Talk:Topping out

Merge topping off ---> topping out

The merge tag has been on this article since April 2008. I am in favor of merging this article into the Topping out article. While both terms are commonly used, "Topping out" is the term more commonly used on the Internet. Here's the comparison in number of pages:

• Topping out (432,000)
• Topping off (364,000)

Please indicate your support or lack of support below: I will tally this in one week's time (midnight August 5, 2008 (UTC).

• Support - Since "topping out" is more used, I favor merging this article into "Topping out. Sunray (talk) 05:47, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

• Support - I studied architecture and work in construction support services in the UK. I've only ever heard it refered to as "topping out". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.44.32.134 (talk) 14:45, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

File:Topping off liberty hotel.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

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External links modified

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Topping out in China? Please advise.

The History section says it originated in Scandinavia and is now common in European countries and the English-speaking West. But among the photos there is a topped-out building in China. Is this from Western influence or do they have a local tradition? 27.32.62.224 (talk) 05:24, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

More thoughts:

Surely it is a natural human impulse to have some sort of recognition when a building reaches a stage of completion. But this need have no relation to what was originally a quasi-religious ceremony with the tree. Is only the latter "Topping Out", and the other could be "Completion Ceremony"? But I am only arguing from common sense and have no sources, so this makes it Original Research. But I think that not making some distinction amounts to misleading the reader by omission. So what is the resolution? 27.32.62.224 (talk) 06:14, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Scandinavian "functional purpose" seems to have no source

I am removing the following passage and all related material:

> A Scandinavian tradition of hoisting a pine tree to the top of framed out buildings had a more functional purpose: when the pine needles fell off, the builders knew the wood frame below had cured/dried out so they could enclose the building

This claim seems to have half a dozen sources online, but none of them date from before this statement was added to Wikipedia on Jan 31, 2023. If anyone wishes to add this back, please find a source from before that date or we may risk a case of WP:CITOGENESIS. 168.91.239.66 (talk) 03:01, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, fair enough.

With the help of HathiTrust, Google Books, and my university's off-site microfilm collection, I just tried checking some possible matches for the suspiciously vague citation "Engineering News, early 1970s", and found nothing useful, though I didn't do a through search, I just checked the matches that seemed most likely, since borrowing the microfilms from off-site and operating the microfilm reader are both quite tedious. I'm open to giving it another shot if you have any strong leads, though.

FTR, here's the first relevant diff: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=1136653690&oldid=1085177037&title=Topping_out; looks like the IP user that added it was most likely in either Florida or Puerto Rico, in case that helps identify which "Engineering News" they might be referring to (if they're not just making up a fictitious citation).

Solomon Ucko (talk) 19:54, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

British topping out tradition

My grateful thanks to the contributors of this article. The UK history of topping out was always verbal, and rarely written down, as far as I know. The ceremony (if you can call it that) for owners, shareholders, local bigwigs and the Media has continued and is sometimes mentioned in newspapers (I remember a brief news article about Margaret Thatcher attending a topping out). However, in the UK the VIP topping out party was always separate from the real, traditional one, which was for the workers only. Even the architect was usually not invited, by the second half of the twentieth century, when my late father was designing buildings here. He was very interested in the idea that there might be genuinely ancient and traditional topping out ceremonies, and he tried hard to get invited to a worker's ceremony, but failed. Those workers' ceremonies ended by the late 20th century, when the workers became less connected with the build due to new contractor setups. My father would have been very interested in your article. I suspect that William Golding knew something about the medieval topping out practice, when in The Spire he described a fictional topping out of Salisbury Cathedral's spire with a symbolic cross, which in building terms acted as a keystone. In the book, the protagonist Jocelin watches from the spire as the bishop's procession, carrying the cross/keystone, approaches the cathedral - plenty of ancient ceremony and symbolism there. That extract might be used in a "popular culture" section? Storye book (talk) 07:56, 27 July 2026 (UTC)