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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.
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.
Walls do not get as severe water exposure as roofs but still leak water. Types of wall systems with regard to water penetration are barrier , drainage and surface-sealed walls . [ 5 ] Barrier walls are designed to allow water to be absorbed but not penetrate the wall, and include concrete and some masonry walls.
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
Concrete walls with glass prisms running through them have also been made. With the advent of cheaper optical fibers and fiber-optic concrete walls, daylight (and shadow images) can then pass directly through a solid concrete wall, making it translucent; fiber optics will lead light around bends and over tens of meters. [25]
Mass concrete underpinning is commonly used when permanent support is needed to comply with the Party Wall Act of 1996 in the construction of a new basement during a restoration, rehabilitation or redevelopment. [5] In the United Kingdom most subsidence claims are for buildings at least 40 years old with shallow strip foundations.
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.
The raised ranch includes a basement on the bottom and a "full set of stairs" (a full flight of stairs, usually 12 or 13) which leads to the first level. A raised ranch has a different look on the front than a split-entry as the front door lines up to the front windows differently. The front door entry is predominately at the lower floor.