Talk:Key:building:material

mdf

What is mdf? Is it medium-density fibreboard? If yes, it's used only indoors (e.g. in furniture) because of poor moisture resistance. I'm going to delete this entry.

plastic

I propose to add value "plastic". Plastic siding is widely used material for decorating facades. Dinamik (talk) 16:31, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with this, but you should try to find an example image and resolve the overlap with the suggested "front with plastic or stone plates". --Tordanik 10:01, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

polyethylene and polycarbonate

I propose to add values and "polyethylene" "polycarbonate". These materials are widely used for decorating cold frames. Dinamik (talk) 16:35, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

front with plastic or stone plates

I mean it's like "tiling". By the way, there is an option when the plaster has a texture, stylized under the tile. In large Russian cities are many such buildings built in the late Stalinist period. Probably need a separate specifying tag for this texture.Danidin9 (talk) 18:08, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Use of "adobe" in worldwide contexts

Here in the UK we have many old (medieval) buildings that are made of a substance called "cob." This is essentially "adobe" but named after the old English term rather than the source Spanish one. It can be noted that essentially the same material is called many things around the world. I would suggest that the definition on the main page for "adobe" be expanded to clarify that "adobe" is the tag for any earth/sand/binding agent-based material that doesn't meet the criteria for "rammed_earth" (which is an already-listed material in its own right). It seems pointless to have a situation where material tags may end up being used on-the-fly for "cob," "wichert," "puddled clay," "bousille," etc. when they are all basically the same material, covered by the "official" tag of "adobe," for mere want of a more detailed description in the table.

For reference:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cob_(material) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rammed_earth

--John Grubb (talk) 13:49, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Appearance vs. Material

Since this key is to support rendering, shouldn't this have been about appearance rather than material? What looks like clapboards could be made of natural wood, engineered wood composites, aluminum, vinyl, cementboard, or asbestos. Conversely, in my part of the world, "Wood" could be clapboards, cedar shakes, cedar handsplits, barnboard, plywood called "Texture-111", shiplap, "board & batten", or log cabin. Are there tags for these that are rendered? Too bad building:cladding=* never took off.--Rassilon (talk) 23:50, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

In practice this tag building:material=* is used to describe what it looks like the outer cladding of the building walls is made of, since mappers are not going to take apart the building or scrape off paint. In many case (e.g. bare aluminum, glass, stainless steel, ceramic, bare concrete) the actual material is clearly visible, in other cases where there is paint or cladding that is designed to mimic another material, most mappers will take their best guess, or better yet refrain from trying to tag this property. --Jeisenbe (talk) 03:56, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Building:material=plaster

Possibly one to have a chat about with a view to a change; exterior finishes are generally rendering rather than plaster in the true sense of the words (at least, in the UK if not the wider EU/"first world"). Plaster is typically an interior finish applied over brickwork or as a skim over drywall (aka plasterboard) to provide a smooth surface for paint or wallpaper and is not pigmented, whereas the applied exterior finish is a more durable, robust and hard-wearing material of significantly different composition, often pigmented at source rather than painted and possessed of other properties such as an anti-fungal agent and texture. "Building:material=rendering" may be more accurate here. --John Grubb (talk) 09:25, 17 April 2020 (UTC)