Face-sealed also called barrier wall or perfect barrier cladding relies on maintaining a leak-free surface of the cladding. Sometimes ventilation is provided in addition to the drainage plane such as in rainscreen construction. Drained cladding also known as screened walls acknowledges moisture will penetrate the cladding so a moisture barrier such as housewrap or felt paper inside the cladding provides a second line of defense and sometimes a drainage plane or air gap allows a path for the moisture to drain down through and exit the wall. Moisture storage is typical of stone and brick mass-wall buildings where moisture is absorbed and released by the walls of the structure itself. There are three basic methods walls control water intrusion: moisture storage, drained cladding, or face-sealed cladding. Walls are required to conform to the local building and/or fire codes. Mass-walls are of a solid material including masonry, concrete including slipform stonemasonry, log building, cordwood construction, adobe, rammed earth, cob, earthbag construction, bottles, tin cans, straw-bale construction, and ice. Framed walls most often have three or more separate components: the structural elements (such as 2×4 studs in a house wall), insulation, and finish elements or surfaces (such as drywall or panelling). In framed walls the load is transferred to the foundation through posts, columns or studs. Wall construction falls into two basic categories: framed walls or mass-walls. In addition, the wall may house various types of utilities such as electrical wiring or plumbing. The purposes of walls in buildings are to support roofs, floors and ceilings to enclose a space as part of the building envelope along with a roof to give buildings form and to provide shelter and security.

Simple divider fence