Cross-market terms

Cross-market glossary

One page per concept, not per word — what a thing is called in the United States, Canada, Britain and Australia, and where the same word means two different things.

Most of these are simply two words for one product, and the page says so plainly. The ones worth reading are the others: where the equivalence is close rather than exact, where a market has no equivalent term at all, and where a word carries a NUMBER that changes across the border — a ton, a gallon, a 2x4. Each page gives the definition once, the term in each market with what is and is not being claimed, the governing standard where one exists, and the calculators that compute it.

153Concepts
4Markets
127False friends

Timber-framed house under construction with ladders, sawhorses and lumber

Materials

The things delivered to site. Most of these are the same product under two words, and the few that are not are the ones worth reading.

Structure

What carries the load, and what it is called in the code that governs it. Designations rarely survive a border intact.

Envelope

The outside of the building — what keeps weather out, and the words for its parts, which differ more than the parts do.

Finishes

Surfaces and trim. This is where the same word most often means two different things, because every market names its own tradition.

Services

Electrical, plumbing and ventilation. The device names translate more cleanly than the devices do — ratings, thresholds and earthing arrangements follow the local code rather than the word.

Site and logistics

Plant, containers and the ground. Shorter list, and the words are the least standardised on it.

Measurement and quantity

The terms that change a NUMBER rather than a name. Read these before converting anything from a foreign specification.

Why the equivalences say how close they are

Because flattening them is how a specification gets misread. American stucco is a Portland-cement plaster; British and Australian render covers cement, lime and polymer systems, and putting an impermeable cement coat on a wall that needed a breathable lime one traps the moisture it was meant to release. Siding means boards; cladding means those and also brick slips, rainscreen panels and metal systems. So every term here is marked as the same thing, close but not identical, the same word for different things, or absent from that market — and anything other than the first has to say what is not being claimed.

The terms that carry numbers matter most on a quantities site. A short ton, a long ton and a tonne are three different masses; a US gallon is about four fifths of an imperial one; a nominal 2x4 has no metric equivalent, only a nearest size. Those do not produce a confused conversation — they produce a correct calculation and a wrong order.

Once the term is settled, the calculators give you the quantity in either measurement system, the comparisons take the decision apart, and the methodology pages show the mathematics.

This is guidance rather than specification. Where a standard, a local code or a manufacturer’s instructions use a term differently, they govern.