What You Need To Know About Sand?

You may think that sand is just sand for those new to the world of DIY and construction, but this is certainly not the case, there are quite a few different types of sand, each specific to some jobs.

It is extremely important to use the right type of sand for the specific job you do, as it can be devastating to use the wrong grade.

For example, using a very fine sand rather than building sand when you make the mortar can lead to a failure of your building structure and not a proper bonding to bricks or blocks.

To add to the confusion of not only having different types of sand, each type of sand may have up to ten different names depending on the country’s territory and trade.

This is not only misleading for DIY novices, but also frustrating for experts!

To this end, this project discusses the key different sand types, the grades of each sand type and for which each sand type should be used.

What is Sand?

It would be a good idea to find out, before we get to exactly what types of sand are there and how they should be applied.

Sand primarily consists of rocks that have separated and broken down over time and soil into much smaller particles.

Silica is one of the main components of dust. This is a natural material found in almost a third of the crust of the earth.

Including sand, silica is present in a vast number of other materials, both natural and man-made. Some include quartz, clay, glass, silica gels and some food products and medicine (one of these cases are most common).

As mentioned, silica or fine rock particles are the bulk of a sand and quartz appears to be the most frequent silica-forming content. Once oxygen is mixed with silicon, quartz itself (also called silicone dioxide) is produced.

Feldspar is another important component of sand. Feldspar is a very common group of minerals, covering almost three quarters of the surface of the earth.

Over time, waves, and erosions are acting as combining sand on beaches, flats, and around the lakes and other shorelines (along with other materials, such as bone, shell, coral, glass, etc. should be made aware of, plastic), and quartz and feldspar.

Usually, gravel / grit or silt (commonly found in river beds and river banks) and other related materials are graded by grain size. Sands itself lies between gravel and sludge and grains are smaller than sand, but larger than sludge.

In general, if the sand manufacturers is between the 2 mm largest and the 0.06 mm smallest particle size, sand will be graded as such.

As we mentioned briefly above, the sand is one of the most commonly used materials in the construction industry. It’s used in the manufacture of concrete and mortar, bricks, frames, glass, moulds cast and much more.

This means that the demand for sand is massive not only in the UK but throughout the world and like any natural resource, there is only a limited supply. In the not-too-far future, stocks will inevitably start to run away!

In this respect, sand is to be treated as a valuable and minimized waste not only for the preservation of sand for construction itself, but also to minimize the impact on the environment that millions of tons of sand must be provided globally.

One final note with the sand that is used in construction is that, depending on the type of grain you use, it needs to be as clean and unclean as possible.