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Construction Facts
| Do you have shingles or Shakes? Here's how to tell for sure. |
| Many homeowners these days are amazingly facile with architectural jargon, thanks no doubt, to the gaggle of home improvement shows on TV these days. Although many know their antae from their astragals (construction terms), as it were, a few stubborn terms are still routinely confused - sometimes even among architects. Here are the usual suspects: |
| Cement refers only to the powder that hardens when you add water. If you add sand and aggregate to the mixture, you get concrete. So strictly speaking, a cement mixer should be called a concrete mixer. |
| The part of a window that moves is called the sash. The whole shebang - sash, jambs, sill and everything else is called a window. |
| A mullion is a heavy vertical or horizontal member between adjoining window units. Muntins are the narrow strips of wood that divide the individual panes of glass in a traditional sash. In the case of so called "simulated divided lites," grilles resembling muntins are either sandwiched between double glass panes or else installed over the outer surface of the glass to give a divided look. |
| On the outside of a house, the decorative frame around a door or window is called the trim, while on the inside, the same thing is called casing. Go figure! |
| Sliding Door/Pocket Door/Bypassing Door |
| The term sliding door refers only to the sliding glass variety that usually leads outside. Those interior doors that disappear into a slot in the wall, on the other hand, are properly called pocket doors. To make things more confusing, paired closed doors that slide past each other aren't called sliding doors, they're called bypassing doors. Phew! |
| In wood frame construction, a heavy horizontal member is called a firder if it's below floor level, a header if it's over a door or window, and a beam if it's pretty much anywhere else. |
| Structurally speaking, a wall is bearing, while a partition is always non-bearing. In most houses, the exterior walls and at least one wall running down the middle of the house are bearing, while all the other walls - er, partitions - are non-bearing. Since these two varieties aren't always easy to tell apart, it's prudent to call in an architect or engineer before you go tearing out either one. |
| Wood shingles are sewn by machine and are relatively thin. Wood shakes are larger and thicker than shingles, and are split from a solid block of wood rather than sewn. |
| Both of these things stick out of your roof, but a flue exhausts combustion gas from a fireplace, water heater or furnace - anything with a flame - while a vent leads those nasty gases in your plumbing to the atmosphere. |
| Banister refers to the entire railing on a staircase. Balusters are the individual uprights in any railing, whether on a stair, a balcony or whatever. So it's fine to slide down the banister, but you probably wouldn't want to down the balusters. |
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Ted Strodder
All Marin Real Estate
511 Sir Francis Drake
Greenbrae CA 94904
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Phone:
Mobile:
Toll Free:
Email: |
415.925.3205
415.377.5222
800.482.6164
ted@AllMarin.com |
Ted Strodder is one of the most experienced, top Real Estate Brokers in Marin County, with over 800 home sales in his last 25 years. Ted works in the Central Marin office for Frank Howard Allen, the #1 Real Estate company in the county year after year. He has been licensed since 1985 and has worked in the same building for over twenty years, remaining grounded in the community in the most productive environment in Marin. Ted is a native to the Bay Area and can answer any question you may have about specific property values, schools, weather patterns, commute times and recreation. He has personally remodeled twenty-four homes and is considered one of the county experts on fixer uppers and construction. He is available seven days a week and is always just an email, text or phone call away. You may reach him at the office, 415.925.3205, on his cell 415.377.5222 or toll free at 800.482.6164.
California Department of Real Estate Broker's License #01057081 |
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