4.2.1. Stone block
Natural building stones have been extensively used for the
building construction in India and elsewhere. In India, stone
blocks are generally produced by splitting the hard natural
stone into convenient sizes. Stone blocks of size approximately
about 180mm 180mm 180 mm are generally
termed as size stones in the Indian construction practices.
Only manual labour is employed in bulk of the sizing
operations. Occasionally, very hard and big stones are
reduced to smaller sizes (for the convenience of handling
for further sizing by manual process) using detonators.
Hence, hardly any thermal energy goes into the production
of size stones. However, some energy is spent for transporting
stone to the construction site.