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.

Yes, MDF is medium-density fibreboard - at least in the UK. --John Grubb (talk) 20:59, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

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)

I'm using building:structure and building:cladding (as found in the Wiki entirely by accident), mapping all the housing developments around my way. It allows data users I am in contact with to produce colour and hatch-baased classified maps based on what forms the structure and what the external finish are. I'm also applying the same to roofs - roof:material=roof_tile, roof:colour=brown, roof:structure=wood_frame for example. House-building in the UK, I have reasoned from watching the things being built, is based on three basic types. All have a cement block/brick cavity wall on poured-concrete foundation to ground floor level, pre-cast concrete "plank" ground floors, tongue-and grove chipboard upper floors on timber joists with plasterboard ceilings, and studwork/plasterboard internal walls. For the social housing category exterior walls are timber-frame internal and external, with 2" high density foam insulation panels between with an air gap between the insulation and outer wall face. The outer and inner faces are formed from timber sheets and the inside then skimmed or plasterboarded. The outside is rendered. These are quick and cheap to build and commensurate room size can be achieved on a smaller footprint as the standard 11" cavity wall can be thinned somewhat (4" brick/cement block, 3" airgap - 2" of which is filled with insulation panels on the inner wall, 4" brick/cement block being the standard traditional cavity wall construction) - since they have a smaller footprint the plot can be smaller and space freed up for more lucrative houses*. Then there is the "affordable housing" and shared-ownership scheme category - internal wall is timber-frame and timber sheet, skimmed or plasterboarded, and outer wall rendered cement block or brickwork. Again, affords a slightly smaller footprint for commensurate room size. Finally, the regular "traditionally-built" house with full 11" cavity - inner cement block wall (skimmed or studded and plasterboarded), outer wall rendered cement block or brickwork, standard 3" cavity with 2" HD foam boards attached to the inner wall. Thus, depending on type being mapped a tagset for a house will look like the following:

addr:city=Wellington

addr:country=GB

addr:county=Somerset

addr:housenumber=27

addr:postcode=TA21 9GF

addr:street=Sanford Rise

building:cladding=rendering

building:colour=white

building:levels=2

building:structure=cement_block

building=semidetached_house

ref:developer=C G Fry & Son Ltd

roof:colour=grey

roof:material=slate

roof:shape=gabled

roof:structure=wood_frame

This allows to fully describe a building in terms of what holds it up (the structure) and what is looks like in terms of exterior finish (the cladding). Allows more detailed mapping of other buildings, too - modern office blocks: structure=metal, cladding=mirror. Ditto girder-built retail/industrial park "warehouse" units can be described properly as building:structure=steel_frame, building:cladding=metal (or tin or plastic as applicable - possibly room to add aluminium_siding to the list here), roof:shape-gabled, roof:structure=steel_frame, roof:material=metal and so on.

I don't feel that building:material= is adequate without qualifiers. The "material" as defined may not form the substance of the building. I mean, rendering or aluminium siding has no load-bearing effect. The substance of the building is what is beneath it. --John Grubb (talk) 20:59, 28 June 2023 (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)

'Plastic', and then 'vinyl' again?

Wouldn't it be better to combine the "vinyl" and "plastic" items into one? There are more and more different vinyl-based compounds in use these days. Isn't it a contradiction to have a separate product for 'plastic vinyl strips'? --깨몽/dreamy (talk) 03:50, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

"Plastic" is a very general term and can also include "vinyl". And "vinyl" is specifically "plastic vinyl strips" as shown in the photo. maro21 18:22, 23 June 2023 (UTC)