Egress

Exits or a way out.

Elevated Floor

A floor that is above the level of the ground.

EPDM (Ethylene Propylene Diene Monomer)

A synthetic rubber material used in roofing membranes.

Exit

That portion of the means-of-egress system between the exit access and the exit discharge or the public way.

Exit Discharge

That portion of the means-of-egress system between the termination of the exit and a public way.

Fenestration

All areas (including the frames) in the building envelope that let in light, including windows, plastic panels, clerestories, skylights, glass doors that are more than one-half glass, and glass block walls. A skylight is a fenestration surface having a slope of less than 60 degrees from the horizontal plane. Other fenestration, even if mounted on the roof of a building, is considered vertical fenestration.

Hybrid

Something that is the product of mixing two or more different things.

Ingress

Entrances or a means to enter.

Light Gauge Steel

Thin sheet metal folded into a stiff shape and used as a structural member.

Load

Forces or other actions that result from the weight of building materials, occupants and their possessions, and environmental effects.

Load Bearing Wall

A structural wall that carries loads other than its own weight.

Low-Slope Roof

A roof that is pitched at an angle so near to horizontal that it must be made waterproof with a continuous membrane rather than shingles; commonly and inaccurately referred to as a flat roof.

Masonry

Municipality

A city, town, etc. having its own incorporated government for local affairs.

Non-Load Bearing Wall

A wall that does not carry vertical load other than its own weight.

Occupancy Group

A specification that indicates by whom or how the structure will be used.

Occupant Load

The number of persons for which the means of egress of a building or portion thereof is designed. (IBC)

Open Web Steel Joist

Open web, parallel chord, load-carrying members suitable for the direct support of floors and roof decks in buildings.

Pitched Roof

A sloping roof.

Ponding

The collecting of water, as on a roof, into large puddles or a pond.

Precast Concrete

Concrete cast and cured in a position other than its final position in the structure.

Reinforced Concrete

Concrete into which steel reinforcing bars have been embedded to impart tensile strength to the construction.

Shore

A prop for preventing sinking or sagging (noun). To support by a shore (transitive verb).

Single-Ply Membrane

A sheet of plastic, synthetic rubber, or modified bitumen used as a roofing sheet for a low-slope roof.

Slab-on-Grade

A concrete surface lying upon, and supported directly by, the ground beneath.

Span

The distance between supports for a beam, girder, truss, or other horizontal structural member; to carry a load between supports.

Spray Polyurethane Foam (SPF)

Stability

A condition of a frame or structure in which a slight disturbance in the loads or geometry of the structure does not produce large displacements or failure.

Strength

The capacity of a structure to resist the effects of loads.

Structural Efficiency

Ratio of the maximum design load to the weight of the structure.

Tilt-up Construction

A method of constructing concrete walls in which panels are cast and cured flat on a floor slab then tilted up into their final position.

Underlayment

A panel laid over a subfloor or subsurface to create a smooth, stiff surface for the application of a finish.

Welded Wire Fabric (WWF)

A grid of steel wires or bars welded together at all points of intersection to form an open mat. The fabric is designated by the size of the grid (spacing of the wires) in inches followed by numbers indicating the gauge of the wire in each direction.