Different types of walls.
In this selection of information from the public domain, we have compiled some handy info on walls. Types of walls, wall construction, wall problems and wall finishes. Published here for research and education purposes.
A 'wall' is a usually solid structure (including temporary walls and things that kind of look like walls) that defines and sometimes protects an area. Most commonly, a wall delineates a building and supports its superstructure, separates space in buildings into rooms, or protects or delineates a space in the open air. There are three principal types of structural walls: building walls, exterior boundary walls, and retaining walls.
Building walls have two main purposes: to support roofs and ceilings, and to divide space, providing security against intrusion and weather. Such walls most often have three or more separate components. In today's construction, a building's wall will usually have the structural elements (such as 2×4 studs in a house wall), insulation, and finish elements, or surface (such as drywall or panelling). In addition, the wall may house various types of electrical wiring or plumbing. Electrical outlets are usually mounted in walls. Building walls frequently become works of art, such as when murals are painted on them.
On a ship, the walls separating compartments are termed 'Bulkheads', whilst the thinner walls separating cabins are termed 'Partitions'.
Types of walls include privacy walls, boundary-marking walls, and city walls. These intergrade into fences; the conventional differentiation is that a fence is of minimal thickness and often is open in nature, while a wall is usually more than a nominal thickness and is completely closed, or opaque. More to the point, if an exterior structure is made of wood or wire, it is generally referred to as a fence, while if it is made of masonry, it is considered a wall. A common term for both is barrier, convenient if it is partly a wall and partly a fence, e.g. the Berlin Wall.
Before the invention of artillery, many European cities had protective walls. In fact, the English word "wall" is derived from Latin vallum, which was a type of fortification wall. Since they are no longer relevant for defense, the cities have grown beyond their walls, and many of the walls have been torn down. Extreme examples of boundary walls include the Great Wall of China and Hadrian's Wall. A modern functional example was the Berlin Wall, which divided Germany.
In areas of rocky soils around the world, farmers have often pulled large quantities of stone out of their fields to make farming easier, and have stacked those stones to make walls that either mark the field boundary, or the property boundary, or both.
Retaining walls are a special type of wall, that may be either external to a building or part of a building, that serves to provide a barrier to the movement of earth, stone or water. The ground surface or water on one side of a retaining wall will be noticeably higher than on the other side. A dike is one type of retaining wall, as is a levee.
Special laws often govern walls shared by neighbouring properties. Typically, one neighbour cannot alter the common wall if it is likely to affect the building or property on the other side.
It is notable that English uses the same word to refer to an external wall, and the sides of a room. This is by no means universal, and many languages distinguish between the two. In German, some of this distinction can be seen between Wand and Mauer.
Walls are, literally, all around us and we certainly could not have a world without walls. As you can imagine there are so many different wall finishes available, its hard to choose which one is relevant to you. With most houses built in the past couple of hundred years, they are usually built of solid materials that would ensure the long life of a house. Many house walls are built of stone, rock, pebbles, bricks, blocks and so on. Some houses are even prefabricated and are made as concrete panels in a factory.
Wall finishes
There are several types of decorative exterior wall finish you could choose for your home, I hope that you can stick around for a while on this website and go an explore some of the possibilities you have to repair and decorate your home walls.
famous walls around the world include......
Classical, Biblical, Byzantine Antiquity & feudal era
Anastasian Wall in Turkey
Antonine Wall in Scotland, UK
Aurelian Walls of Rome
Ávila Walls, Spain
Walls of Constantinople in Turkey
Roman limes in Upper Germania, Lower Germania and Rhaetia, Germany
Hadrian's Wall on the English-Scotland border, UK
Jericho walls
Jerusalem's Old City walls in Jerusalem, Israel
Kremlin Wall in Moscow, Russia
Serpent's Wall, the ancient walls in Ukraine
Wansdyke, in western England, UK
Offa's Dyke between England and Wales, UK
Servian Wall, in Rome
Wall of Phaleron, outside Athens, Greece
Paczków defensive wall, Poland
London Wall in England, UK
York city walls in England, UK
Chester city walls in England, UK
Long Walls linking the port of Piraeus to Athens, Greece
Roman Walls of Lugo, Spain
Themistoclean Walls, outside Athens, Greece
Trajan's Wall, in Dobruja, Romania
Western Wall in Jerusalem (also called the Wailing Wall, Kotel
HaMa'aravi, and Al-Buraq Wall)
Great Wall of Gorgan in Iran
Intramuros Walls, Manila, Philippines
The Great Wall of China, China; the longest man-made structure
Cheolli Jangseong China (for the Goguryeo one) and North Korea ( for theGoryeo one)
Shahabudeen Taj, a famous wall from Afghanistan
Visby Ringwall, Gotland, Sweden.
Modern walls
Atlantic Wall in France
Basel City Walls in Basel, Switzerland
Belfast Peace Lines in Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
Berlin Wall in Germany
Border Wall (Western Sahara)
Byker Wall in England, UK
Communards' Wall in the Pčre Lachaise cemetery, in Paris, France
Danevirke, Denmark
Democracy Wall, in Beijing (1978-1979)
Flodden wall, in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Green Monster, Fenway Park, Boston
Israeli West Bank wall, Palestinian Territories
Lima City Walls in Lima, Peru
Korean wall (alleged by DPRK),
Korean Demilitarized Zone
Lennon Wall in Prague
Tsoi Wall in Arbat Street, Moscow
Vietnam Veterans Memorial, often called the Wall
Via Anelli Wall in Padua, Italy
The Wall in SoHo, New York City.
Tortilla Wall in the USA-Mexico border.
The Wall, Eton college - against which the Wall Game is played
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