Glossary of construction slang and other terms

Banker – a mason, typically involved in cutting and smoothing building stone.

Banksman – a person qualified to direct vehicle movements

Bagging – slang term for heavy duty hose (normally with bauer couplings) for temporary pumping.

Brush hand – a young or untrained assistant to a professional painter, often with limited experience.

Butcher – often applied to a carpenter with limited skills and abilities.

Brunnel - bridge-tunnel.

Chancer – a person who does work that would normally be undertaken by a skilled craftsman. They are typically not properly qualified, or have not completed the required training or apprenticeship for the work they are doing and so are taking a chance on their ability to do the work to the required standard.

Chippy – a popular site term for a carpenter (i.e one who 'chips' wood).

Cowboy – a charlatan, chancer, one who masquerades as a skilled craftsman but who in reality has few qualifications or skills to do the work. Cowboys often have more success with those of limited knowledge concerning building construction.

Dirty money – given as additional payments to workers who undertake tasks that are of an unpleasant nature, e.g having to descend into a sewer to clear a blockage.

Dyker – a builder of dry-stone walls, usually a mason.

Fixer – someone who builds with stone provided by a banker (see above). The term can also apply to any site operative who fixes a component into position e.g skirting boards. OR sometimes short for "Steel fixer" see below

Football - a 9"x9"x9" hollow concrete block

Ganger – a foreman who supervises a gang of workers or general operatives; usually works under a general foreman.

Jobbing builder – someone who undertakes small jobs for various people, usually to do with maintenance or repair.

Making good – see 'snagging'.

Mate – an unqualified or part-qualified assistant to a skilled operative such as a roofer or painter.

Nappy – portable bund to contain spills

Navvy – usually applied to manual labourers, especially those who dig trenches or excavations, and especially on civil engineering projects. The term derives from the ‘navigators’ who dug canals (navigations).

Rubber duck – slang for a wheeled excavator (as opposed to a tracked excavator)

Saw doctor – one who sharpens and repairs saws and cutting tools. Also applied to those performing the same task in a saw mill.

Shoddy – work that is of dubious or low quality.

Snagging – the identification and rectification of faults, defects, mistakes or omissions in a completed construction, whether new or refurbishment, and making them known to the contractor in a snagging list (or 'punch' list).

Spark /sparky – an electrician, usually a skilled operative who is fully qualified to undertake the work.

Spread – a plasterer.

Steel fixer – someone who erects steel reinforcement for reinforced concrete structures.

Tupper – a worker who carries the hod for a bricklayer.

Waster – someone who does no or little work.

Working on the lump – receiving wages ‘gross’, without any deductions for tax and national insurance. In other words, the money is received as a lump sum.