Building material is any material used for construction purpose like materials for house building.

Wood, cement, aggregates, metals, bricks, concrete, clay are the foremost common sort of artifact utilized in construction. the selection of those are supported their cost effectiveness for building projects.


Many present substances, like clay, sand, wood and rocks, even twigs and leaves are wont to construct buildings. aside from present materials, many man-made products are in use, some more and a few less synthetic.

The manufacture of building materials is a longtime industry in many countries and therefore the use of those materials is usually segmented into specific specialty trades, like carpentry, plumbing, roofing and insulation work. This reference deals with habitats and structures including homes.

20 Types of Building Materials in Construction

1. Natural Construction Materials

Construction materials are often generally categorized into two sources, natural and artificial . Natural materials are people who are unprocessed or minimally processed by industry, like lumber or glass.


Synthetic materials are made in industrial settings after much human manipulations, like plastics and petroleum based paints. Both have their uses.

Mud, stone, and fibrous plants are the foremost basic materials, apart from tents made from flexible materials likecloth or skins. People everywhere the planet have used these three materials together to make homes to suit their local weather .

In general stone and/or brush are used as basic structural components in these buildings, while mud is employed to fill within the space between, acting as a kind of concrete and insulation.

A basic example is wattle and daub mostly used as permanent housing in tropical countries or as summer structures by ancient northern peoples.

2. Fabric

The tent wont to be the house of choice among nomadic groups the planet over. Two documented types include the conical teepee and therefore the circular yurt. it's been revived as a serious construction technique with the event of tensile architecture and artificial fabrics.

Modern buildings are often made from flexible material like fabric membranes, and supported by a system of steel cables or internal (air pressure.)

3. Mud and clay

The amount of every material used results in different sorts of buildings. The deciding factor is typically connected with the standard of the soil getting used . Larger amounts of clay usually mean using the cob/adobe style, while low clay soil is typically related to sod building.

The other main ingredients include more or less sand/gravel and straw/grasses. Rammed earth is both an old and newer combat creating walls, once made by compacting clay soils between planks by hand, now forms and mechanical pneumatic compressors are used.

Soil and particularly clay is sweet thermal mass; it's excellent at keeping temperatures at a continuing level. Homes built with earth tend to be naturally cool within the summer heat and warm in weather . Clay holds heat or cold, releasing it over a period of your 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.

Peoples building with mostly dirt and clay, like cob, sod, and adobe, resulted in homes that are built for hundreds of years in western and northern Europe also because the remainder of the planet , and still be built, though on a smaller scale. a number of these buildings have remained habitable for many years.

4. Rock

Rock structures have existed for as long as history can recall. it's the longest enduring artifact available, and is typically readily available. There are many sorts of rock through out the planet all with differing attributes that make them better or worse for particular uses.

Rock may be a very dense material so it gives tons of protection too, its main draw-back as a cloth is its weight and awkwardness. Its energy density is additionally considered an enormous draw-back, as stone is tough to stay warm without using large amounts of heating resources.

Dry-stone walls are built for as long as humans have put one stone on top of another. Eventually different sorts ofmortar were wont to hold the stones together, cement being the foremost commonplace now.

The granite-strewn uplands of Dartmoor park , uk , as an example , provided ample resources for early settlers. Circular huts were constructed from loose granite rocks throughout the Neolithic and early Bronze Age, and therefore 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 times . Slate is another stone type, commonly used as building material within the uk and other parts of the planet where it's found.

Mostly stone buildings are often seen in most major cities, some civilizations built entirely with stone like the Pyramids in Egypt, the Aztec pyramids and therefore the remains of the Inca civilization.

5. Thatch

Thatch is one among the oldest of materials known; grass may be a good insulator and simply harvested. Many African tribes have lived in homes made completely of grasses year round. In Europe, thatch roofs on homes were once prevalent but the fabric fell out of favour as industrialization and improved transport increased the supply of other materials.

Today, though, the practice is undergoing a revival. within the Netherlands, for instance, many of latest builds too have thatched roofs with special ridge tiles on top.

6. Brush

Brush structures are built entirely from plant parts and are generally found in tropical and subtropical areas, likerainforests, where very large leaves are often utilized in the building. Native Americans often built brush structures for resting and living in, too.
These are built mostly with branches, twigs and leaves, and bark, almost like a beaver’s lodge. These were variously named wickiups, lean-tos, then forth.

7. Ice

Ice was employed by the Inuit for igloos, but has also been used for ice hotels as a tourist attraction in northern areas which may not otherwise see many winter tourists.

8. Wood

Wood may be a product of trees, and sometimes other fibrous plants, used for construction purposes when cut or pressed into lumber and timber, like boards, planks and similar materials. it's a generic artifact and is employed in building almost any sort of structure in most climates.

Wood are often very flexible under loads, keeping strength while bending, and is incredibly strong when compressed vertically.

There are many differing qualities to the various sorts of wood, even among same tree species. this suggests specific species are better for various uses than others. And growing conditions are important for deciding quality.

Historically, wood for building large structures was utilized in its unprocessed form as logs. The trees were just movethe needed length, sometimes stripped of bark, then notched or lashed into place.

In earlier times, and in some parts of the planet , many country homes or communities had a private wood-lot from which the family or community would grow and harvest trees to create with. These lots would be attended sort of agarden.

With the invention of mechanizing saws came the production of dimensional lumber. This made buildings quicker to place up and more uniform. Thus the fashionable western style home was made.

9. Brick and Block

A brick may be a block made from kiln-fired material, usually clay or shale, but also could also be of lower quality mud, etc. Clay bricks are formed during a moulding (the soft mud method), or in commercial manufacture more frequently by extruding clay through a die then wire-cutting them to the right size (the stiff mud process).

