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This includes foundations and basement retaining walls. [1] It is differentiated from the superstructure. It safeguards the building against the forces of wind, uplift, soil pressure etc. It provides a level and firm surface for the construction of superstructure. It also prevents unequal or differential settlement and ensures stability of the ...
A basement wall is thus one kind of retaining wall; however, the term usually refers to a cantilever retaining wall, which is a freestanding structure without lateral support at its top. [2] These are cantilevered from a footing and rise above the grade on one side to retain a higher level grade on the opposite side.
In architecture, an area (areaway in North America) is an excavated, subterranean space around the walls of a building, designed to admit light into a basement. Also called a lightwell , it often provides access to the house and a store-room/service cupboard for tradesmen , such as a coal store vault under the pavement.
Barrier walls are designed to allow water to be absorbed but not penetrate the wall, and include concrete and some masonry walls. Drainage walls allow water that leaks into the wall to drain out such as cavity walls. Drainage walls may also be ventilated to aid drying such as rainscreen and pressure equalization wall systems. Sealed-surface ...
Basement walls may need to have the surrounding earth backfilled around them to return the soil to grade. A water stop, some gravel and a french drain may need to be used to prevent water from entering the basement at the bottom of the wall. Walls below grade may need to be sealed with an impervious coating (such as tar) to
A shear wall, in its simplest definition, is a wall where the entire material of the wall is employed in the resistance of both horizontal and vertical loads. A typical example is a brick or cinderblock wall. Since the wall material is used to hold the weight, as the wall expands in size, it must hold considerably more weight.
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In terms of the actual load on a structure, there is no difference between dead or live loading, but the split occurs for use in safety calculations or ease of analysis on complex models. To meet the requirement that design strength be higher than maximum loads, building codes prescribe that, for structural design, loads are increased by load ...