What it is called, by market
One concept, four markets. Where a name means something else locally, the card says so rather than leaving you to find out on site.
United Kingdom
Same word, different thingcoping
also coping stone, capping, cope, wall coping
A COPING overhangs both faces with a drip; a CAPPING is flush. The words are used interchangeably in speech and are not the same detail. And in carpentry a cope is a scribed cut, not a component.
Australia
Close, not identicalcapping
also coping, wall capping, pool coping
Capping is the more common term for a wall top, with coping reserved more often for the pool edge.
United Statesyours
Same word, different thingcoping
also cap, wall cap, parapet coping, pool coping
Pool coping is the commonest use of the word in domestic American English and means the edge trim around a swimming pool, not a wall capping. In carpentry, to cope a joint is to scribe one moulding to fit another's profile.
Canada
Close, not identicalcoping
also wall cap, parapet cap, cap flashing
As the United States, with metal cap flashing over a parapet a distinct component specified alongside the masonry coping.
The governing standard, by market
United Kingdom
BS 5642-2 / Approved Document C
Copings of precast concrete, cast stone, clayware, slate and natural stone, and resistance to moisture.
United States
IBC 1503.3 / SMACNA Architectural Sheet Metal Manual
Parapet coping requirements, and the detailing of metal copings and cap flashings.
Calculators for this
Each works in either measurement system, and the terminology on the page follows whichever market you have selected.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between a coping and a capping, and does it matter?
- The overhang, and it matters more than almost any other detail on a free-standing wall. A COPING projects beyond both faces of the wall and has a drip groove or a weathered profile underneath, so rain running off it falls clear rather than tracking back onto the wall face. A CAPPING sits flush with the wall, so the water runs straight down the face — which saturates the masonry immediately below the top, and that band is the first part of any wall to fail by freeze-thaw. On a garden wall the difference shows up as a strip of eroded mortar and spalled brick along the top few courses. A capping is not wrong in itself; it is a choice that puts the water on the wall, and the wall then has to be built to take it.
- Why does a coping need a damp-proof course under it?
- Because the top of a wall is the one place water can get in from ABOVE, and a free-standing wall has no roof to stop it. Rain lands on the coping, works into the joints between coping units, and travels down into the masonry — where, with no way out and no way to dry from both sides quickly, it saturates and then freezes. A DPC bedded under the coping intercepts that, which is why it is specified even on garden walls that are otherwise unremarkable, and why the DPC has to be continuous through the joints rather than stopped at each unit. The other half of the detail is the joints in the coping themselves: they are the weak point, which is why copings are bedded and pointed carefully and why a cracked coping joint is a genuine defect rather than a cosmetic one.
- What does coping mean in carpentry?
- A cut, not a component, and it is the better way to join two mouldings at an internal corner. A mitred internal corner puts two angled cuts against each other, and because timber moves and no corner is exactly square, that joint opens. A COPED joint instead leaves one piece running straight into the corner and scribes the second piece to the first one's profile, so it sits against the moulded face rather than against another cut end — the joint closes on itself as the timber moves, and a slightly out-of-square corner is absorbed rather than exposed. It is why skirting and coving are coped at internal angles and mitred only at external ones, and why a coping saw is called that.