Protection Wall for the Foundation

Some time back, I published a video on my experiment with the construction of a small, low-cost, Nature-friendly house. A person named Sharath came here to see it. He is an artiste, a theatre actor who played lead roles in Pirappangode Murali sir’s plays “Bhagat Singh” and “Ramanan”. He works as a photographer, and right now he is constructing a house. He has discovered and adopted a new way of protecting the foundation of a building from getting damaged by the roots of trees planted very close to the structure. I found it very useful, and this video is to introduce Sharath’s idea to all of you.

With the money he has in possession, Sharath could have bought 50 cents of land in the interior area of Venjarammoodu. But he used it to buy 3.5 cents of land close to the main road. The adjoining plot of the same area was bought by his friend. Sharath tells me that, however big or small the plot, he intends to construct only a small house, covering 350 sq. ft on the ground floor and 400 sq. ft on the first. He does not wish to spend more on the house. He is confident that in this tiny plot of land near the main road, he will be able to accommodate all that he had dreamt of having in the 50-cent plot at Venjarammoodu. Sharath is hopeful that his experiment will succeed.

Besides being an artiste, he is also a voracious reader, combining range with depth. So his experiment needs to be viewed seriously. If it succeeds, it will be a good instance of resource saving. Although we pay money to purchase stones and sand, stone quarries and other assets are considered public capital. Of course, the moneyed classes will be able to buy them at lesser costs. But that is not our subject. Let us find out what Sharath’s views are.

You bought a plot of land in order to construct a house. Generally, people would opt for larger property in the interior parts. What were your reasons for choosing such a small plot?
A house in a three- or three-and-a-half-cent plot was not there even in my wildest dreams. My idea was to buy 25 cents in the interior parts, at a cheap rate, put up a small house, and then plant as many trees as possible. And even have a pond in it. But since my field is photography, I won’t get any income from such a property. On the other hand, if I have a three- or three-and-a-half cents of land close to the main road, it will help my business. I plan to set up a tattoo studio along with a photo studio. The cost here came to nearly Rs six lakhs per cent. A plot in an interior area could have been bought at the rate of Rs 50,000 or Rs 60,000 per cent. But I didn’t have the resources to buy more than three-and-a-half cents near the main road. Here, I can have a house, put up the studios, and run my business.

Your three-and-a-half-cent plot is next to the main road. But aren’t there restrictions in place, considering the prospect of road-widening?
Yes. The house has to be nearly thirteen-and-a-half metres from the central line of the road. That imposes greater restrictions. I will get government sanction for only one-and-a quarter cent of land for the actual house. It was in full awareness of all these conditions that I bought the plot. To be precise, the area comes to only 3.150 cents.

How large will your house actually be?
The ground floor will cover 350 sq. ft. If I want, I can stretch it to 450 or 470 sq. ft.  But I have certain other ideas.
In other words, you are using only three-fourths of what you had in mind earlier. One-fourth is set aside for planting trees.
Yes. I could have used one-and-a-quarter cents for the house alone. But I’m setting aside nearly a quarter cent for the sake of trees.

Alright. I have a question for you. Your friend’s house will be very close to yours. Yet you have separate walls. Why didn’t you think of a common wall? Isn’t one enough?
The houses will be very close to each other because of lack of space. The general practice is to keep adjacent houses apart by at least a metre on both sides of the mutual compound wall. But that will leave both of us with very little land to plant trees or for other purposes. Constructing the houses close to each other will give us additional space on the opposite sides, close to one metre. In total, I will have eight feet or approximately two-and-a-half metres on one side. My idea is to use an 18- to 20-feet wide strip of land there for planting at least five big trees. Already the saplings have grown to seven feet in height in grow bags – jack tree, mango, rambutan, a coconut palm near the gate, and a breadfruit tree.

I heard that you have plans to put up a swimming pool as well?
Yes. Everyone asks me whether I plan to have my studio in front. That is the common custom. My friend has already put up a shop right in front of his house. We are allowed to have temporary construction stretching up to the road. The only condition is that we should not have a concrete structure. But that’s not my idea. I plan to have a swimming pool. All my friends tell me it is a foolish idea.
How large will it be?
Six feet by eighteen feet.
That will take up more than 100 sq. ft. An area of 108 sq. ft to be precise. Or, a quarter of a cent.
I have to check whether it is possible. I think it should be. The idea of a swimming pool struck me during the times of COVID. With the concept of social distance, we cannot have 100 to 200 people sharing a swimming pool because that increases the chances of spread of infection. Swimming pools are not like the ponds and lagoons we have in our villages. In the natural water bodies, there are fish. Besides, water comes from natural springs, and flows constantly. So I wanted to have my own swimming pool, a small one, where I can swim in peace.

Don’t you own a car, Sharath?
Yes. But there is already enough space for it – an eight-foot-wide space on one side. I will be planting trees there, and that will take up two-foot wide space. Besides the big trees, I will have sub-trees as well, like the gooseberry tree. And flowering shrubs like East Indian rosebay because honey bees too should get something from my plot. In the remaining space, I will be able to park my car.

