Terms beginning with A
Acclimation
Leaving flooring in the room where it will be laid, usually 48 to 72 hours, so it reaches the humidity of that room before it is fitted. Wood and laminate move with moisture, and boards laid straight off a cold truck will gap or buckle later.
Attic stock
The surplus you deliberately keep after the job rather than return. Tile, brick and flooring are made in batches that do not repeat, so the leftovers are what will repair the work in five years.
Terms beginning with B
Backer board
A cement-based panel fixed over the subfloor or wall framing to give tile a stable, water-tolerant substrate. Ordered by the sheet, separately from the tile, along with its own screws and tape.
Base course
The lower, coarser layer of a two-layer job, laid and compacted before the surface course goes on. In asphalt it is typically 2 inches on a residential driveway; under pavers it is the compacted aggregate that carries the load.
Bedding sand
The thin setting layer pavers are laid into, screeded to a nominal one inch and deliberately left uncompacted. Depth belongs in the base underneath, never here: sand deeper than about an inch keeps consolidating and the pavers move with it.
Blocking
Short pieces of timber fixed between joists or studs to stiffen the frame, stop long members twisting, or give an edge something to fasten to. Counted per piece rather than by area.
Bond pattern
The arrangement in which masonry units are laid, such as running bond or stack bond. Pattern changes how many cuts a wall generates, and therefore the waste allowance, but not how much wall one brick covers.
Bundle
The package shingles are sold in. Architectural shingles usually run three bundles to a roofing square, though three bundles cover about 98.4 square feet rather than a full 100. Heavier products run four or five bundles to the square.
Butt joint
A seam where two cut drywall ends meet, with no factory taper to sink the tape into. These are the joints that show under a lamp at a shallow angle, which is why longer boards that avoid them are worth more than the sheets they save.
Terms beginning with C
Cold joint
The weak line left where fresh concrete is placed against concrete that has already begun to set. It is the reason a slab poured in one delivery is stronger than the same slab poured from bags over an afternoon.
Compacted
Aggregate is specified as a compacted thickness but delivered loose, and it shrinks by roughly a fifth between the two. Order the loose volume that compacts down to the depth you want, or the finished layer comes up short.
Course
One horizontal row of units: bricks, blocks, shingles or siding panels. Siding and roofing are laid up a wall or roof in courses rather than spread across it, which is why their quantities start with a course count.
Coverage
How much area one unit of a material finishes: square feet per gallon, per box, per bag or per bundle. It is printed on the container and it varies between products, which usually matters more to an order than the size of the room.
Crusher run
A dense-graded crushed aggregate running from about 3/4 inch down to dust, so it locks together when compacted. Sold regionally as paver base, road base or QP, and mostly the same material under each name.
Cubic yard
Twenty-seven cubic feet, and the unit almost every bulk material is sold in. Depth is usually specified in inches while volume is priced by the yard, and that mismatch is where most over- and under-ordering starts.
Terms beginning with D
Dressed size
The finished size of timber after planing, which is what you actually receive. The American Softwood Lumber Standard, PS 20, sets a nominal 1x6 at 3/4 by 5 1/2 inches dressed dry.
Drip edge
Metal flashing fitted along the eaves and rakes so water leaves the roof without running back under the shingles. Bought by the linear foot and counted separately from the roofing itself.
Dye lot
The production batch a box of tile came from, printed on the carton. Color varies measurably between batches, so boxes bought together match and a box bought three months later usually will not.
Terms beginning with E
Edge restraint
The spiked plastic or metal border pinned around a paver field to stop it spreading sideways under load. Measured in linear feet around the perimeter, and the layer people most often leave off the order.
Expansion gap
The clearance, typically a quarter inch, left between a floating floor and every wall, hidden afterwards by the baseboard. A floor pinned at its edges has nowhere to go when it swells but up.
Exposure
How much of each shingle or siding piece still shows once the next course laps over it. Exposure, not the size of the piece, is the number that sets how many courses a wall or roof takes.
Terms beginning with F
Face shell bedding
Laying hollow block with mortar on the outer shells only, rather than across the whole bed. It is standard for most block walls and it uses noticeably less mortar than full bedding.
Fascia
The board closing the ends of the roof rafters along the eaves, carrying the gutter. Bought by the linear foot with the soffit that runs behind it.
Floating floor
A floor whose boards lock to each other and rest on the subfloor rather than being nailed or glued to it. It needs an expansion gap at the walls and usually an underlayment beneath.
Footing
The concrete pad or pier that spreads a load into the ground, below the frost line so the ground cannot lift it. Deck posts, fence posts and masonry walls all sit on one.
