

The total cost of building materials

In history there are trends in building materials from being natural to becoming more man-made and composite; biodegradable to imperishable; indigenous (local) to being transported globally; repairable to disposable; chosen for increased levels of fire-safety, and improved seismic resistance.. These trends tend to increase the ''initial'' and ''long term'' economic, ecological, energy, and social costs of building materials.

Economic costs


Ecological costs


Energy costs


Social costs


Naturally occurring substances


Brush structures are built entirely from plant parts and were used in primitive cultures such as Native Americans and pygmy peoples in Africa These are built mostly with branches, twigs and leaves, and bark, similar to a beaver's lodge. These were variously named wikiups, lean-tos, and so forth. An extension on the brush building idea is the wattle and daub process in which clay soils or dung, usually cow, are used to fill in and cover a woven brush structure. This gives the structure more thermal mass and strength. Wattle and daub is one of the oldest building techniques. Many older timber frame buildings incorporate wattle and daub as non load bearing walls between the timber frames.

Ice and snow


Mud and clay

Clay based buildings usually come in two distinct types. One being when the walls are made directly with the mud mixture, and the other being walls built by stacking air-dried building blocks called mud bricks. Other uses of clay in building is combined with straws to create light clay, wattle and daub, and mud plaster.

Wet-laid clay walls

Wet-laid, or damp, walls are made by using the mud or clay mixture directly without forming blocks and drying them first. The amount of and type of each material in the mixture used leads to different styles of buildings. The deciding factor is usually connected with the quality of the soil being used. Larger amounts of clay are usually employed in building with ''cob'', while low-clay soil is usually associated with ''sod house'' or ''sod roof'' construction. The other main ingredients include more or less sand/gravel and straw/grasses. ''Rammed earth'' is both an old and newer take on creating walls, once made by compacting clay soils between planks by hand; nowadays forms and mechanical pneumatic compressors are used.McHenry, Paul Graham. ''Adobe and rammed earth buildings: design and construction''. New York: Wiley, 1984. 104. Print. Soil, and especially clay, provides good thermal mass; it is very good at keeping temperatures at a constant level. Homes built with earth tend to be naturally cool in the summer heat and warm in cold weather. Clay holds heat or cold, releasing it over a period of time like stone. Earthen walls change temperature slowly, so artificially raising or lowering the temperature can use more resources than in say a wood built house, but the heat/coolness stays longer. People building with mostly dirt and clay, such as cob, sod, and adobe, created homes that have been built for centuries in western and northern Europe, Asia, as well as the rest of the world, and continue to be built, though on a smaller scale. Some of these buildings have remained habitable for hundreds of years.

Structural clay blocks and bricks

''Mud-bricks'', also known by their Spanish name ''adobe'' are ancient building materials with evidence dating back thousands of years BC. ''Compressed earth blocks'' are a more modern type of brick used for building more frequently in industrialized society since the building blocks can be manufactured off site in a centralized location at a brickworks and transported to multiple building locations. These blocks can also be monetized more easily and sold. Structural mud bricks are almost always made using clay, often clay soil and a binder are the only ingredients used, but other ingredients can include sand, lime, concrete, stone and other binders. The formed or compressed block is then air dried and can be laid dry or with a mortar or clay slip.



Stone or rock

Rock structures have existed for as long as history can recall. It is the longest-lasting building material available, and is usually readily available. There are many types of rock, with differing attributes that make them better or worse for particular uses. Rock is a very dense material so it gives a lot of protection; its main drawback as a building material is its weight and the difficulty of working it. Its energy density is both an advantage and disadvantage. Stone is hard to warm without consuming considerable energy but, once warm, its thermal mass means that can retain heat for useful periods of time. Dry-stone walls have been built for as long as humans have put one stone on top of another. Eventually, different forms of mortar were used to hold the stones together, cement being the most commonplace now. The granite-strewn uplands of Dartmoor National Park, United Kingdom, for example, provided ample resources for early settlers. Circular huts were constructed from loose granite rocks throughout the Neolithic and early Bronze Age, and the remains of an estimated 5,000 can still be seen today. Granite continued to be used throughout the Medieval period (see Dartmoor longhouse) and into modern times. Slate is another stone type, commonly used as roofing material in the United Kingdom and other parts of the world where it is found. Stone buildings can be seen in most major cities, and some civilizations built predominantly with stone, such as the Egyptian and Aztec pyramids and the structures of the Inca civilization.



Wood and timber


Man-made substances

Fired bricks and clay blocks

Bricks are made in a similar way to mud-bricks except without the fibrous binder such as straw and are ''fired'' ("burned" in a brick clamp or kiln) after they have air-dried to permanently harden them. Kiln fired clay bricks are a ceramic material. Fired bricks can be solid or have hollow cavities to aid in drying and make them lighter and easier to transport. The individual bricks are placed upon each other in courses using mortar. Successive courses being used to build up walls, arches, and other architectural elements. Fired brick walls are usually substantially thinner than cob/adobe while keeping the same vertical strength. They require more energy to create but are easier to transport and store, and are lighter than stone blocks. Romans extensively used fired brick of a shape and type now called Roman bricks. Building with brick gained much popularity in the mid-18th century and 19th centuries. This was due to lower costs with increases in brick manufacturing and fire-safety in the ever crowding cities. The cinder block supplemented or replaced fired bricks in the late 20th century often being used for the inner parts of masonry walls and by themselves. Structural clay tiles (clay blocks) are clay or terracotta and typically are perforated with holes.

