Virtual Tour - foundation trenches all dug

Time for a 360-degree virtual tour, showing the completed foundation trenches.

This week, the digging of house and retaining wall foundation trenches was completed, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to give you an updated virtual tour.

Although it looks more like an archeological dig at this stage, it's great to see full outline of the house on the plot. The trenches are about a metre deep and it can be quite deceiving when it comes to judging the sizes of the rooms. This is because the foundation footings are much wider than the blockwork which will be built on top, so it feels like the rooms will be much smaller than they should be.

The weather this last few weeks has been hot and dry too... which means the relatively sandy soil has crumbed away, leaving trenches wider than would normally be dug. The knock-on effect is that more concrete will be needed to fill them again.

This house certainly isn't as 'eco' as I intended; what will all the concrete being used. However, last week, we had the SAPS calculations re-done, for the latest design of the house and the news is good. We are well below the required level for thermal efficiency, which means it should be a very economical house to heat. So in the long run, it should be a lot more 'eco' that today's standard-build houses.

Foundation Trenches

This panoramic photo has been taken from the middle of the ‘living room’. The dining/living room windows, will be positioned where the ladder is shown. The tiny little island in the middle of the plot is the en-suite to the main bedroom - which, in turn, is the square mound you can see in the back corner. Where the wooden peg is stuck in the ground, marks the partition wall between the main bathroom and the office.

You can also just about see the rusty coloured steel reinforcing cage which is being built along the rear boundary of the plot. This is for the solid concrete mass which will hold up the retaining wall and also act as part of the foundation for the house.

By the way, you can also see here that brick boundary wall is coming really nicely too.