This visual dictionary defines and illustrates various construction terms and materials. It includes entries on air barriers, attic ventilation components, heavy equipment like backhoes and front end loaders, framing elements, insulation types, roofing materials, windows, doors, plumbing fixtures, electrical components, and masonry techniques. The document provides both text descriptions and diagrams to concisely explain each term.

1. Visual Dictionary
By: Sarah-Ashley McCall

2. Air Barrier Paper
A sheet material used as both a vapor
retarder and an air barrier. It controls the
infiltration of air into a building.

3. Attic Ventilation:
Allows water to escape and cools the house in the
summer by preventing the buildup of solar heat.
Soffit

4. Attic Ventilation: Ridge Vent
A long, open assembly that allows air to
circulate in and out of a gable roof at the ridge.

5. Attic Ventilation: Gable Vent

6. Attic Ventilation: Roof Turbine

7. Backhoe & Front End Loader
Backhoe
A backhoe is a piece of heavy
equipment used to dig up soil for
excavation, etc.
The width of this bucket is 36”

8. Batter boards
A temporary frame built just outside the corner of an excavation to carry marks that lie on
the surface planes of the basement that will be built in the excavation.
These batter boards are marking the excavation area for a multi-family residence structure.

9. Jack Arch
Semi-Circular Arch

10. Keystone Arch
Centering
Temporary formwork for an arch.

11. Flemish Bond
Pattern: Alternating stretchers and headers
Running Bond
Pattern: All stretchers

12. Common Bond
Pattern: Alternating rows of stretchers and
full-length headers

13. Stretcher
Soldier

14. Sailor Brick
Rowlock Brick

15. Header
Brick

16. Shiners

17. Utility
3 ½”x11 ½”x3 ½”

18. Modular
3 ½”x7 ½”x2 ¼”

19. Bulldozer
This is a piece of heavy equipment used to push soil, gravel, etc. around construction sights.

20. Stone Cladding
Brick Cladding
Pattern: Random Ashlar

21. EFIS
Exterior Insulation and
Finish System
A cladding system that
consists of a thin layer of
reinforced stucco applied
directly to the surface of
an insulating plastic foam
board. The board, in
turn, is adhered or
fastened mechanically to
the structural or backup
wall of the building.

22. Wood Shakes
A shingle split from a block of wood.
This is an overlapping cladding that encloses the building.
Wood Boards

23. My window is 18.6 sf
Code Requirements: My Room 4’1” x 4’6 ½”
This is up to code.
Window: There is an opening height of 27”
22” AFF in my window, which is up to code.
49” Wide The Window is 22” AFF which
54 ½” Tall is up to code.
54 ½” Tall
49” Wide

24. Interior Stairs
11 ½” + 2 (7 ¼”)=26
The tread is to code, the riser is not.
7 ¼” ¼”
7
1111 ½”
½”

25. Sawed Control Joint
Control Joint: A joint in the concrete
that allows for swelling and shrinking
so that it does not damage the
concrete.

26. Isolation Joint
This joint is isolating a column from slab and slab from wall.
Isolation joints are used to relieve flexural stresses due to vertical
movement of slab-on-grade applications that adjoin fixed foundation
elements such as columns, building or machinery foundations, etc.

27. Brick Coursing
3 brick courses = 1 CMU course

28. Concrete Masonry Unit (CMU)
A block of hardened concrete, with or without
hollow cores, designed to be laid in the same
manner as a brick or stone. The typical dimensions
are 8”X8”X16”. Concrete blocks create structures
that are economical, energy efficient, fire-resistant,
and involve minimal maintenance. In addition,
concrete masonry allows architectural freedom and
versatility.
4” Block
CMU
12” Block

29. Ribbed CMU
split block

30. Left Hand Door Right Hand Door
The hallway is on the outside of the door. The hallway is on the outside of the door.
The bathroom is on the inside of the door. The screened in porch is on the inside of the
door.

31. Exterior Flush Door

32. Transom
Sidelight
Top Rail
A small window
A tall, narrow window
alongside a door above a door.
Panel
Stile
lock rail
Panel Door
bottom rail

33. Utility Pole Transformer: It provides the
final voltage transformation in the
electric power distribution grid,
stepping down the voltage used in
the overhead distribution wires to
Power Pole the level used by the customer.
Construction
Co. Trailer

34. Service Head: This steps the electricity down from
the wires to the consumption level of the home.
Duplex Receptacle
This is plug where appliances can be
connected to access power.
Meter: This measures power
usage for the power company to
charge you by.
Service Panel: This is
where individual electrical
components can be accessed.

