CEA-Vocab Unit 3.1
Key Terms
Term
Ballast
Beam
Brownfield
Building Code
Built-up Roof (BUR)
Cast-in-Place
Concrete
Column
Concrete Masonry
Unit (CMU)
Construction Type
Curtain Wall
Decking
Egress
Elevated Floor
EPDM (Ethylene
Propylene Diene
Monomer)
Exit
Exit Access
Exit Discharge
Fenestration
Definition
A heavy material installed over a roof membrane to prevent
wind uplift and shield the membrane from sunlight.
A structural member, usually horizontal, that carries a load that
is applied transverse to its length.
Real property of which the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse
may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a
hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.
Legal requirements designed to protect the public by providing
guidelines for structural, electrical, plumbing, and mechanical
areas of a structure.
A roof membrane laminated from layers of asphalt-saturated felt
or other fabric, bonded together with bitumen or pitch.
Concrete that is poured in its final location.
An upright structural member acting primarily in compression.
A block of hardened concrete, with or without hollow cores,
designed to be laid in the same manner as brick and stone.
Five broad categories of construction found in the International
Building Code that are based on the fire-resistive capabilities of
the materials used.
An exterior building wall that is supported entirely by the frame
of the building, rather than being self-supporting or load bearing.
A material used to span across beams or joists to create a floor
or roof surface.
Exits or a way out.
A floor that is above the level of the ground.
A synthetic rubber material used in roofing membranes.
That portion of the means-of-egress system between the exit
access and the exit discharge or the public way.
That portion of the means-of-egress system that leads from any
occupied portion in a building or structure to an exit.
That portion of the means-of-egress system between the
termination of the exit and a public way.
All areas (including the frames) in the building envelope that let
in light, including windows, plastic panels, clerestories,
skylights, glass doors that are more than one-half glass, and
glass block walls. A skylight is a fenestration surface having a
slope of less than 60 degrees from the horizontal plane. Other
fenestration, even if mounted on the roof of a building, is
considered vertical fenestration.
Hybrid
Something that is the product of mixing two or more different
things.
Ingress
Entrances or a means to enter.
Light Gauge Steel
Thin sheet metal folded into a stiff shape and used as a
structural member.
Load
Forces or other actions that result from the weight of building
materials, occupants and their possessions, and environmental
effects.
Load Bearing Wall
A structural wall that carries loads other than its own weight.
Low-Slope Roof
A roof that is pitched at an angle so near to horizontal that it
must be made waterproof with a continuous membrane rather
than shingles; commonly and inaccurately referred to as a flat
roof.
Masonry
Brickwork, concrete block work, and stonework.
Municipality
A city, town, etc. having its own incorporated government for
local affairs.
Non-Load Bearing
A wall that does not carry vertical load other than its own
Wall
weight.
Occupancy Group
A specification that indicates by whom or how the structure will
be used.
Occupant Load
The number of persons for which the means of egress of a
building or portion thereof is designed. (IBC)
Open Web Steel Joist Open web, parallel chord, load-carrying members suitable for
the direct support of floors and roof decks in buildings.
Pitched Roof
A sloping roof.
Ponding
The collecting of water, as on a roof, into large puddles or a
pond.
Precast Concrete
Concrete cast and cured in a position other than its final position
in the structure.
Reinforced Concrete Concrete into which steel reinforcing bars have been embedded
to impart tensile strength to the construction.
Shore
A prop for preventing sinking or sagging (noun). To support by a
shore (transitive verb).
Single-Ply Membrane A sheet of plastic, synthetic rubber, or modified bitumen used as
a roofing sheet for a low-slope roof.
Slab-on-Grade
A concrete surface lying upon, and supported directly by, the
ground beneath.
Span
The distance between supports for a beam, girder, truss, or
other horizontal structural member; to carry a load between
supports.
Spray Polyurethane Polyurethane foam sprayed in place on a low-slope roof then
Foam (SPF)
covered with a protective coating.
Stability
A condition of a frame or structure in which a slight disturbance
in the loads or geometry of the structure does not produce large
displacements or failure.
Strength
The capacity of a structure to resist the effects of loads.
Structural Efficiency Ratio of the maximum design load to the weight of the structure.
Tilt-up Construction A method of constructing concrete walls in which panels are
cast and cured flat on a floor slab then tilted up into their final
position.
Underlayment
A panel laid over a subfloor or subsurface to create a smooth,
stiff surface for the application of a finish.
Welded Wire Fabric A grid of steel wires or bars welded together at all points of
(WWF)
intersection to form an open mat. The fabric is designated by
the size of the grid (spacing of the wires) in inches followed by
numbers indicating the gauge of the wire in each direction.