Frost line
The depth to which ground freezes in a given area. Footings have to sit below it, or freezing soil lifts the post in winter and drops it unevenly in spring. Your building department sets the local figure.
Terms beginning with H
Header course
A course of brick laid side-on so the short end faces out, historically tying two wythes together. It covers a different amount of wall than a normal course, so it is counted separately.
Hot mix asphalt
Asphalt produced and laid hot, the standard material for a driveway. Sold by the ton, and compacted it weighs about 145 pounds per cubic foot, which is the bridge between the volume you measure and the tonnage you order.
Terms beginning with J
Joint compound
The premixed paste, often called mud, used to tape and finish drywall seams. Estimated off the area of board rather than the floor area, at roughly 10 gallons per 1,000 square feet of board across three coats.
Joint sand
Fine sand swept into the gaps between pavers after laying, so the units lock against each other. A different product and a different order from the bedding sand underneath.
Joist
One of the parallel framing members carrying a deck or floor. Decking runs across them, anywhere from perpendicular to 45 degrees, and every piece has to bear on at least three of them.
Joist spacing
The on-centre distance between joists, normally 12, 16 or 24 inches. It is a structural decision rather than a budget one: composite decking often requires 12 inch centres, and so does any diagonal layout.
Terms beginning with L
Ledger
The board bolted to a building to carry one edge of a deck or a flight of stairs. Stringers and joists hang off it, so its height sets the finished level of everything they support.
Lift
One layer of aggregate or asphalt placed and compacted before the next goes down. A compactor only reaches a few inches, so a 6 inch base is laid in two lifts rather than in one load.
Linear foot
A foot measured along a length rather than over an area. Trim, edge restraint, drip edge, fascia and quarter round are all priced this way, which is why they never appear in a square footage total.
Lippage
The height difference between the edges of two adjacent tiles, where one sits proud of its neighbour. A lippage-heavy floor swallows more grout than a flat one and is more likely to chip at the edges.
Terms beginning with M
Mason mix
Pre-blended mortar, sold ready to use in 60, 80 and 94 pound bags. Convenient and dearer per unit laid than buying masonry cement and sand separately.
Masonry cement
Cement sold to be mixed on site with sand to make mortar, typically a 70 lb bag to roughly 240 pounds of sand. Cheaper than pre-blended mortar, and the yields quoted for it always assume the sand that goes with it.
Mil
One thousandth of an inch, the unit paint film is measured in. Coverage falls straight out of it: a gallon is 231 cubic inches, so the area it reaches is simply that volume divided by the thickness it is spread at.
Modular brick
The standard US brick, faced 7 5/8 by 2 1/4 inches, which occupies 8 by 2 2/3 inches of wall once its mortar joint is counted. That works out at 6.75 bricks per square foot, or 675 per 100 square feet.
Mortar joint
The mortar between masonry units, normally 3/8 inch. It is part of the space each unit occupies, so leaving it out of a brick count over-orders the wall by about a quarter.
Terms beginning with N
Nominal size
The name a material is sold under rather than its measurement. A 1x6 board is 5 1/2 inches wide and a 4x4 post is 3 1/2 inches square. Reading the label as a dimension is the most reliable way to come up short.
Terms beginning with O
On center (o.c.)
The spacing between framing members measured centre to centre, not the clear gap between them. Studs and joists at 16 inches on center leave about 14 1/2 inches of space between.
Terms beginning with P
Picket
One of the vertical boards fixed to a fence’s rails. Count them on the covering width of the board you are buying, not its nominal name: a 1x6 covers 5 1/2 inches, so 100 feet laid solid takes 240 rather than 220.
Pitch
A roof’s steepness, written as inches of rise per 12 inches of run, so 6/12 rises six inches every foot. It is what makes the roof surface larger than the building footprint underneath it.
Pitch multiplier
The factor that converts a building’s footprint into actual roof area for a given pitch. It is why roofing can be estimated from the ground without anyone measuring on the roof itself.
Plate compactor
The vibrating machine that consolidates aggregate and beds pavers down onto their sand. On a paver job it runs over the finished surface at the end, never over the bedding sand beforehand.
Polymeric sand
Joint sand with a binder in it that sets when wetted, holding the joints against weeds and washout. It goes into the joints after laying, never underneath as bedding.
Terms beginning with R
Ready-mix
Concrete batched at a plant and delivered by truck, priced by the cubic yard. Above roughly half a yard it beats bags on cost, on consistency, and on the fact that a slab poured in one go has no cold joint through it.
Rise and run
On stairs, the total height to be climbed and the horizontal distance taken to climb it. The rise is fixed by the building, so the only real decision is how many steps to divide it into.