Bricks were widely used as a construction material within the 1700, 1800 and 1900s. This was probably thanks tothe very fact that it had been far more flame retardant than wood within the ever crowding cities, and fairly cheap to supply .

Another sort of block replaced clay bricks within the late 20th century. it had been the clinker block . Made mostly with concrete.

An important low-cost material in developing countries is that the Sandcrete block, which is weaker but cheaper than fired clay bricks.

10. Concrete

Concrete may be a composite artifact made up of the mixture of aggregate (composite) and a binder like cement. the foremost common sort of concrete is hydraulic cement concrete, which consists of mineral aggregate (generally gravel and sand), hydraulic cement and water.

After mixing, the cement hydrates and eventually hardens into a stone-like material. When utilized in the generic sense, this is often the fabric mentioned by the term concrete.

For a concrete construction of any size, as concrete features a rather low lastingness , it's generally strengthened using steel rods or bars (known as rebars). This strengthened concrete is then mentioned as ferroconcrete.

In order to minimise any air bubbles, that might weaken the structure, a vibrator is employed to eliminate any air that has been entrained when the liquid concrete mix is poured round the ironwork. Concrete has been the predominant material during this modern age thanks to its longevity, formability, and simple transport.

11. Metal

Metal is employed as structural framework for larger buildings like skyscrapers, or as an external surface covering.

There are many sorts of metals used for building. Steel may be a metal alloy whose major component is iron, and is that the usual choice for metal structural construction. it's strong, flexible, and if refined well and/or treated lasts an extended time. Corrosion is metal’s prime enemy when it involves longevity.

The lower density and better corrosion resistance of aluminium alloys and tin sometimes overcome their greater cost. Brass was more common within the past, but is typically restricted to specific uses or specialty items today.

Metal figures quite prominently in prefabricated structures like the Nissen hut , and may be seen utilized in most cosmopolitan cities. It requires an excellent deal of human labor to supply metal, especially within the large amounts needed for the building industries.

Other metals used include titanium, chrome, gold, silver. Titanium are often used for structural purposes, but it's far more expensive than steel. Chrome, gold, and silver are used as decoration, because these materials are expensive and lack structural qualities like lastingness or hardness.

12. Glass

Clear windows are used since the invention of glass to hide small openings during a building. They provided humans with the power to both let light into rooms while at an equivalent time keeping inclement weather outside. Glass is usually made up of mixtures of sand and silicates, and is extremely brittle.

Modern glass “curtain walls” are often wont to cover the whole facade of a building. Glass also can be wont to span over a good roof structure during a “space frame”.

13. Ceramics

Ceramics are such things as tiles, fixtures, etc. Ceramics are mostly used as fixtures or coverings in buildings. Ceramic floors, walls, counter-tops, even ceilings. Many countries use ceramic roofing tiles to hide many buildings.

Ceramics wont to be just a specialized sort of clay-pottery firing in kilns, but it's evolved into more technical areas.

14. Plastic

Plastic pipes penetrating a concrete floor during a Canadian highrise apartment house
The term plastics covers a variety of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic condensation or polymerization products which will be molded or extruded into objects or films or fibers. Their name springs from the very fact that in their semi-liquid state they're malleable, or have the property of plasticity.

Plastics vary immensely in heat tolerance, hardness, and resiliency. Combined with this adaptability, the overall uniformity of composition and lightness of plastics ensures their use in most industrial applications today.

15. Foam

Foamed plastic sheet to be used as backing for firestop mortar at CIBC bank in Toronto.
More recently synthetic polystyrene or polyfoam has been used on a limited scale. it's light weight, easily shaped and a superb insulator. it's usually used as a part of a structural insulated panel where the froth is sandwiched between wood or cement.

16. Cement composites

Cement bonded composites are a crucial class of construction material. These products are made from hydrated cement paste that binds wood or alike particles or fibers to form precast building components. Various fibrous materials including paper and fiberglass are used as binders.

Wood and natural fibres are composed of varied soluble organic compounds like carbohydrates, glycosides and phenolics. These compounds are known to retard cement setting. Therefore, before employing a wood in making cement boned composites, its compatibility with cement is assessed.
Wood-cement compatibility is that the ratio of a parameter associated with the property of a wood-cement composite thereto of a neat cement paste. The compatibility is usually expressed as a percentage value.

To determine wood-cement compatibility, methods supported different properties are used, such as, hydration characteristics, strength, interfacial bond and morphology.

Various methods are employed by researchers like the measurement of hydration characteristics of a cement-aggregate mix; the comparison of the mechanical properties of cement-aggregate mixes and therefore 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 that themost convenient method. Recently, Karade et al. have reviewed these methods of compatibility assessment and suggested a way supported the ‘maturity concept’ i.e. taking in consideration both time and temperature of cement hydration reaction.

17. Building Materials in Modern Industry

Modern building may be a multibillion dollar industry, and therefore the production and harvesting of raw materials for building purposes is on a worldwide scale. Often being a primary governmental and trade keypoint between nations.

Environmental concerns also are becoming a serious world topic concerning the supply and sustainability of certain materials, and therefore the extraction of such large quantities needed for the human habitat.

18. Virtual Building Materials

Certain building materials like photographs, images, text could also be considered virtual. While, they typically exist on a substrate of natural material themselves, they acquire a special quality of salience to natural materials through the method of representation.

19. Building Products

When we mention building products we ask the ready-made particles that are fitted in several architectural hardware and ornamental hardware parts of a building.

The list of building products exclusively exclude the materials, which are wont to construct the building architecture and supporting fixtures like windows, doors, cabinets, etc. Building products don't make any a part of a building rather they support and make them working.