Didn’t anyone frighten you by saying that planting trees so close to the house will damage the foundation?
When I mentioned that, no one except you, Hari sir, supported me. Everyone is afraid that the roots will destroy the foundation. But no one knows how it will happen. There is confusion regarding the subject. All I have is one-and-a-quarter cent of land for building the house. But I want to plant trees in the remaining space, and I want big trees that will grow and spread branches over my house.

Over the third storey of your house, isn’t it?
Not the third storey. My house will have only two floors. On the terrace, I will have a roofed segment to create an entertainment space. I will also grow some vegetable plants, and put up a small hut as well. I made a lot of enquiries about what would happen if I planted trees close to the house. Eventually I met an engineer who constructed villas close to my house. He gave me a clear-cut reply. No huge tree is known to push down the foundation of a building. During the first couple of years, before the trees grow to ten feet in height, it will put out tiny roots in all directions to a length of three to four metres. Our foundations are usually built using big pieces of rock. There will be a lot of small holes between them which will permit the roots to enter.  In five to seven years, when the tree grows huge, the roots will become thick. As a result, the structure will develop cracks. The best example is that of the banyan or fig tree around which we build parapet walls. The thin roots grow through the holes, become thick and strong, and break the wall.
When I heard this I begin to wonder how I can prevent the roots from penetrating the stone foundation. By the time I received this information, I had already built the foundation of my house. If I had known this earlier, I could have taken necessary precautions, like concreting the outer wall of the foundation, or substituting the rocks with plinth beams. I thought long and hard. I even thought of making two-inch-thick concrete slabs and inserting them around the foundation.
Sometime back I had happened to go to a scrap shop to buy a sheet to cover my hen coop. There I found a thin but sturdy sheet. I didn’t know its name then. I bought a small sheet, paying a paltry sum – Rs 150 or Rs 200. This was about four years back. It has withstood sun and rain all this while and not weakened. So I thought this would be so much cheaper than the concrete slabs I had considered earlier. Besides, if I made a trench in the ground around the foundation and inserted these sheets, the roots would never be able to penetrate it. So I googled in order to find more about this sheet, and came to understand it is called composite sheet.

What is its cost?
If we buy a new one – four feet high and twelve feet long – it will come to Rs 3,500 or Rs 4,000. That is Rs 4,000 for 48 sq. ft sheet, or roughly Rs 100 or less, per sq ft. If you go to a scrap dealer, you will get it at dirt cheap rates, and in huge quantities. When I googled further, I found that they can endure heat and rain for 30-35 years. Sunlight is the main enemy. But if they are put under the ground, it can easily last 45 or 50 years.
These sheets are made of three materials – plastic, rubber and aluminium. The rubber part comes in the middle and the mixture of aluminium and plastic on both sides. They are punched together to make sheets. I went to a scrap shop and saw lots of them. I took two or three sheets. The dealer told me that there were no takers for the sheets. Whenever scrap-carrying vehicles came from Tamil Nadu, these sheets were given away.

So what did you do here?
The foundation was already built. So I dug a trench – one- to one-and-a-half feet from the foundation, and as deep as the foundation itself – inserted these sheets into it and then filled the trench with soil. It is a very simple process. When the tiny roots come towards the foundation, they will touch the sheet, and then move in another direction. That is the simple logic. The sheets are used as a kind of protection wall around the foundation. After five or six years, when the tree has grown big, even if the sheet disintegrates, we will have nothing to fear. The tiny roots would have grown in other directions and become mature. We don’t have to fear any damage to the foundation for 30 years, I think.
But there are a couple of things we have to be careful about. One, never fix the sheet very close to the foundation. As the rocks used to make the foundation are not very evenly aligned, they may damage the sheets and weaken them. So we should fix the sheets at a distance of one foot or six inches from the foundation. Then, fill both sides of the sheet with soil and compact it. Two, never use a JCB to dig a trench. Seen from above, the exact dimensions of the foundation may not be easy to ascertain. If the bucket of the JCB hits the foundation and causes a couple of stones to loosen, the remedy will be worse than the disease! Therefore, employ labourers to make the trench.
Sharath, let’s wind up at this point. We’ll meet again after your house construction is over. That should take three months?
I will try to finish it in three months.

So you’ll plant trees simultaneously?
No, I’ll be able to plant trees only after the house construction is over. Otherwise, when things are shifted here and there, the trees may get damaged.
We’ll come over to your place then. This video is to ensure this technology becomes helpful to all of you.

One peculiarity I noticed is that two friends bought seven cents of land and divided it evenly between them. In megacities, I have seen people build houses with a common wall in order to save space. If we were to leave one-metre-wide space between the houses, as per the rules of building construction, both plots will lose precious area. But, in this case, with the houses placed close to one another, these friends got more space on the other side. They have however made the intelligent choice of keeping separate walls for their houses. At some point of time in the future, if one house is demolished, the other will not suffer because no wall will have to be newly built. That is indeed an interesting point to note.