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Explanation: Unless you want to get into lengthy explanations as to the measurement method used, I think the easiest thing is to localize it into the kind of expression that will be useful and informative to the person needing to read it.
Here, 25 (cm) refers to the half-perimeter of semi-circular guttering, which thus has a diameter of 160 mm, which is the width of the open side of the guttering, being the normal way guttering is measured in EN.
This was a very useful discussion. Thanks for all the answers, many of which would have worked, as well as the references. I chose Tony's answer because it served my purposes for US readership.
Example of a company with registered office in France selling in the UK
They specify type 250, radius 60, diameter 120
Half round gutter (3000 long): Type 250 Half round gutter (3000 long): Type 333 (diagrams on p. 9)
Gutter profile Half round 250 / 333 Gutter size (mm) 60 radius / 85 radius (Table on p. 16)
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION Half Round rainwater system gutter profiles and sizes: Half round – 120mm, 170mm. (p. 17)
Countries of application This document applies exclusively to the specification and installation of the designated products or systems on building sites in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. http://www.vmzinc.co.uk/images/vmzinc/documentations/documen...
The temr is perfectly explicit to anyone working in the field. Mr Roula has already very kindly done the research needed to come up with a fuller explanation for the term, which is perfectly consistent with Asker's context and all the information given, as well as making perfect sense; this is the smaller of the 2 most common sizes for semi-circular zinc guttering we use over here in France.
Thanks for that extra context — although it doesn't tell us anything of material significance about the term asked, the additional information certainly corroborates what we had already worked out.
Yes, these are sellers of zinc gutters. Perhaps the site can be trusted. As I do not find 25 used on this site, I have 2 other questions to ask. 1) What year was the estimate published. If it is not recent, perhaps this is a measurement that is no longer on the market. 2) What price is offered for the zinc gutter? A "back door" search by way of price may produce verifiable results.
Expressing it thus creates a dual ambiguity — and it is far from evident that it is referring to a dimension! It could mean gutters made from some material called 'zinc 25' (cf. uranum 235 or stainless 316) It could mean that the things made from zinc are: 25 gutters. What it does not, by any stretch of the imagination, do is to informa the reader that these are gutters that are 160 mm across.
@ Tony I see what you mean now, I've been usuing them all these years and never stopped to think if it was the width or not....it isn't!! haha Now we need to know where this estimate was produced
I've been working in construction and building houses for 30 years and I would immediately know this is related to the width of the gutter, wouldn't you? Width can be added as well if you think it is necessary.
I'm afraid that simply wouldn't work here; there is a danger with simplification ad absurdum!
If you say just '250 mm' without any form of qualification, in EN that would be expected to be a linear measure of e.g. width — which would make this fairly big guttering. It's just one of those cultural differences, the way sheet-metal guttering sizes are expressed in FR is historically related, as Chakib so rightly says, to the width of the strip of zinc from which they are rolled. FR users of guttering will be aware of this, so the term is unambiguous; but in EN, this is not the usual way of expressing the size of guttering — we would probably be more likely to express it as, say, the width across (which in this instance would be 160 mm or so); the whole translation problem here is that, having once understood what it means in the source text, we need to find a localized way of expressing that in the target text. In the UK at least, gutter size are expressed in terms of the diameter of what would have been the full circle — i.e. the width across the semi-circular profile. Note too that cm are more commonly used in FR, while the Si-preferred units generally used in the UK are mm.
Il existe deux dimensions standard pour les gouttières en zinc - « La gouttière zinc de 25 » : elle se caractérise par un développement de 25 cm (le développement est la largeur de la feuille de la gouttière posée à plat), et est associée à une descente de diamètre 80 mm qui permet d’évacuer 2,6L/s d’eaux pluviales. La gouttière zinc de 25 convient pour les toitures d’une surface à plat jusqu’à 80m². - « La gouttière zinc de 33 » : elle affiche un développement de 33 cm, et est associée à une descente zinc de diamètre 100 mm qui permet d’évacuer jusqu’à 4,6L/s d’eaux de pluie. La gouttière zinc de 33 convient pour les toitures d’une surface projetée à plat supérieure à 80 m². https://www.distriartisan.fr/blog/conseils-conseils-pour-la-... http://www.bvp.fr/zinc/46202-gouttiere-zinc-1-2-ronde-en-25-... http://static.pumplastiques.fr/media/produit/promotions/2017...
Phil, happy new year! The measurement is a bit less than an inch (sorry, I think that way, being a provincial Texan). That seems rather short for the distance around the curve of a roof gutter. Nonetheless, I may indeed be wrong. The 25 may stand for mils, not mm. Cathy
It is indeed not totally obvious! The use of 'en' could suggest the type of material used, in which case, it would not be unreasonable to assume it was referring to the thickness, normally expressed as n / 10e = n tenths of a mm, but often abbreviated just to the first figure. However, that would make this zinc 2.5 mm thick, which would be exceptionally massive for zinc guttering! Then again, if we were dealing with piping, it could be the diameter (often ID), and expressed in either mm or cm as appropriate for the context; but here again, 25 would be an implausible measurement for guttering, which in any case doesn't really have a 'diameter' (not being circular). Whence the idea of 'développé', as found for us by Chakib, as one way of expressing the dimension.
It means the distance round the curve — here, that is equivalent to a semi-circle, so indirectly tells you the diamater of curvature (ssuming of course that it is perfectly semi-circular.
peer agreement (net): -3