Riser
The vertical face of one step. Every riser in a flight must be the same height, and a flight always has one more riser than it has treads.
Running bond
The default masonry pattern, each course offset half a unit from the one below. Brick coverage figures assume it.
Terms beginning with S
Screed
To strike a loose layer level by dragging a straightedge across guides set at the right height. Bedding sand is screeded, not compacted, and the rails that set the depth are lifted and their grooves filled as you go.
Setting compound
Drywall powder that hardens chemically rather than by drying, mixed as needed and estimated separately from premixed joint compound. Useful for filling deep gaps and for getting more than one coat on in a day.
Shade variation
The expected colour and pattern difference between tiles, graded V0 for very uniform through V4 for substantial. Anything at V3 or V4 varies enough that a second dye lot will not blend with the first.
Short load
A ready-mix delivery below the plant’s minimum, which carries a surcharge. Worth asking about before assuming delivery beats bags on a small pour.
Soffit
The underside of the roof overhang, running between the fascia and the wall. Bought by the linear foot or the panel, and never included in a siding square footage.
Soldier course
A course of brick stood on end, usually a single decorative band above an opening. It covers a different area per unit than the wall around it, so it is counted on its own.
Span
The unsupported distance a framing member bridges between its supports. Span tables, not preference, decide how far a joist or a deck board can reach before the next support is needed.
Square (roofing)
One hundred square feet of roof, the unit roofing is quoted and sold in. Confusingly, three bundles of architectural shingles usually cover about 98.4 square feet rather than a full square: the square is the sales unit, the 98.4 is the roof.
Square yard
Nine square feet, the unit paving contractors usually quote in. Asphalt is often stated as pounds per square yard per inch of compacted depth, which converts straight to tonnage.
Stack bond
Masonry laid in straight vertical columns with joints aligned rather than offset. It covers the same area as running bond but is far less forgiving of any variation in unit size.
Starter course
The first row along the eaves, laid before the visible shingles to seal the edge and back up the joints in the course above. One of the main places a roof’s waste allowance actually goes.
Stock length
The lengths a board is actually sold in, such as 8, 12 or 16 feet. Matching a deck or fence dimension to a stock length is often the single largest saving available, because one extra foot can force a second board into every row.
Stringer
The notched board running up the side of a flight of stairs that the treads and risers fix to. Its length follows from the rise and run, and it hangs off the rim joist or a ledger at the top.
Subfloor
The structural deck beneath a finished floor. It has to be flat, dry and sound before flooring goes down, and preparing it is a separate job from the flooring order.
Subgrade
The native soil a pavement or patio is built on, graded smooth with organic material stripped out. It carries the load in the end, and adding more surface material to fix a soft subgrade is the expensive way round.
Surface course
The finer top layer of asphalt, typically 1.5 inches on a residential driveway, laid over the base course. It is a different mix at a different price, which is why tonnage is worked out one course at a time.
Terms beginning with T
Tapered edge
The slightly recessed long edge of a drywall sheet, shaped so tape and compound finish flush. Seams between two tapered edges are easy to hide, which is what makes butt joints the difficult ones.
Thinset
The cement-based adhesive tile is bedded in, sold by the bag and spread with a notched trowel. Coverage depends on the notch size and the tile, so the trowel decides the order as much as the floor does.
Topdressing
Spreading a thin layer of soil over an existing lawn, a quarter to a half inch at a time. Any more smothers the grass it is meant to feed, which is why it takes a fraction of the soil a new lawn does.
Tread
The horizontal surface of a step, the part you stand on. A flight has one fewer tread than it has risers.
Terms beginning with U
Underlayment
A layer between the substrate and the finish: felt or synthetic under roofing, foam or cork under a floating floor. Sold by the roll in its own coverage and required by most floating floor warranties.
Terms beginning with V
Veneer
A single outer layer of masonry carried by a framed or block structure behind it, rather than a wall built solid. Most modern brick walls are veneer, one brick thick, which is why they take half the brick a solid wall would.
Terms beginning with W
Waste allowance
The percentage added for cuts, breakage and error, typically 10 percent and higher for diagonal or herringbone layouts. It is a working figure rather than a cautious one, and it belongs in the order from the start.
Wythe
One continuous vertical layer of masonry, a single unit thick. A wall two wythes thick takes twice the brick of the same wall face built as a veneer.
Terms beginning with Y
Yield
The finished volume or number of units one bag produces, printed on the bag. An 80 lb bag of concrete mix yields about 0.60 cubic feet, so a cubic yard takes 45 of them. Weight is what you carry; yield is what you order on.