Cornice an parapet walls, Saddle joint - Walls - Stones.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Cornice an parapet walls.
It is common practice to raise masonry walls above the levels of the eaves of a roof, as a parapet. The purpose of the parapet is partly to obscure the roof and also to provide a depth of wall over the top of the upper windows for the sake of appearance in the proportion of the building as a whole.

In order to provide a decorative termination to the wall, a course of projecting moulded stones is formed. This projecting stone course is termed a cornice and it is generally formed some one or more courses of stone below the top of the parapet. Figure 113 is an illustration of a cornice and a parapet wall to an ashlar faced building. An advantage of the projecting cornice is that it affords some protection against rain to the wall below.

The parapet wall usually consists of two or three courses of stones capped with coping stones bedded on a dpc of sheet metal. The parapet is usually at least I B thick or of such thickness that its height above roof is limited by the requirements of the Building Regulations as described in Chapter 4 for parapet walls. The parapet may be built of solid stone or stones bonded to a brick backing.

The cornice is constructed of stones of about the same depth as the stones in the wall below, cut so that they project and are moulded for appearance sake. Because the stones project, their top surface is weathered (slopes out) to throw water off.

Fig.113 Cornice and parapet.

Saddle joint.
The projecting, weathered top surface of coping stones is exposed and rain running off it will in time saturate the mortar in the vertical joints between the stones. To prevent rain soaking into these joints it is usual to cut the stones to form a saddle joint as illustrated in Fig. 113. 

The exposed top surface of the stones has to be cut to slope out (weathering) and when this cutting is executed a projecting quarter circle of stone is left on the ends of each stone. When the stones are laid, the projections on the ends of adjacent stones form a protruding semi-circular saddle joint which causes rain to run off away from the joints. 

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