35. 2. Sill Plate
1. Anchor Bolt

36. 3. Floor Joists (2nd Floor)
9. Ceiling Joists (1st Floor)
4. Stringer

37. 5. Subflooring
The loadbearing surface beneath a finish floor.
6. Sole Plate

38. 7. Stud

39. 8. Top Plate

40. 10. Rafters
A framing member that runs up and down the
slope of a steep roof.

41. 11. Roof Decking

42. 12. Sheathing

43. Front End Loader: Heavy equipment piece used on construction sites.
Primarily used to load material such as recycled material, rock, sand, wood chips, etc. into or onto
another type of machinery.
It is different from a bulldozer because this loads, bulldozers push. Backhoes are for digging.

44. High Impact Gypsum Board
An interior facing panel consisting of a gypsum core sandwiched between paper faces.

45. Air Handling Unit: Takes in air, cools and
dehumidifies the air, and distributes it in the interior space.
Advantage: Rapid Response Time
Disadvantage: Noisy
Heat Pump: Extracts heat from outdoor air up
to 30 degrees F.
Advantage: More efficient in mild climates.
Disadvantage: Inefficient below 30 degrees F.
Compressor

46. Insulation: Insulating material in the cavities of walls to retard the passage of heat and cold to
and from the building.
Foam Insulation
Batt Insulation

47. Loose-Fill Insulation
Rigid Board Insulation

48. Brick Lintel
Lintel: Carries the weight of the
structure above it across openings.
Metal Angle

49. Type S Mortar
Tooled Joint 3/8” Joint
Used on a Church
Type S Mortar
Troweled Joint 3/8” Mortar Joint
Used on a Bank

50. Oriented Strand Board
A building panel
composed of long sheets
of long shreds of wood
fiber (not veneer)
oriented in specific
directions and bonded
together under pressure.

51. Water Closet
3” Pipe Below
Lavatory
1 ½” Pipe Diameter
A fixed bowl or basin with running
water and drainpipe for washing

52. Shower

53. Interior VTR
This plumbing vent keeps the pressure equal
in the pipes so that a vacuum does not suck
the water out of P-traps , which would let
sewage gas back into the home.

54. Exterior VTR
The plumbing vent goes out through the roof to let the gas
out into the atmosphere.

55. Kitchen Sink
Undermount

56. Plywood
A wood panel composed of an odd number of layers of
wood veneer bonded together under pressure.
Veneer: A thin layer, sheet, or facing.

57. Rebar
#8 Rebar
The purpose of the deformations on the rebar are to help bind the concrete and rebar together.

58. Downspout
Gutter: A channel that collects rainwater and a vertical pipe used to drain
rainwater from a roof
snowmelt at the eave of a roof.

59. Underlayment: A layer of waterproof material such as
building felt between roof sheathing and roofing.
This protects the building from precipitation before roofing is applied.

60. Clay Tile Roof

61. Metal Shingle Roof
Shingle: A small unit of water-
resistant material nailed in
overlapping fashion to render a
sloping roof watertight.

62. Preformed Metal Roof
A roof made of metal panels that requires no special
equipment for installation on-site. Made of long sheets
of galvanized or aluminized steel.

63. Gable Roof

64. Hip Roof

65. Mansard Roof

66. Gambrel

67. Rake: The inclined portion of a cornice.
These are typically found on gable roofs.
Valley: When two roofing
planes meet at the bottom of their
pitch to form a valley.
Ridge: This is where the
sloped sides of a roof meet at the top
of the roof.

68. Eave: The part of a roof which projects out
from the side wall, projecting the edge of the roof.
Fascia: Horizontal band or
board that runs along the eaves
of a roof, protects the rafters.
Soffit: The exposed
undersurface of any exterior
overhanging section of a roof eave.
It helps ventilate the attic.

69. Building Without A Fascia

70. Coursed Ashlar

71. Random Ashlar

72. Random Rubble

73. Vapor Retarder
Put on the warm in winter side
of the insulation. This retards
the passage of water vapor.

74. Waterproofing: Liquid or sheet material applied to the exterior of a basement wall or floor to
resist the intrusion of water under hydrostatic pressure.
Fully Adhered

75. Control Joint
A joint in the brick coursing
that allows for swelling of
the brick so that it does not
damage the cladding.
A small opening whose purpose is to permit
drainage of water that accumulates inside a
Weep Hole building component or assembly.

76. Welded Wire Fabric
12” x 12” grid

77. Gliding Window
Gliding windows
are named this
way because they
slide open from
left to right or vice
versa.

78. Casement Window
These windows open outward by a crank
located on the sill.

79. Double-Hung
Window
This window is called double-
hung because the top pane or
the bottom pane can be open
without the other pane being
open as well.