Stone

Stone has been used as a building material for thousands of years. It is a beautiful natural material that can be used for floors, walls, arches and roofs. Besides, it has also recognised as a material of great durable, low maintenance and with high thermal mass. It is a generic available in many shapes, sizes, colours and textures, and Stone blends well with the natural landscape, and can easily be recycled for other building purposes. Therefore, it can provide environmental friendly.

Type of stone

Sandstone

Sandstone is the most common types of stone used for build houses. Sandstone consists of several types of small grains of minerals including quartz, calcite and feldspar. The stones are usually in gray, brown, red, green or cream colour. The sandstone layer may contain natural gas and petroleum, and are common aquifers. Sandstone is quarry for building, and crushed for aggregate.

Limestone

Humans have been building with limestone for thousands of years. The use of lime is in steel manufacturing. Where the lime is used as a flux  to remove impurities such as phosphorus and sulphur. To remove sulphur from the emissions, lime is used in power plant smokestacks . It is used in road construction and traditional building construction. Besides, Limestone is a porous rock that carves easily, making it ideal for building. The stone colour is often gray, off-white or cream, and it is almost every colour of the stone exists.

Slate

·        Slate can be made into roofing slates. It consists of small grains of mica and quartz. Slate is an ideal stone for building houses because it is weatherproof and last longer. Slate has a dull appearance in a dark gray colour, but it can range from brown to green depending on the stone's origin. Furthermore, a very small amount of slate is crushed and used for road construction, concrete mixes and other construction purposes. It is more expensive to import other crushed stone products such as limestone or granite. Therefore, it is used locally. For centuries it has been used for roofing and for pavement stones around homes, buildings and gardens. The same feature made slate a most suitable material for making pool table tops.

Granite

·          Granite is an intrusive igneous rock. Intrusions are bodies of igneous rock that result from crystallisation of magma deep underground. Slow cooling at depth in the Earth produces larger crystals that can easily be seen by the naked eye.Granite is commonly used on kitchen counter tops as the stone is both scratch and heat resistant. However, granite is also ideal for building homes as well. Granite is one of the toughest and durable stones available. It consists of quartz, alkali feldspar and plagioclase feldspar. Granite  is generally light coloured in shades of white, grey, or pink. But the addition of other minerals can add more colour dimensions, so that it can making each piece of granite unique.