Columns,Beams and Basement

After going through all the troubles of drawing a floor plan and signing a construction agreement, the next step anyone would look up is the excavation for pillars and creating the base structure. We were lucky on certain aspects of our decision as it was very smart and some decisions backfired on us.

The Excavation 

This is the first stage of your construction, your plan will be analysed by an engineer and the structural plan with the required pillars will be drafted by an engineer and given to you. Based on that plan marking and excavation would start. This is where you should be very careful and see no mistakes are made. Measure the depth of the pit and diameter of the base. Typically for a small house it would be 4ft by 4ft pit.

The Foundation

At this stage the important aspect you should focus is the materials used. The thickness of the steel rod and the interval between two cross bindings and the type of TMT bar used. We used Vizag Steel Fe 500 D bars of 12mm and 8mm diameter for the column. The column size  is 9” x 12” later we were thinking we could have gone for more steel rods in the column. So don't hesitate for the additional cost of  steel.

The Basement 

In India we typically fill the basement and top it with metal concrete. But a lot of potential storage space is wasted. If you are willing to spend some extra money, you can create a basement cellar or parking lot. The second idea which came to us after finishing construction was, AAC blocks, this block is quite durable and reduces the use of cement , you can check with an engineer if you can use it for basement. Also special care should be taken while pouring concrete for the basement plinth beams, monitor if the beams are aligned properly and you get the planned floor space between the beams.

 

Some Ideas:

You can look into some ideas while preparing the basement. 

• Classic Stone wall for basement
• RCC walls
• AAC Blocks

all three can be viable options instead of bricks which most builders in Coimbatore prefer, depending on how you plan for the basement you can decide on the type of material you use.

Anti Termite treatment:

Every builder will say they add anti termite solution inside the gravel for basement , add some pipes which protrude over the surface so that you can periodically pour the anti-termite solution. This can be covered by some tile pieces which is removable. Check with some experts before planning on this. I missed it.