Blogs

Every small town seems to have one. A giant tank sitting way up in the air with the town's name painted across it. Sometimes it's the first thing you see coming into town. Sometimes it's decorated. Sometimes it's been standing there so long nobody really notices it anymore. But if you stop and think about it, a water tower is kind of strange. We take hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, of gallons of water and deliberately put it high above the ground. That requires a massive structure. En …

Let's get one thing out of the way first. Your brick wall isn't actually breathing. It doesn't inhale. It doesn't exhale. And if yours starts doing either one, you have a considerably different problem than the one we're discussing today. When people in construction say masonry needs to "breathe," we're talking about moisture movement. Brick, block, stone, and mortar are not completely waterproof materials. Moisture can enter masonry, move through portions of the wall system, and eventually need …

Most buildings look like they're sitting on the ground. Sometimes that's a little misleading. The building you see above ground may actually be supported by foundations extending dozens of feet below it. Sometimes much farther. They're called piles, and while they disappear underground once construction is finished, they may be doing some of the hardest work in the entire building. So why go through all that trouble? Why not just build a foundation, put the building on it, and call it a day? Bec …

Concrete cracks. There. We said it. Not exactly the opening line the concrete industry would put on a billboard, but it's true. Concrete is one of the most useful construction materials in the world. We build foundations, highways, bridges, sidewalks, parking garages, warehouses, dams, and entire buildings with it. It's strong. It's durable. And given enough time and the right conditions, it is probably going to crack somewhere. Which brings us to all those lines, cuts, and gaps you've seen in c …

There are certain things in life we expect to move. Cars. Elevators. Roller coasters. A bridge carrying thousands of vehicles several hundred feet above the ground is not usually on that list. But bridges move. They expand. They contract. They flex under loads. They react to wind. Some move several inches as temperatures change. And that's not necessarily a problem. In fact, trying to stop a bridge from moving could create a much bigger one. Welcome back to Why Is It Built Like That?, where we'r …