Some Building Professions

A man, who has been an apprentice for some years in a building trade and has therefore enough skill to be considered a skilled worker at his trade, is called tradesman or craftsman.

He may be a carpenter-and-joiner, bricklayer, mason, slater-and-tiler, plumber, electrician, house painter, glazier, floor-and-wall tiler, plasterer, paper-hanger, steeplejack, hot water fitter and so on.

Bricklayer is a tradesman who builds and repairs brickwork, lays and joints salt glazed stoneware drains, sets, chimneypots, manhole frames and fireplaces. He renders brickwork, including the insides of manholes. A sewer and tunnel bricklayer is a specialized bricklayer. In some districts of Greart Britain, bricklayers also fix wall and flooring tiles and slating and lay plaster and granolithic floors. But elsewhere these are plasterer's specialities.

Carpenter is a man who erects wood frames, fits joints, fixes wood floors, stairs and window frames, asbestos sheeting and other wall-board. He builds or dismantles wood or metal formwork. The two trades of carpenter and joiner were originally the same, and most men can do both, but specialize in one or the other. In the USA the term "carpenter" includes a joiner. The word is derived from the French word charpente, which means a wood or metal framework.

Joiner is a man who makes joinery and works mainly at the bench on wood, which has been cut and shaped by the machinists. His work is finer than the carpenter's, much of it being highly finished and done in a joinery shop which is not exposed to weather.

In Scotland a joiner is a carpenter-and-joiner.

Mason is a stone worker or stone setter. In Scotland and the USA a bricklayer is usually also a mason. A fixer or a fixer mason or a builder mason is a mason who sets prepared stones in walls, whether the stone be only facing or to the full wall thickness.

Plasterer is a tradesman who may be a fibrous plasterer or a plasterer in solid work. The latter lays successive coats of plaster or rendering and fixes fibrous plaster such as mould cornices and wall pattern. He can use a horsed mould, erect lathing for plaster, and apply stucco.

3. Answer the questions:

1. What building professions do you know?

2. What works do bricklayers render in some districts of Great Britain?

3. What is peculiar about the profession of a carpenter in the USA?

4. What the difference between the trades of a carpenter and a joiner?

5. What works do masons in Scotland and the USA render?

4. Fill the table:

5. Look at diagrams the tools used by tradesmen working on a building site:

6. Copy and complete the table with the correct tools or combination of tools for the jobs:

7. Make sentences like the example:

A brace and bit is a tool for drilling holes in wood.

8. Look and read:

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 4983