Cement composites

Cement bonded composites are made of hydrated cement paste that binds wood, particles, or fibers to make pre-cast building components. Various fiberous materials, including paper, fiberglass, and carbon-fiber have been used as binders. Wood and natural fibers are composed of various soluble organic compounds like carbohydrates, glycosides and phenolics. These compounds are known to retard cement setting. Therefore, before using a wood in making cement bonded composites, its compatibility with cement is assessed. Wood-cement compatibility is the ratio of a parameter related to the property of a wood-cement composite to that of a neat cement paste. The compatibility is often expressed as a percentage value. To determine wood-cement compatibility, methods based on different properties are used, such as, hydration characteristics, strength, interfacial bond and morphology. Various methods are used by researchers such as the measurement of hydration characteristics of a cement-aggregate mix; the comparison of the mechanical properties of cement-aggregate mixes and the visual assessment of microstructural properties of the wood-cement mixes. It has been found that the hydration test by measuring the change in hydration temperature with time is the most convenient method. Recently, Karade et al. have reviewed these methods of compatibility assessment and suggested a method based on the ‘maturity concept’ i.e. taking in consideration both time and temperature of cement hydration reaction. Bricks were laid in lime mortar from the time of the Romans until supplanted by Portland cement mortar in the early 20th century. Cement blocks also sometimes are filled with grout or covered with a parge coat.








Glassmaking is considered an art form as well as an industrial process or material. Clear windows have been used since the invention of glass to cover small openings in a building. Glass panes provided humans with the ability to both let light into rooms while at the same time keeping inclement weather outside. Glass is generally made from mixtures of sand and silicates, in a very hot fire stove called a kiln, and is very brittle. Additives are often included the mixture used to produce glass with shades of colors or various characteristics (such as bulletproof glass or lightbulbs). The use of glass in architectural buildings has become very popular in the modern culture. Glass "curtain walls" can be used to cover the entire facade of a building, or it can be used to span over a wide roof structure in a "space frame". These uses though require some sort of frame to hold sections of glass together, as glass by itself is too brittle and would require an overly large kiln to be used to span such large areas by itself. Glass bricks were invented in the early 20th century.

Gypsum concrete

Gypsum concrete is a mixture of gypsum plaster and fibreglass rovings. Although plaster and fibres fibrous plaster have been used for many years, especially for ceilings, it was not until the early 1990s that serious studies of the strength and qualities of a walling system Rapidwall, using a mixture of gypsum plaster and 300mm plus fibreglass rovings, were investigated. It was discovered, through testing at the University of Adelaide, that these walls had significant, load bearing, shear and lateral resistance together with earthquake-resistance, fire-resistance, and thermal properties. With an abundance of gypsum (naturally occurring and by-product chemical FGD and phospho gypsums) available worldwide, Gypsum concrete-based building products, which are fully recyclable, offer significant environmental benefits.





Papers and membranes




Living building materials

A relatively new category of building materials, living building materials are materials that are either composed of, or created by a living organism; or materials that behave in a manner that's reminiscent of such. Potential use cases include self-healing materials, and materials that replicate (reproduce) rather than be manufactured.

Building products

In the market place, the term "building products" often refers to ready-made particles or sections made from various materials, that are fitted in architectural hardware and decorative hardware parts of a building. The list of building products excludes the building materials used to construct the building architecture and supporting fixtures, like windows, doors, cabinets, millwork components, etc. Building products, rather, support and make building materials work in a modular fashion. "Building products" may also refer to items used to put such hardware together, such as caulking, glues, paint, and anything else bought for the purpose of constructing a building.


In 2017, the buildings and construction together consumed 36% of the final energy produced globally while being responsible for 39% of the global energy related CO2 emissions. The shares from construction industry alone were 6% and 11% respectively. Energy consumption during the building-material production, predominantly due to their use of electricity, is a dominant contributor to the construction industry's share. Embodied energy of relevant building materials in the US are provided in the table below. Table reference and attribution:

Testing and certification

* ASTM International * UL (safety organization) * ETL SEMKO — Building Product Testing Laboratory in the USA, part of Intertek, based in London * EU Construction Product Regulation

See also

* Biocidal natural building material * List of building materials * Materiality (architecture) * Phenomenology (architecture) * Prefabrication * Thermal emittance * Thermal mass



External links

Materiales de Construcción
– Bilingual (Spanish/English) Scientific journal published by Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Spain.
Informes de la Construcción
Scientific journal published by Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Spain. {{Authority control