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Lightweight Construction Materials
Lightweight construction materials can be a great choice when it comes to building a home. Read on to find out more.
Types of Lightweight Construction Materials
Lightweight concrete is one of the most popular of the new lightweight construction materials. It does not have a compressive strength as good as ordinary concrete but it weathers just as well. It needs less structural steel reinforcement, uses smaller foundations, has better fire resistance, it can be used as insulation material. Lightweight concrete is made using either lightweight aggregates or with foaming agents such as aluminium powder. Lightweight aggregates include pumice, scoria, volcanic cinders, tuff, and diatomite. The aggregate can also be made by heating clay, shale, slate, diatomaceous shale, perlite, obsidian, and vermiculite.
Another popular lightweight building material is Gyprock and its various products including walls, decorative mouldings, suspended ceilings, and finishing plasters.
Waste fly ash is a product generated by coal burning power plants and it is now being used to produce lightweight bricks and building aggregate. The process by which the materials are made traps the harmful chemicals in the waste fly ash and creates a material that is economic and reduces the generation of greenhouse gases. The bricks are 28 percent lighter and 24 percent stronger than comparable clay bricks and the aggregate is 22 percent lighter and 20 percent stronger than standard products.
Other lightweight materials include weatherboard, fibre cement, and even cardboard. New bonding, cutting and structural techniques means that cardboard is a viable building material that uses 85 percent recycled materials and is totally recyclable.
Advantages of Lightweight Construction Materials
Lightweight construction materials have the advantage of being very easy to transport – making delivery to your site much easier and also improving storage ability. The light weight of these materials means that more can be transported at one time, which also saves time.
Lightweight construction materials are often very environmentally friendly. Lightweight concrete, for example, can be used as insulation material, as well as building materials. Lightweight materials often take fewer resources to produce than standard building materials. In some cases, they recycle materials that have been used for other purposes, such as coal.
Chosen correctly, lightweight building materials will last as long as a standard building material will. You will also need to use less reinforcing materials with lightweight concrete.
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Building
Building Supplies
Concreting
Insulation